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WASHINGTON — Nuiqsut resident Rosemary Ahtuangaruak was in Washington last week for the short-lived debate in the U.S. Senate about climate change legislation.

A much-hyped bill to drastically cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and limit the effects of climate change suffered a quick death on the Senate floor Friday after Democrats from oil producing states joined Republicans in voting against allowing the legislation to advance.

Ahtuangaruak, the former mayor of Nuiqsut and a board member of the Inupiat Community of Arctic Slope, said she’s optimistic Congress will set a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions sooner rather than later.

Most scientists agree that the release of heat-trapping greenhouse gases is contributing to global warming, which has caused major changes to Arctic regions, including the predominately Inupiaq community of Nuiqsut.

“We are going to come out with a progressive plan that will help us,” Ahtuangaruak said Thursday. “If we don’t, I don’t want to think about it.”

The Senate spent much of last week embroiled in partisan bickering about legislation drafted by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., John Warner, R-Va., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that sought a reduction in emissions of roughly 70 percent by mid-century.

Critics of the plan said it would harm the U.S. economy and drive manufacturing jobs overseas to countries with less stringent pollution regulations. Republicans also were able to mock Democrats for bringing up legislation they say will result in higher energy prices at a time when consumers are already struggling to fill their gas tanks.

By Thursday, Ahtuangaruak was willing to acknowledge the bill was headed for defeat. But she expects more aggressive action to address global warming from the next administration.

“I’d love for it to happen this year but it’s going to take an awful lot,” Ahtuangaruak said.

President George W. Bush opposes setting mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, citing concerns about the potential impact on the economy. But both Sens. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, and Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, support emission caps, though they differ on the details.

Democrats, who hold a slim majority in the Senate, failed Friday to get the 60 votes needed to move forward with the legislation. Boxer promised the bill would return in the 111th Congress.

Nuiqsut and the whole of the North Slope are on the front line of global warming, with rising temperatures bringing changes to the environment that threaten the Inupiat’s traditional subsistence culture, Ahtuangaruak said.

“We had rain in November a few years ago for the first time,” she said.

Unseasonably warm temperatures have weakened ice during the spring and fall hunting, making travel more hazardous and shrinking hunting seasons. The loss of sea ice means the marine mammals the Inupiat depend on are harder to find.

Ahtuangaruak said she would like to see Sen. Lisa Murkowski take the lead on Arctic policy, including enacting legislation to address the causes of climate change.

Ahtuangaruak met with Murkowski’s staff on Thursday to express her concerns about the country’s climate policy and the rapid rate of oil and natural gas development on the North Slope.

“We don’t see the current process as working,” Ahtuangaruak said. “We need to change it and take a larger role in developing U.S. Arctic policy, which the Bush administration is currently reviewing.”

Murkowski was on a plane back to Alaska during Friday’s final vote on the climate change bill. Earlier in the week, Murkowski said she supported a cap-and-trade style system to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, but she had concerns about unintentional impacts on the economy.

Sen. Ted Stevens also missed Friday’s vote. Both senators previously voted against the Lieberman-Warner bill.

Ahtuangaruak said the Senate proposal wasn’t as strong as she would have liked to have seen, but it was a “good starting point.” It will likely be the place Congress picks up the debate next year.

Arctic fisheries

President Bush on Tuesday signed into law a resolution designed to create an international framework for the management of fisheries in Arctic waters.

The measure, sponsored by Sens. Stevens and Murkowski, directs the federal government to negotiate an international agreement on how best to deal with potential new fishing areas in the Arctic Ocean that are opening as a result of global warming.

The increase of summer sea ice melt in the Arctic raises the potential for “pirate fishing fleets” to exploit Alaska’s fish resources if the U.S. doesn’t establish a management plan, Stevens said.

“Alaskans must act and adapt to confront the impacts of climate change, and this resolution represents an important step forward,” Stevens said in a prepared statement.

The resolution also calls upon the U.S. to help prevent fishing on the high seas of the Arctic until an international management plan can be developed.

Gas prices continue to creep higher

Tired of spending nearly $100 to fill the gas tank? Get used to it.

It was a crazy week for crude oil, with prices dropping to a low of $121.61 on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Thursday before surging 8 percent to more than $138 a barrel Friday.

Analysts blamed the wild swing in prices on the weak dollar, unrest in the Middle East and excessive speculation in the oil futures market.

Oil’s wild ride isn’t over; some analysts are predicting it will hit $150 a barrel by July 4, dragging gas prices along with it.

The price of oil, which is up 42 percent since the start of the year, accounts for 70 percent of the cost of gasoline.

The switch to summer-grade gasoline by refineries, which is less evaporative as a clean air measure but more costly to produce, also is adding to sticker shock at the pump.

The price of regular unleaded in Fairbanks ranged between $4.11 and $4.26 a gallon Friday. Across the state, the average price was $4.28 a gallon, up more than $1.10 from a year ago, according to the motorist group AAA.

The national average Friday was $3.98 a gallon.

With oil on ascent, energy analysts say a drop in demand is about the only thing that’s going to help gas prices.

And soaring prices are having an effect on consumer habits. Recent surveys show that demand for gasoline is down roughly 5 percent over last year.

A recent survey by RBC Capital Markets found that about 90 percent of Americans have changed their driving habits in response to soaring prices.

And finally ...

The closure of salmon fisheries in Washington and Oregon because of poor returns is providing a boom in demand for Alaska salmon.

Alaska-caught sockeye and chinook salmon have been available here for the past three weeks, starting with fish flown in fresh from Southeast’s Stikine River and now a flood from the Copper River.

While wild Alaska salmon rarely compete for shelf space at the supermarket, except at premium food stores like Whole Foods, local restaurants are leaping at the chance to feature the fabled fish.

The upscale McCormick and Schmick’s hosted a politically themed salmon tasting Friday at one of its dozen Washington, D.C., restaurants to promote the availability of Alaska salmon.

“This is our opportunity to do something a little fun,” said Anthony Marcello, the company’s regional chef for the Washington area.

The event featured sockeye and chinook, including large chunks of grilled white king salmon, a personal favorite Marcello said he enjoys introducing to customers.

“People are starting to become familiar with Alaska salmon, but not that many have seen white kings,” he said. “When we have three flavors of king we’ll serve up a sampler for our guests so they can taste the difference.”

The Portland, Ore.-based company tries to focus its seafood offerings on Pacific species. This year, because of problems with salmon runs on the West Coast, the restaurant is exclusively featuring Alaska salmon on its menu.

Alaska salmon is growing in popularity on the East Coast as people become accustomed to its stronger flavor and bigger price tag, Marcello said.

“The public recognition of Alaska salmon over the last five years has multiplied five times,” he said.

About 1,000 pounds of king salmon a week are flowing through the eight McCormick and Schmick’s restaurants that specialize in seafood in the Washington region.

Salmon doesn’t come cheap early in the season, especially in a year when high gas prices, bad weather and light runs have combined to put a premium on Oncorhynchus tschawytscha and Oncorhynchus nerka.

Marcello said the restaurant was paying $38 a pound for kings at the start of the season.

Prices have come down considerably, with kings costing roughly $15 a pound now, he said. Reds are selling for a few dollars less.

Of course, that’s the restaurant’s cost. I paid roughly $30 for a Stikine River salmon steak last week at the McCormick and Schmick’s near my K Street office.

It takes no more than three days for a salmon to make the journey from net to plates on the East Coast, and usually travel time is closer to 36 hours, Marcello said.

McCormick and Schmick’s Washington-area restaurants purchase their fish at a market in Maryland. The salmon are flown from Alaska to Seattle and then Boston before being landed in Maryland.

The restaurant will follow the salmon season into September and the silver run.

The last kings of the year will come from the mouth of the Yukon River.

“As long as they’re available, we’ll carry it,” Marcello said.