The Alaska House has voted 36-0 to allow the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority to issue $120 million in low-interest loans to the backers of the Sweetheart Lake Hydroelectric Project. Four members were absent.<\/p>\n
House Bill 143, brought forward by Rep. Cathy Mu\u00f1oz, R-Juneau, now goes to the Senate, where it will receive a hearing in the Senate Special Committee on Energy at 3:30 p.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Sweetheart Lake Hydroelectric Project envisions an 111-foot-tall concrete dam generating 19.8 megawatts of electricity at a lake southeast of Juneau.<\/p>\n
Overland and undersea cables would connect the powerhouse to existing transmission lines that link Juneau and the Snettisham Hydroelectric Project.<\/p>\n
Electricity from the project would power Kensington gold mine and a new \u201cdistrict heating\u201d system for downtown Juneau.<\/p>\n
The bill does not formally allocate money; it instead gives the AIDEA board of directors permission to loan dam builders $120 million if the board approves.<\/p>\n
\u201cAffordable energy is a keystone of a healthy and sustainable economy,\u201d Mu\u00f1oz said in a statement. \u201cThis bill would create jobs, provide clean, effective and affordable energy, and diversify our economy by helping to offset the high energy costs to industries such as mining and tourism.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill was in the sole item on the House agenda Monday. In the Senate, lawmakers voted 17-0 to approve House Bill 175, naming Nov. 1 \u201cMilitary Family Day\u201d in Alaska. Three members were absent.<\/p>\n
The bill, introduced by Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, passed the House on Jan. 25.<\/p>\n
A Senate resolution calling for any Legislative special session to be held in the Railbelt (if a special session is needed this year) is expected to face a vote Wednesday, when the House and Senate hold their next floor sessions.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Alaska House has voted 36-0 to allow the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority to issue $120 million in low-interest loans to the backers of the Sweetheart Lake Hydroelectric Project. Four members were absent. House Bill 143, brought forward by Rep. Cathy Mu\u00f1oz, R-Juneau, now goes to the Senate, where it will receive a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":29805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-29804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29804"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=29804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}