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    The 2013 halibut season begins at noon on Saturday, about a week later than usual. NOAA Fisheries announced this week that it is putting into place the recommendations of the International Pacific Halibut Commission for the season. Julie Speegle is the NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman for Alaska. She said in Area 2C is in Southeast Alaska, a “reverse slot-limit” will be implemented there, which means that guided fishermen can keep halibut 45-inches and smaller or 68-inches or longer. Unguided fishermen can keep two fish of any size per day.
    Speegle says the commercial guideline harvest level as described in NOAA’s Final Rule for 2013 is being recalculated. The initial GHL for Southeast Area 2C was up 13-percent over last year to 2.97-million pounds, while the Gulf of Alaska Area 3A was to have seen a seven-and-a-half-percent decrease to 11-million pounds. Speegle says the recalculation will change those figures.
    The NOAA Fisheries announcement noted the catch-sharing plan for Areas 2C and 3A is still being developed and will not go into effect this year. It is expected to be in place for 2014, however.
    Speegle added that the initial season of observer coverage in the fishery, paid for by NOAA, will not be affected by the cuts brought on by the federal budget sequester.

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    Federal spending cutbacks known as sequestration will have less of an impact on the Coast Guard in Alaska than they will elsewhere in the country.
    That’s the word from Rear Admiral Thomas Ostebo, who is in charge of the Coast Guard’s District 17, which encompasses all of Alaska.
    Ostebo made the remarks at an award ceremony Friday at Air Station Sitka. He says the Coast Guard is in high demand as activity picks up in Alaska, especially with offshore oil development.

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    After a lengthy debate, the Alaska Senate narrowly passed a bill that would overhaul the state’s oil tax regime. The changes are projected to give oil companies a break of at least $600 million per year.
     “The bill we have in front of us is an historic gamble with the people’s money," said Kodiak’s Gary Stevens, a Republican critic of the bill.

    He wasn’t the only one to describe the bill in betting terms. With oil production on the decline but no firm commitment from companies to bring more projects online, opinion was split into two camps: those who felt the stakes were too high to change the tax system, and those -- like Anchorage Republican Lesil McGuire -- who argued it was a necessary risk.
     “He’s right when he says it would be a crapshoot and a gamble," she said, "but I think that I have the opposite opinion of just what that gamble would be.”>>
    Right now, Alaska has a windfall profits tax that requires producers to pay more when oil prices are high. The bill the Senate passed gets rid of that, all while putting in a slightly higher base tax that’s offset by a $5 per barrel tax credit.

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    The Kodiak Island Borough Assembly will hold a regular meeting tonight with a shorter agenda than other meetings it’s held recently. The assembly won’t have any public hearings, no old business and only one item on the docket for new business – an ordinance for introduction. The sale of various revenue bonds and incoming grants for both the landfill expansion project and long term care facility construction means the budgets items needs to be amended. If the assembly passes those budgets tonight, the ordinance will move on to public hearing at the next regular meeting.
    Tonight’s meeting starts at 7:30 p.m. in the borough assembly chambers and will be broadcast live on KMXT.