Alaska Politics Blog : Palin weighs vetoes, whether to accept stimulus money

Alaska Politics Blog

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Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham writes about Alaska state politics. He's worked for the ADN in Anchorage and Juneau, covered the legislature for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and covered Washington state politics for the Tacoma News Tribune. E-mail Sean at scockerham@adn.com

Kyle Hopkins

Kyle Hopkins covers rural affairs, general assignments and politics for the ADN. He covered the 2006 campaign for governor, has blogged extensively about Alaska politics, covered Anchorage city government and was a reporter based in the Mat-Su. He grew up in Southeast Alaska and previously wrote for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Anchorage Press. E-mail Kyle at khopkins@adn.com and also find him on our rural Alaska blog, The Village.

David Hulen

David Hulen, the ADN's state and local news editor, is responsible for political coverage. He has been an editor and reporter at the ADN for more than 20 years. E-mail David at dhulen@adn.com

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Alaska political corruption

When the FBI raided state legislature offices in Aug. 2006, it publicly launched an investigation that ultimately reached the highest levels of Alaska politics, and continues to this day.

Palin weighs vetoes, whether to accept stimulus money

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Anchorage Daily News

Posted: May 13, 2009 - 11:20 am

From Sean Cockerham in Anchorage –

Gov. Sarah Palin is figuring out today if she wants to veto state spending and if she'll go ahead and accept all the stimulus money.

Palin is in meetings with her budget team on those issues but it’s too soon to say if decisions are coming today, the governor’s office said.

Alaska state senators Lesil McGuire and Bill Wielechowski wrote Palin yesterday, saying that new information from the U.S. Department of Energy suggests Alaska could go ahead and accept the $28.6 million in energy stimulus funds being offered without adopting a statewide energy code after all.

The money could go to things like weatherization and renewable energy projects.

Palin earlier said she won't take the funds because of the federal requirement for a statewide code.

But apparently Missouri is managing to get the money through existing local energy codes without putting in a statewide code.

Wielechowski and McGuire said in their letter to Palin that “if we are not already meeting the requirements today, we are so close that we could easily meet them within the required (eight year) timeframe.”

You can read their letter here.