state steps up

To follow up again . . . I just talked with Mike Black from the department of commerce, who's one of the co-chairs of the immediate needs work group of Gov. Palin's sub-cabinet on climate change.
One of Palin's two climate-related budget requests is for $1.1 million in grant money to be distributed by the department. Black said the idea came from his work group and from Sen. Ted Stevens' comments at a round table last November. Stevens "basically challenged the state to be involved" if it wanted to get federal funds, Black said. Big picture, the grant request shows the administration believes it's time to get involved, and time to take a statewide approach, he said. "The state hasn't really been involved up till now other than just discussing it."
The $1.1 million would break down like this. Grants of $100,000 to $150,000 would go to communities identified as having critical needs to help them plan to mitigate impacts. Actually dealing with the impacts would take additional state or federal funds. Black said the communities that would qualify were already identified, and included Shishmaref, Kivalina, Unalakleet, Shaktoolik, Newtok, and Koyukuk. Smaller grants of $30,000 to $35,000 would go to other communities based on need (anyone could apply) to help those communities gather evidence of being impacted by climate change, whether by thawing permafrost, coastal erosion, or something else. That information could them be used to leverage state and federal funds.
The other request, for $230,000, would mostly be used to develop a statewide stakeholder approach to identify mitigation and adaptation measures. The question remains whether lawmakers will approve the two requests.