Former Gov. Bill Walker announced last year that he was a gubernatorial candidate for this year’s general election for the state of Alaska as a nonpartisan candidate. He’s been hitting the campaign trail lobbying for support and made an appearance on KSRM’s “Sound Off” on Friday.
Walker told KSRM why he’s running for Governor of Alaska:
“It was a great honor to be governor of this state. It was a huge honor, but while governor, I saw the potential for this state, and I saw the what I call the pent-up opportunities for this state. It’s what we’re not doing that concerns me a lot. There seems to be a lot of tension and entanglement over issues that we can’t do, but we’re not focusing all that we can do. It’s the opportunity that really brings me back to this race.”
In talking about the fluctuating oil prices, when they are down, the state winds up in a fiscal crisis that Walker dealt with as governor. He talks about what would be different this time:
“One of the goals we had was to smooth out that roller coaster and by doing that with the Percentage of Market Value which had been talked about for a long time, working with the legislature, we got that passed, so we went from 90% dependent on the price of oil down to about 30%. It’s a much different environment when you have that by a sustainable draw from the revenue from the earnings of the permanent fund. It’s a very different world. One of the reasons I am running also is that the bipartisan infrastructure bill has the potential, if we compete for it, and we compete with all other states for the money, there’s about $100-$300 billion available for states to compete for. That’s based upon rural infrastructure, coastal, broadband needs, if we can’t out-rural every other state, then there’s something wrong with us.”
Walker talks about his familiarity of the needs that rural Alaska has:
“We were able to, as an administration, do things differently, just because we could be more direct in what we need and not necessarily go through a partisan process to do that. It’s a, what I call a transformational opportunity for Alaska. I liken this to the ALCAN Highway at World War II. The Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline and the energy crisis of the 70s, this is the third leg of that stool, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. Other states, they are sharpening their knives as we speak to go after that money as aggressively as they can, we need to do the same thing.”
The primary election for the gubernatorial race is on is August 16.
Click here to listen to his entire interview (NOTE: It’s from Hour 1 Friday of KSRM’s “Sound Off”).