Well, we are on our last 40 days and 40 nights in Juneau ... it's been productive so far and I expect we will end this session on time.

I want to give you an update on some of my bills.

SB 34: DOT Maintenance Facility at Soldotna. SB 34 allows the State to enter into a lease-purchase agreement with the City of Soldotna, to finance and build a new Maintenance Facility. The new facility will be constructed on a site which is currently held by the Kenai Peninsula Borough (KPB). The KPB "owes" the State the acreage so there is no land acquisition cost to this project.

The current shop is over 30 years old and is located along the Kenai River. Heightened public awareness of habitat protection and water quality for the river has focused on this and many individuals and groups support the project. It simply makes good sense to protect the river by moving the facility .

The bill will be before the Senate Finance Committee, where I am a member, by the end of this month. I've been working with the Department and the City on this bill, which I prefiled in December. The preliminary estimates were around $6 million and I'm pleased to report that we have revised that to $4.5 million. We wanted to keep the new building separate from the cleanup of the existing site. I'm confident we can work on the soils cleanup from other agency funding sources, possibly including the federal government.

SB 97: Lease-Purchase Spring Creek Correctional Facility. This bill authorizes a maximum of $25 million for a 250 bed expansion of the existing correctional facility at Spring Creek, in Seward. The expansion would be constructed by the City of Seward and the annual payments for the lease from the State will retire the bond .

Alaska's jails and prisons are severely overcrowded and we face substantial fines for any violation of court ordered population limits at our correctional facilities. I believe the legislature needs to clearly show a total commitment and respond to the public's demand to deal with accelerating crime rates. Passing tougher laws is only one part of the commitment.

SJR 8 - Primary Manufacturing of Publicly Owned Timber. This resolution urges Congress to provide the authority necessary for the State of Alaska to regulate, restrict or prohibit the export of unprocessed logs from State Lands, Municipal Lands, and the University of Alaska Lands. It has passed both the Senate and the House.

In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alaska's Primary Manufacture laws were in conflict with the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. In 1990, Congress adopted the Forest Resources Conservation and Shortage Relief Act, which in part authorized eleven Western States an exemption to the Commerce Clause. The exemption has led these States to restrict the purchase of timber to only entities that are in operation within their borders. Alaska was not included in this legislation.

Manufactureres from other states can come to Alaska, purchase our raw materials and "export" them from Alaska to their own state. But, Alaska's manufacturers are restricted from going to any of the other states in search of raw timber to run our facilities. I believe this is unfair business practice.

When authorized by Congress, primary manufacturing of our timber resources will create value added jobs within the State. We will be using our raw materials to provide jobs for Alaskans. I believe this is one of the best "jobs" bills we have before us this session.

Finally, I want to talk about the Board of Fish Proposal D. Speaker Gail Phillips and I issued a joint press release strongly opposing this proposal. It would change the fish allocation in the Cook Inlet and is before the Board of Fish this month.

We were proud to join the cities, advisory committees, and other groups as well as individuals who also oppose the proposal. I believe that if it is implemented, it will pose a severe hardship for the Cook Inlet drift net fleet and the entire Kenai Peninsula.

Please remember, you can E-Mail me at: Senator_John_Torgerson@legis.state.ak.us and my home page is WWW.akrepublicans.org/Torgerso.htm. Or you can call me at 1-800-964-5733.