53 



people are being very conservative. It hurts the local businesses be- 

 cause people are not spending money. I know it has hurt Craig 

 quite a bit because people in Coffman Cove do a lot of their shop- 

 ping in Craig and Klawock, and they are just not doing it this year. 



Things are very strained in Coffman Cove with uncertainty, and 

 they keep talking about shutting down the logging until next 

 spring, and since they did not start logging until April, that is not 

 enough for people to survive, and the people in Coffman Cove do 

 not want handouts. They want to work. It has always been a com- 

 munity of people that worked. 



The Chairman. I cannot agree with you more. I was supportive 

 of and proud of what Senator Stevens was able to do, but the $110 

 million in four years' time that would be transferred to commu- 

 nities, especially any community with a handout, that is still not 

 a job. 



The question was asked me the other day: "Why are you not sup- 

 porting other jobs", and I said, "I do. Just tell me what kinds of 

 jobs they are going to be." And that concerns me. 



Jerry, you are right. It is a resource-oriented State. I saw the 

 governor signed — it was the added-value bill the other day. It is 

 supported, but 10 million board feet is not a great deal, either, and 

 that does not employ a whole lot of people, and I think the most 

 interesting thing to me is: Let us say KPC went down, which the 

 State and the government did support, but the Federal Govern- 

 ment now does not want to do so — although the local forest people 

 did make a recommendation the contract be extended. They chose 

 to cancel it back east. If it goes down, there probably would not be 

 any sales, period, and if you do not have any sales, you do not have 

 any stumpage fees. You do not have any stumpage fees, you do not 

 have any schools. You do not have any infrastructure. 



That is the part that really concerns me the most because — 

 mainly a concept by certain individuals saying, "We will start these 

 smaller jobs, these smaller added-value jobs." That sounds good 

 and looks good but, in reality, it is going to be an awful tough task 

 to occur. 



Have you talked to people — I know you are both elected — all 

 three of you are elected. Are they interested in a different concept 

 of management? 



Ms. Price. I think everybody would like to see something dif- 

 ferent. What we have is not working. It is like what Mike said a 

 few minutes ago. We have compromised and compromised, and I 

 know years ago when they did the D-2 legislation, a lot of Alas- 

 kans breathed a sigh of relief and thought, "Well, something a lot 

 worse. I guess it is OK. We compromised. That is it." And then 

 they come along and there is another compromise, and the ink is 

 not even dry and they want another compromise. Every time we 

 give up more and more and we do not get anything back, and it 

 has gotten to the point where — when I came to Alaska years ago, 

 there were loggers — there were 40 outfits working out of Ketchikan 

 alone, and then there were Wrangell and Petersburg and Sitka and 

 Juneau that had logging companies working out of them, and it 

 has just come to the point where there are only a few major em- 

 ployers, and the economy, we need the logging, and we do not need 

 200 million board feet. We need more. 



