Unalaska, AK – The 2010 state legislative session wrapped up at about 12:30 a.m. on Monday with a rush of bills being passed in the last few days of the session. District 37 Representative Bryce Edgmon said a number of them will have direct impacts on Unalaska.

One such bill will allow voters to decide whether or not to add four more representatives and two more senators to the state legislature. Edgmon said doing so might ensure that rural areas do not lose representation when districts are reapportioned in accordance with the 2010 census.

"It's felt that with the additional four house members most of the rural seats if not all of them would essentially be held harmless given that those four new seats would probably go to the south central area of the state and so the reasoning behind the increase in the seats would be to preserve the number of seats in the outlying areas."

If the governor signs the bill then the measure will come before voters during the general election. The new seats would be added in 2012.

Unalaska may also be part of a new Northern Waters Task Force. "The intent of the task force is to assemble sort of a consortium including legislators, municipal representative and others to go out and basically take a look at all the different moving parts that are tied to the opening up of the Arctic," Edgmon explained. "It includes some congressional actions, some international activity. And really report back to the legislature in a couple of years, I think it's 2012, with some recommendation of what the legislature might do in terms of policy action at the state level."

The task force will have one representative from southwest Alaska. It could affect the city because Unalaska is the last ice-free deep water port on the route to Arctic waters.

The legislature also passed an omnibus energy bill this session that includes money for an emerging technology program, a new formula for the heating fuel assistance program, and many other small bills that were proposed last session.

"Ultimately I think we all agreed that the bill wasn't perfect, that there were a few things that we individually could have wanted in there but it represents a pretty good start," he reflected.

A related bill puts forward a state energy policy. The non-binding goals of the policy include getting half of the state's energy from renewable sources by 2025 and increase per capita energy efficiency to 15 percent by 2020.

"You know that this is a broad measure that at the Alaska Energy Authority level or the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation level or whatever energy entity that we have out there in state government - because I expect there will be a few more cropping up - it will be their charge to help us come up with the measures that will help us achieve that broad objective."

The policy also emphasizes that Alaska is a resource extraction state, and it pushes petroleum and natural gas extraction. The policy also acknowledges that some rural communities will be tied to fossil fuels for many years to come.

The governor has 20 business days after they arrive on his desk to sign or veto the bills and budgets that the legislature passed this session. Edgmon said it seems certain that he will veto some items from the $3 billion capital budget.