Unalaska, AK – Unalaska will host a formal legislative hearing this week for the House Energy Committee. The group of legislators will be taking public comments on House Bills 218 and 219 as well as listening to community members' comments on energy issues, innovations, and challenges in our area.

House Bill 218 would create a department of energy for the state. Our region's representative, Bryce Edgmon, says that it would consolidate all of the different divisions that deal with energy and energy conservation into one administrative group.

"We've got just a lot of different entities working on energy policy issues, if you will, both public and private sector and really no sort of one place that they can turn to in state government, like you can with the Department of Transportation" and other departments, he said.

Edgmon said both the House and the Senate are working on similar bills.

The committee will also take comments on HB 219, which affects how the state-funded energy grants are awarded and distributed. Over two years, the state legislature put $125 million into a renewable energy fund. HB 219 requires a system for ranking which projects should get funding priorities.

"There's some concern that a lot of this money was going towards projects that were several stages away from being complete. In other words, the legislature put $125 million toward 77 plus projects, a number of them that were only at the initial stages of assessing their feasibility versus a few that were ready to go into construction mode and begin providing cheaper sources of energy for local residents," said Edgmon.

Edgmon said that the legislators want funds to go to projects that are more developed instead. That might affect funding for early-stage projects, like Makushin Geothermal. The bill does not set forth a funding priority list, just requires the development of granting standards.

The House Energy Committee meeting will be held from 5 to 7 pm in the Makushin Room at the Grand Aleutian on Wednesday. They will also attend a community reception from noon to one pm at the city council chambers on Thursday.