Editor's Note: This story was originally published by the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has canceled a broadly supported bill proposed by a legislative task force and intended to help commercial fishers in Alaska.
The governor issued his veto of Senate Bill 156 on Wednesday July 16, marking his seventh veto of a policy bill this year.
Legislators will have an opportunity to call for an override vote on most of those vetoes when they meet Aug. 2 for a special legislative session.
SB 156, which was inspired by policies drafted by a joint House-Senate task force intended to evaluate the state’s commercial fishing industry, would transfer $3.69 million from a defunct state loan fund to the state-owned Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank, which provides loans to fishers.
In his veto message, the governor said that “in a year of limited revenues and competing needs, committing scarce public dollars to subsidize a private lender is not prudent. Until long-term fiscal policy is put into place, the state must preserve its limited resources.”
Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, was the lead sponsor of SB 156.
In posts on social media, Kiehl called the veto “a weird move” because the bill was based on work he did with the governor, it passed through the Capitol by a combined 59-1 vote, and he said the governor’s office declined meetings to discuss it after the Legislature passed the bill.
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