Gov. Sean Parnell approved the state’s budget today, and he was light with his veto pen — he hardly used any red ink at all. Every veto made to the operating budget had to do with fixing calculation errors, and not a single dollar was trimmed from the capital budget. Only $2.5 million was vetoed from a $13.2 billion budget.

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At the bill signing, Parnell said that he didn’t need cut the legislature’s spending because lawmakers stayed within the limits he set out.

“Now given that legislators met my target of dropping spending by over a billion dollars, you will see only modest reductions in the budget,” said Parnell.

Vetoes can be used as a political weapon of sorts when a governor doesn’t like what a legislature is doing or how it’s spending the state’s money. When Parnell started his term in office, he cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the budget.

Anchorage Republican Kevin Meyer co-chairs the Senate Finance Committee, and he says he wasn’t expecting to see the capital budget make it through the governor’s office totally intact.

“I’m a little surprised because sometimes there are items that get by us that we didn’t realize were unconstitutional for one reason or another, and apparently, there wasn’t any items like that. So yeah, I think this is very unusual not to have at least something vetoed.”

Meyer adds that he wasn’t planning for any huge vetoes, though. That’s because the governor and the Republican majority in the legislature were pretty aligned in their priorities this year.

Democrats in the minority didn’t share that same agenda. Les Gara serves on the House Finance Committee, and he says there probably would have been a clash if his party had been in charge. He says Democrats are still disappointed that their push to get an increase to the education funding formula didn’t go anywhere.

“You know, if we had succeeded in getting enough funding in to reverse the fourth year of cuts in a row on education staff across the state — classroom funding across the state — the governor might have vetoed that. But his party joined him in not allowing any classroom funding increase.”

Instead of increasing the funding formula, the legislature approved $21 million for school security grants. The state will be spending $1.25 billion for K-12 education next year, which is a slight increase over last year.

The operating budget also includes $40 million for the Power Cost Equalization program and $5 million for new state troopers and village public safety officers. The overall operating budget went up by just 1 percent this year.

The capital budget was significantly smaller. Last year’s was about $3 billion, while this year’s was $2 billion. A good chunk of the money in it is going toward energy projects, like the Susitna-Watana hydroproject and the natural gas trucking plan for the Interior.

In total, the state will be $1 billion over last year’s $12 billion budget, even though the operating budget saw little growth and the capital budget shrunk. Most of that increase comes from federal spending and from parts of the budget the legislature can’t control. Spending from the state’s unrestricted general fund went down by a billion dollars, which was part of Parnell’s goal to stop the growth of the budget over the next five years.

The Senate Energy Committee is holding a series of so-called “forums on natural gas.” To the uninitiated, they sure look like typical Congressional hearings. For insiders, they look like Congressional hearings without the usual five minute speaking limits.

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Tuesday’s round table focused on the pros and cons of exporting LNG. Senator Lisa Murkowski said Alaska missed the window on selling LNG to American markets, and the window is closing on Asian ones as well.

“Some 63 different projects around the globe are up for consideration” she said. “In Alaska we like to think our gas, our oil is better than everyone else’s. But at the end of the day, we’re in a world market.”

Not all 63 projects up for consideration will snag the billions of dollars in financing – or pass government muster – to become liquefaction facilities and export terminals.

On Friday, the federal government granted conditional approval to a facility in Texas to export LNG to non-free-trade countries. That includes Asian powerhouse Japan – a would-be buyer of Alaska’s piped LNG.

In Washington Tuesday, industry executives, perhaps to pressure federal regulators sitting across the table, said they need the okay to export while conditions are ripe.

“Customers need reliability of supply,” said Sempra Energy executive Octávio Simões. He said foreign companies try to lock in as much LNG for a period of several years.

“If they feel that the U.S. government is not going to supply reliably, they will sign at a higher price, from Australia or Russia or somebody else, that is willing to give the assurance that the supply is there,” he said.

Sempra operates an LNG import terminal in Louisiana that it hopes to convert to an export facility. It’s waiting for approval.

Larry Persily, the federal coordinator for the Alaska North Slope natural gas pipeline, said Alaska is now competing with British Columbia, Eastern Africa and pending projects in the Lower 48.

“There’s a crowd trying to get through this window. The question is how much Alaska wants to work to see if they can get this through this window, or the next opening,” he said in a Tuesday phone interview.

Persily said this window is for the chance to sell gas to foreign companies in the 2020′s, but there will certainly be more windows in the future.

A massive sheet of winter ice is holding back hundreds of thousands of gallons of silty Yukon River ice roughly 12 miles upriver from Fort Yukon.

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“The sheet of ice is acting like dam,” says Plumb, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Fairbanks. ”And it’s causing the Yukon River to flood over its banks and flood a large portion of the area upriver from the ice jam so reports are that the water has spread out over several miles on either side of the Yukon river out into the forest and into the flats.”

Plumb says high water along the river has already caused minor flooding in Fort Yukon. He says likely, flooding will get worse after the ice jam breaks.

“One other concern that we have too is that downriver from Fort Yukon, the ice is still in place and hasn’t moved out yet,” he explains. “And so after this jam releases, and ice and water start moving down river again, it could jam below Fort Yukon and if that happens, Fort Yukon could see major flooding if water starts to back up behind an ice jam that may form downriver.”

Plumb says it’s only a matter of time before the ice jam gives way.

Other villages in the middle Yukon River region are bracing for high water and breakup-related flooding as the weather starts to warm in interior Alaska.

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The hearings about the grounding of the drilling rig Kulluk continued today in Anchorage. In the morning, the investigators heard from the contractor who towed the rig up last summer without incident. In the afternoon, Shell emergency response executive Norman “buddy” Custard returned for more questioning.

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The Kuskokwim fishermen trials continued today at the Bethel Court House. More fishermen were found guilty for illegal fishing last summer during King salmon closures. The fishermen’s defense attorney continued to ask the court to dismiss the cases and the judge continued to find the fishermen guilty. The fishermen took turns on the stand, some breaking down when they talked about what subsistence meant to them.

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James Albrite was one of them. The 33-year-old choked up when he spoke of growing up in a subsistence lifestyle.

“We used to go to fish camp every summer. . .right after school,” Albrite said through tears. “As long as I can remember, I can remember subsistence fishing. That’s our life, our way of eating. Our way of putting away food.”

Albrite’s father is a Moravian minister but he says their Yup’ik beliefs and Christianity go together. Like other fishermen, Albrite spoke about Ellam Yua, the Yup’ik word for the creator or spirit of the universe. Ellam Yua is in all animals which give themselves to hunters and fishermen. It is up to Ellam Yua if a hunter catches the fish or not and if the hunters don’t take what they are given, the creator is not pleased.

Albrite testified that his family usually puts up around 100 King salmon but last summer they only got half that. He told the court it is his God given right to fish for his family.

“It’s our tradition, it’s the way we live,” Albrite said. “It’s not every day we can wake up in the morning and say, ‘Honey, should we go to the supermarket and go buy a salmon, can we go buy a steak?’ It’s not easy for us. We have to wake up and look in our freezer to see what we can eat.”

Another fishermen to take the stand was David Phillip of Tuluksak. The 48-year-old admitted to fishing during a closure last summer, when he was questioned about it.

“If I got the means to do it, I will do it,” Phillip said.

“Even if you are breaking the law?” asked his lawyer, James Davis Jr.

“Well, if it comes down to feeding my family, yes,” Phillip answered.

When asked what subsistence meant to him, Phillip talked about his spiritual connection to the land and the animals. Like Albrite, Phillip’s family didn’t put up enough Kings last year and he said it made him feel bad.

“Spiritually, it brought me down,” Phillip said. “It’s like um. . .it did not fulfill me.”

Phillip and Albrite, like most other fishermen, were found to be sincere in their beliefs that they are spiritually connected to the fish.

Judge Bruce Ward repeated, “the court’s going to find, based on his testimony that he sincerely believes in this religion, however, the court finds that there is a compelling state interest in monitoring the amount of harvest allowed.”

There were a lot “howevers” in the sentencing process. Most fishermen were sentenced to $500 dollars with half of it suspended. Their nets were returned but the fish seized was forfeited to the state. They were also put on probation for one year.

The defense plans to appeal the fishermen cases to the Alaska Supreme Court.

A federal judge has denied bail for a 61-year-old man accused of killing two men at the Coast Guard station on Kodiak Island.

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James Wells wanted to be released to detention and electronic monitoring to third-party custodians as he awaited trial for the fatal shootings of Coast Guardsmen Petty Officer 1st Class James Hopkins and retired Chief Petty Officer Richard Belisle in April 2012. Wells is charged with murder and is set to go on trial in February 2014.

Wells appeared before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge John D. Roberts in Anchorage Monday.

Roberts said he was not “at all convinced” that bail was appropriate in the case.

Wells’ arrest in February came after an investigation led by the FBI and the Coast Guard Investigative Service.

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Parnell Approves State Operating Budget

Alexandra Gutierrez, APRN – Juneau

Thirteen billion dollars — that’s the cost of running the state next year. Gov. Sean Parnell approved the state’s budget today, and APRN’s Alexandra Gutierrez reports that the he was light with his veto pen.

Governor Signs SB21, HB4 Into Law

Ellen Lockyer, KSKA – Anchorage

Governor Sean Parnell also signed into law Tuesday two bills that he says will have a huge impact on young Alaskans and on Alaskans of  the future.  SB 21, the hard fought oil tax reform bill, and HB 4, a bill authorizing an in – state gasline.

Crowd Protests Oil Tax Cuts

Ellen Lockyer, KSKA – Anchorage

Outside Anchorage’s  Dena’ina Center,  Senator Hollis French warmed up a small crowd protesting the oil tax breaks for Alaska producers.

Executives Push Feds For Export Approval

Peter Granitz, APRN – Washington DC

Leaders from energy companies say they’re worried the window for exporting liquefied natural gas is closing.

As APRN’s Peter Granitz reports, they’re sounding off less than a week after the federal government granted the second export license in the Lower 48.

Ice Jam Above Fort Yukon Could Mean Disaster

Emily Schwing, KUAC – Fairbanks

A massive sheet of winter ice is holding back hundreds of thousands of gallons of silty Yukon River ice roughly 12 miles upriver from Fort Yukon.  Ed Plumb is a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Fairbanks.

Yukon River-Area Villages Voice For Flooding

Emily Schwing, KUAC – Fairbanks

Other villages in the middle Yukon River region are bracing for high water and breakup-related flooding as the weather starts to warm in interior Alaska.

Kulluk Hearing Continues In Anchorage

Steve Heimel, APRN – Anchorage

The hearings about the grounding of the drilling rig Kulluk continued today in Anchorage.  In the morning, the investigators heard from the contractor who towed the rig up last summer without incident.  In the afternoon, Shell emergency response executive Norman “buddy” Custard returned for more questioning.

Emotions Run High As Fishermen Testify On Religion

Angela Denning-Barnes, KYUK – Bethel

Emotions ran high as the Kuskokwim fishermen trials continued today (Tuesday) at the Bethel Court House. More fishermen were found guilty for illegal fishing last summer during King salmon closures.

Bail Denied For Defendant In Coast Guard Killings

The Associated Press

A federal judge has denied bail for a 61-year-old man accused of killing two men at the Coast Guard station on Kodiak Island.

James Wells wanted to be released to detention and electronic monitoring to third-party custodians as he awaited trial for the fatal shootings of Coast Guardsmen Petty Officer 1st Class James Hopkins and retired Chief Petty Officer Richard Belisle in April 2012. Wells is charged with murder and is set to go on trial in February 2014.

Wells appeared before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge John D. Roberts in Anchorage Monday.

Roberts said he was not “at all convinced” that bail was appropriate in the case.

Wells’ arrest in February came after an investigation led by the FBI and the Coast Guard Investigative Service.

Pavlof volcano continues to ground flights in Southwest Alaska. Pen Air put 6 flights on hold Tuesday due to an ash and steam cloud extending up to 20,000 feet.

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Flights to Dillingham and King Salmon resumed this morning. Flights to Sand Point, Cold Bay, and Unalaska are still on hold.

Grant Aviation has not sent aircraft across the bay towards Togiak due to the ash cloud. No flights went to Port Heiden, Chignik, Nelson Lagoon, or Port Moller Tuesday.

No Alaska Airlines flights have been cancelled.