Alaska Beacon

The budget vetoes that Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued last month included millions of dollars proposed by the Legislature to bolster child care and early intervention services for children with disabilities or developmental delays.

Dunleavy vetoed a proposed $1.86 million in additional funding for child care grant programs and place-based and home-based child care centers, citing declining state revenues. The budget retains $5.87 million for those programs for next year.

For early education and infant learning, the Legislature proposed a significant boost — $5.7 million more — for the state’s 17 programs that provide intervention services for families with children from infancy to 3 years old experiencing disabilities or developmental delays. Dunleavy rejected the increase, and allocated $10 million for the statewide programs.

“Governor Dunleavy’s goal is for Alaska to be the best place in the country to raise a family,” said Grant Robinson, a deputy press secretary for the governor in an email on Monday responding to a request for comment. “The budgeting process requires the Governor to consider all line items in view of the State’s fiscal situation. The budget the Governor signed still provides more than $5.8 million of funding for childcare benefits. Given the State’s revenue outlook, the Governor made the difficult yet fiscally responsible decision to veto increasing and expanding infant learning programs.”

The governor vetoed more than $127 million from the Legislature’s proposed budget, including $50 million for public schools. In a prerecorded video released with the veto announcement in June, Dunleavy cited lower state revenues due to falling oil prices.

“Basically, we don’t have enough money to pay for all of our obligations. So as a result of that, you’re going to see some reductions in this year’s budget. It’s not an easy thing to do. It’s certainly not a fun thing to do, but it’s necessary,” he said.

Anchorage Republican Sen. Cathy Giessel, who also serves as the Senate majority leader, agreed that the state is facing fiscal challenges, but said child care and early education programs should be prioritized, as the Legislature had proposed.

“We had a balanced budget. It is true, it was very difficult to arrive at that balanced budget,” she said in a phone interview. “We searched all the couch cushions for one-time funding to fund this balanced budget, but we achieved it. The governor’s vetoes of these two critical services are just going to mean future costs, because these services were not provided for kids in their earliest development stages. So I was very disappointed.”

An estimated 1,800 Alaskan families are currently served each year by the state’s infant learning programs, funded by the state and federal Medicaid, at no cost to families. Children and families work with developmental specialists, and can receive speech, physical and occupational therapies. In addition, parents receive training and education on child development.

For example, in the Northwest Arctic region, an early learning and family program is administered by the Northwest Arctic Borough School District. It is based in Kotzebue and serves all the Northwest Arctic villages, as well as Point Hope in the North Slope Borough.

“We’re spread very thin,” said Tracey Schaeffer, one of the program’s three staff members. “And we definitely could use another staff person to help with traveling and seeing families and spending time in the villages.”

There is only one air carrier, Bering Air, serving the region, down from four companies operating a few years ago, she said, so with weather events and disruptions, it’s increasingly challenging.

“We have to change reservations a lot because of the weather,” she said, estimating the total cost for travel and flights at up to $25,000 per year, plus significant time. “As it gets warmer, we have a lot more days that are not very safe to fly here.”

Schaeffer said they work as much as possible by phone, but intervention services are very personal. “And all the while, you’re trying to kind of build a relationship with this family, because it’s a really intimate, sensitive situation when you’re working with a family who has a child that experienced, you know, something that wasn’t expected, a disability, or something, a medical issue, that has put their development at risk,” she said.

The proposed state funding increase would have been welcome, she said. “That would have been a huge relief, because there’s a lot of pressure. I mean, (with) early intervention, three years is a short period of time, you know, and we lose so much time because of weather, flight cancellations or something,” she said. “So there’s a lot of pressure there. We’ve done this job for a long time, and we know the time goes fast, and we want to provide as much intervention as we can. And it’s just hard to do that.”

Schaeffer also runs a small child care center in Kotzebue, serving eight children, the first licensed provider to open in the community in over a decade. She said more local and state support is needed to address the lack of child care and rippling impacts for the community. “We lose people all the time because of a lack of child care. You know, we have educators or providers that come and they start a family, and then they realize, like, ‘Wow, I can’t find a child care provider,’ and we lose them because of that.”

Shaeffer and her daughter opened the child care center in 2023, a challenging process documented in a short film by Laura Norton-Cruz, a social worker, public health advocate and film producer. She and filmmaker Joshua Albeza Branstetter created a documentary film series focused on the challenges of child care and early education programs called the “Early Childhood in Alaska” series.

“Child care is just not a profitable business model. It’s an investment in child brain development and family well-being, and the economy,” Norton-Cruz said, emphasizing the need for increasing state and federal funding support. “Staffing is the majority of the costs. But also, if you run a home-based child care center, you have to pay your mortgage or you have to pay rent, you have to pay utilities: Those things cost money. And we need support from the government to be able to offer this essential service, to have a workforce, and to have children who are kindergarten ready.”

In April, Anchorage’s largest child care provider, Bright Beginnings Early Learning Center, closed, displacing 125 children. Norton-Cruz said while some progress has been made, like raising awareness around Alaska’s child care crisis, families and providers are still struggling.

“Others have cut back on hours or cut back on the number of rooms, or the number of kids they can take, in order to have this essential service for parents to be able to go to work, which we need them to do,” she said. “Because we have major workforce shortages, and parents need income to pay for, you know, rent and everything else, we have to do a better job of funding and supporting the sector.”

In 2023, Dunleavy launched a child care task force with the stated goal to develop a plan to improve availability and affordability of quality child care throughout Alaska. Norton-Cruz said the work of the task force was positive, and would like to see the governor put more state funding toward its recommendations.

“When we don’t have policy that supports child care and early childhood, we basically just rely on the unpaid labor of women,” Norton-Cruz said. “Whether that’s moms, or whether that’s grandmothers, or aunties, you can’t just say, ‘Oh, but grandmas and aunties can step in.’ That’s not policy. That relies on something that may not always be there for everyone, and isn’t fair. … People need to be able to make that choice, rather than have that choice made for them.”

Giessel also said there is a need for state funding for the governor’s own task force recommendations. She pointed to new state revenue measures that Dunleavy has opposed —like oil taxes — that leaders in the Alaska House multipartisan and Senate bipartisan majority caucuses want to pursue to bring in more state dollars.

“First of all, we have a huge gap in our tax structure on our oil resources,” Giessel said, referring to the difference between taxes paid by traditional corporations and by those corporations that report their income through their owners, known as “S corporations.”

“The S corporations pay no corporate tax to the state,” Giessel said. “There is legislation that would institute a requirement for S corporations to pay a corporate tax to the state, conservatively estimated, that would be $100 million per year.”

A bill to tax these corporations is in the Senate Rules Committee.

“That would pay for a huge amount of these child care and early education funding requirements,” Giessel said.

“For him to say that these cuts are because of declining revenue and ignoring his responsibility in this, is just amazing to me,” Giessel added.

The Legislature will meet for a special session on Aug. 2, when they will consider whether to override the budget vetoes.

On July 1, Alaska’s new sick-leave and minimum wage increase law took effect.

Approved by voters in November, it states that someone working at a business with 15 or more employees will earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to a maximum of 56 per year, unless the employer voluntarily increases that limit.

Someone working at a business with fewer than 15 employees earns sick leave at the same rate, but the maximum per year is 40 hours.

The law also raised the state’s minimum wage to $13 per hour. The minimum wage rises to $14 per hour next year and $15 per hour in 2027. It will rise with the rate of inflation for each year after that.

The law also forbids bosses from forcing their employees to attend meetings about religious or political issues, including whether or not to join a labor union, political group or church.

There are exemptions for religious organizations.

Under the law, sick leave can be used for an employee’s illness or to take care of a family member who needs care. It can also be used in cases of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.

While workers can access the benefits now, it will be a few weeks before the state formalizes some of the details of how employers must implement the law. On June 25, the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development proposed new regulations. Those won’t take effect until August at the earliest, but they would add some new rules to the sick leave law.

In the meantime, the department has published an informal Q&A about how the law works.

Under those regulations, all of the state’s employers “shall notify each employee in writing” about its sick leave policy.

Those policies may include the amount of advance notice required when using sick leave for a prescheduled medical appointment or “other foreseeable absence.”

An employer can’t require more than 10 days’ notice in that case.

If someone is unexpectedly sick, the proposed regulations would require the sick employee to “notify the employer before the start of the employee’s shift or as soon as is possible.”

If someone uses sick leave for more than three consecutive days, their boss may require them to show proof of their need for sick leave, if that requirement is included in the written policy.

Someone who needs to take sick leave because of domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment or stalking, cannot be required to verify that explanation.

Under the law, someone can carry over unused sick leave from one year to the next, but they can’t exceed the maximum, unless their employer voluntarily allows them to do so.

Employers are forbidden from retaliating against employees who use their sick leave, and nothing prevents an employer from “front-loading” sick leave by giving them the hours in advance instead of accruing them over time.

The Department of Labor’s new regulations are subject to public comment through July 31. Anyone with questions may email dol.lss.regulations@alaska.gov.

Alaska’s lone member of the U.S. House of Representatives said Thursday that he had “no doubt” that he was going to vote for the Republican-drafted budget bill that passed the House on a 218-214 vote Thursday.

In a phone call after the vote Rep. Nick Begich III, R-Alaska, said he was pleased that it provides additional opportunities for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, and Cook Inlet.

“I think the bill has some incredible provisions for Alaska. We have been trying for decades to unlock the energy potential of our state, and this bill does that,” Begich said. “There’s 30 million acres mandated as a minimum lease sale amount in ANWR, NPR-A and the Cook Inlet that gives us the oil and gas that we need to refill our our state coffers, ensure that the Permanent Fund is well funded into the future, that we can continue to pay PFDs well into the future.”

Begich had proposed that 90% of federal revenue from federal leases in those areas be returned to the state. The final version of the bill will send 70%, starting in 2034.

Current state law distributes money from the existing 50-50 split to the state general fund, primarily for use in North Slope communities. The new split increases the amount of money available for those uses.

In an interview with reporters on Wednesday, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said he believes no state fared better than Alaska in the negotiations around the bill.

“I think it is true when you look at just the pure acreage (available for oil leasing). Just on this one provision alone, Alaska stands to gain tremendously,” Begich said.

Most criticism of the bill has focused on its effects on Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank opposed to the bill, estimated that 35,000 Alaskans would lose health insurance if the bill becomes law, both from Medicaid cuts and from scaled-back tax credits used to pay for individual policies.

In a town hall meeting Wednesday night, State Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, said she estimates the bill will add $100 million to $200 million in Medicaid costs to the state, and SNAP changes will require the state to pay up to $50 million per year within a few years.

The bill increases the size of a rural hospital fund, which will send $200 million to $300 million to Alaska, Sens. Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said on Tuesday.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty with a new program,” Mina said, “whereas Medicaid has reliably funded our rural areas and supported our communities and has been a fabric of our health care economy for so long.”

She also pointed out that the bill creates a work requirement for Medicaid.

“Given the fact that we already know so many Alaskans who are behind on their SNAP and Medicaid benefits for months, this is going to add more paperwork and bureaucracy for our state, but then also for people on the ground, they’re going to be kicked off of Medicaid because of additional paperwork, even though folks are working,” she said.

Asked whether he thinks Alaska will be entirely shielded from the effects of those cuts, Begich implied that the answer is no, but he believes “we have significant runway that’s been provided for Alaska” via various sections of the bill.

“Traditional recipients of Medicaid will continue to receive the same benefits that they deserve to receive. There are no changes to the traditional Medicaid system,” Begich said.

When it comes to the work requirement, there are “exclusions for folks who are caregivers to family members, for folks who are looking for work but haven’t found it yet, for folks who are in counties or boroughs with more than one and a half times the national average unemployment rate. It has exclusions for people who volunteer 20 hours a week.”

“If someone is able to work or contribute in some way, even volunteer, they should do that. And I think that’s a smart provision. It’s a provision that’s really targeted, and it’s been designed just for that sub-population of folks who could be helping and are not currently doing so,” he said.

During his campaign for U.S. House in 2024, Begich told the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce that Alaskans should expect him to seek less federal spending because he is concerned about the size of the national debt.

The Congressional Budget Office expects the new budget bill to increase the federal debt by more than $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years.

“Well, I think I would dispute that,” Begich said, explaining that he believes the CBO is underestimating economic growth that will take place because of the tax cuts within the bill.

“We’re on the cusp of an AI revolution, a robotics revolution, tremendous gains are on the horizon for labor productivity. We’re seeing the labor market remain strong. … I think the challenge with the CBO and some of the other models is that they’re scoring the assumptive growth rate exceptionally low.”

The 2017 federal tax cuts being extended by the new bill have thus far failed to create growth necessary to balance the deficits they created.

Begich said he’s been a strong supporter of the budget bill since even before it was proposed at the start of the new Congress.

“There was no doubt I was going to vote for this bill,” he said. “I started working on this bill before I was even sworn into Congress. I approached leadership when it looked like we were going to win this seat. And I told them, budget reconciliation is around the corner.”

Begich said that House leaders tried to reassure him that ANWR drilling provisions would be in the bill, but he advocated more drilling, in NPR-A and Cook Inlet, and additional provisions to support mining and logging.

“So when this bill came back from the Senate, I was enthusiastically supporting it, and I told others in the House that this is an important priority for us, certainly, but it’s really important for the rest of the nation,” Begich said.

On a sandy beach in a state park in Ketchikan, a group of local beachcombers encountered something ominous: shells of two invasive European green crabs, shed as part of the creatures’ growth process.

That discovery, made during a June 6 beach survey that was part of a class held by the University of Alaska Southeast Ketchikan campus, led to more in the community.

It makes Ketchikan the newest known Alaska beachhead in a northward invasion of non-native crabs that are known to wreak havoc on native species and habitats.

European green crabs, first confirmed to be in Alaska when their shells were discovered in 2022 on Annette Island in the far southeast corner of the state, are likely here for good, said the UAS professor who was one of the class instructors and helped lead the beach surveys.

“They have continued to spread. They will continue to spread,” said Barbara Morgan, who is based in Ketchikan. “They are expected to spread through Southeast Alaska, probably most of Southcentral — kind of the southern coast of Southcentral. And maybe, depending on water temperature and how tolerant they are to the colder water temperatures, they might go up into the really southern part of the Bristol Bay area, too.”

In time, they could threaten some of Alaska’s most important habitats for salmon and other fish.

The crabs eat salmon fry, juvenile native crabs like Dungeness and other fish, and they mow down eelgrass beds that are important Alaska fish habitat.

“Green crab could potentially damage Alaska’s multi-billion dollar fisheries industries, especially for salmon, crab, and mariculture operations,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned.

European green crabs were first found in waters of the U.S. East Coast in the 1800s, believed to have been transported in ships’ ballast water. In 1989, the first green crabs were discovered in U.S. West Coast waters, also believed to have been carried accidentally in ballast water. Over the following years, they spread northward. The first sightings in British Columbia were in 1998.

The Alaska first discovery, at Annette Island, was about 30 miles south of the beach site where Morgan’s class found the crab shells in June. And last summer, green crab shells were found at Gravina Island, just west of Ketchikan.

An eventual discovery in Ketchikan was largely expected. But the precise site of the June 6 discovery — at Refuge Cove State Recreation Site — was a bit surprising because of the nature of the site, Morgan said.

Green crabs generally prefer estuarine areas, places where freshwater and saltwater meet, and places with thick eelgrass, she said. But the Refuge Cove beach site is sandy and not an estuary, and thus not considered to be a prime spot for the crabs.

Crabs’ upper shells, called carapaces, are discarded periodically as the animals grow and need larger shells. Discovery of the molted shells suggests that the invasive crab were in the larval stage when they were pushed by currents north to Alaska, Morgan said.

After the first two shells were found during the class survey, the discoveries in the community “snowballed,” with additional shells found at Refuge Cove, plus more at other sites along the Ketchikan road system, she said. It is likely that there are more at other sites that are less accessible for surveys, she said.

How to respond?

The species’ name can be confusing because the crabs are not necessarily green, Morgan said. They can be brown or yellow or reddish, or a mixture of colors, she said. Meanwhile, some native crabs that do belong in Alaska are green, including kelp crabs, and should not be mistaken for the invaders, she said.

The “European” part of the name is not accurate, either, she said. “Yes, they came from Europe; they’re not in Europe anymore,” she said.

Morgan and other invasive species experts are trying to spread awareness — and the message about what the crabs look like. Telltale signs come from the shape of the shells, which have three bumps between the crabs’ eyes and five spikes on either side.

The Metlakatla Indian Community, a Tribal government on Annette Island, has been particularly active in combatting European green crabs.

The Tribe established a detection program in 2020 and made the first discovery of shells in 2022, as well as the Gravina Island discoveries last year.

Through its program, the Tribe has also trapped thousands of European green crabs. The total had reached about 3,000 as of last summer, according to the Department of Fish and Game, and it continues to grow.

In just the past month, the Tribal team trapped over 300 of the live crabs on Gravina Island, said Ian Hudson, a fisheries biologist who coordinates the Tribe’s European green crab program.

“This year there has been an explosion in numbers, and we’re not at all surprised that Ketchikan is finding carapace,” he said by email.

Metlakatla’s efforts are highlighted in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s 2023-2028 plan for combatting European green crabs. That plan lays out steps for prevention, early detection, rapid response and control.

But by now, full prevention may not be possible anymore, Morgan said.

With millions of European green crabs on the West Coast, and with currents that continue t send their larvae north, it is highly unlikely that all incursions could be prevented, she said.

“Even if we get rid of all of them in Alaska, we would need to build a fence across Dixon Entrance, a fine net. And that’s obviously not going to happen,” she said, referring to the maritime border site between Canada and Alaska.

Instead, she said, “functional eradication” like what the Metlakatla Indian Tribe is doing with trapping is likely to be increasingly important, with focuses on key sites important to native species like salmon and Dungeness crab. Baseline surveys can help identify those areas that need to be most protected, she said.

Part of a wider invasive threat

While the European green crab is considered to be among the world’s most damaging invasive species, it is not the only one that threatens Alaska’s environment and fishing industry.

Another example is elodea, a freshwater plant often used in aquariums. First found in Eyak Lake in Cordova in 1982, it has spread to other lakes and streams in Southcentral and Interior Alaska. Potential economic losses — to commercial sockeye salmon and to recreational floatplane pilots — could be well over $1 billion, Tobias Schwoerer, a University of Alaska Fairbanks economist, estimated in a 2017 study.

Invasive northern pike in Southcentral Alaska, which have proved to be persistent, also pose ecological and economic threats. The fish prey on salmon, trout and other native species. The Department of Fish and Game has a program to remove invasive pike and try to limit their spread.

For now, much of the work to combat nonnative species is coordinated by the Alaska Invasive Species Partnership, a coalition of government agencies, university experts, nonprofits and community organizations.

The partnership has advocated for years for the establishment of a more robust organization within state government, an invasive species council, to organize wider protection and rapid response, if needed.

Bills pending in the Alaska Legislature would do that. One measure, House Bill 191, made it through one committee. A Senate version, Senate Bill 174, had two hearings.

In past years, similar bills progressed through the Legislature but failed to make it to final passage. The most recent was in 2022, when a bill to establish a state invasive species council passed the House by 33-2 margin but failed to reach the Senate floor before that session’s adjournment.

Proponents hope results in the coming session will be more successful.

The sponsor of the current House bill, Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, worries not only about green crabs moving their way through Southeast Alaska but also invasive plants like knotweed that have appeared in important community spots like Harbor Mountain.

“Each year, there’s more knotweed and less salmonberries,” she said in an interview late in the session. She hopes the bill will win final passage next year, she said.

Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, is another proponent of an invasive species council.

He said he has been aware of invasive species since his childhood in Cordova, where he and a friend earned money from a neighbor by killing invasive black slugs at about a nickel apiece. Later, as a member of the Anchorage Assembly, he worked on efforts to remove invasive chokecherry trees, which were introduced as ornamentals but have since crowded out native species along the city’s greenbelts.

Dunbar acknowledged concerns that an invasive species council would cost the state money because it would require a dedicated employee in the Department of Fish and Game. But he argues that failing to set up such a council would cause more expense in the long run.

“I would say, we can’t afford to not prevent invasive species from entering Alaska,” Dunbar said in an interview near the end of this year’s session. “It is very expensive to have invasive species to start pushing out native species.”

Correction: The article incorrectly stated the number of hearings that Senate Bill 174 had. It had two.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued a proclamation for a special session on Wednesday, calling Legislators back to Juneau in August to pass legislation on education reform and his executive order creating a new Department of Agriculture.

The special session also means that lawmakers cannot wait until January to vote on overrides to the governor’s budget vetoes and his vetoes on several policy bills. They must vote in the first five days of the special session.

That’s significant, because 45 votes are needed to override a budget veto, and while there were 46 votes in favor of a prior veto override this spring, at least one legislator who voted in favor of that override will be unavailable in August.

The 30-day special session is scheduled to begin 10 a.m. August 2 in Juneau.

Agriculture is currently overseen by a division within the Department of Natural Resources.

​​“Enacting a few necessary reforms to our public education system can elevate those children struggling in Alaska’s school system,” said Dunleavy in an email statement with the announcement. “As elected officials we must do all we can to put the next generation on the path to a successful and prosperous future, and that starts with a solid public education. Splitting the Division of Agriculture away from DNR into a department will elevate food security and support our hard-working farmers while growing the agricultural sector.”

The announcement comes in the wake of a historic veto override vote, 46-14, by the Legislature rejecting Dunleavy’s veto of an education funding bill, House Bill 57, raising the core of the state’s education formula by  $700 per student. Dunleavy then made a budget veto of part of the funding for schools, pushing it down to $500 per student, and House and Senate leadership have promised to override that veto in the next session.

Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said he was surprised by the announcement and learned about it from reporters calling him for comment.

The special session will force lawmakers to vote early on veto overrides for education funding and a variety of other bills, he said. Legislative attorneys have told lawmakers that with the governor’s proclamation, they cannot defer those votes until the regular session begins in January.

That’s a problem for supporters of an education veto override, because 45 of 60 legislators are needed for that vote to succeed. This spring, a policy veto override garnered 46 votes, but Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, is in Poland on a National Guard deployment and is expected to be unavailable in August.

Other legislators may also be unavailable, Stevens said.

And supporters of an override have questioned whether all of the votes from the previous override vote will hold for a budget override.

In May, lawmakers voted 32-28 to deny an executive order by Dunleavy to create a new Department of Agriculture, citing the proposal’s costs as well as creation through an executive order rather than as legislation, with public input.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

The U.S. Senate continued nonstop debate on its major policy and budget bill Monday, as provisions affecting Alaska continued to be hotly debated.

Senators are advancing toward a vote expected as soon as Monday night, with some attempting to sway the vote of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

Murkowski is critical to the vote, because there are 53 Republicans in the U.S. Senate, and 50 are needed to pass the bill — dubbed the “Big, Beautiful Bill” by President Donald Trump.

Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Tom Tillis of North Carolina have indicated that they will vote against it. If Murkowski were to join them in opposition, it would leave Vice President J.D. Vance to cast the tie-breaking vote in favor.

If one other Republican were to also vote no, the bill would fail.

Senators are rushing to finish work ahead of the Fourth of July, an informal deadline preferred by the president.

In order to partially pay for tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term, the bill proposes significant cuts to Medicaid spending and changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps.

Roughly 1 in 3 Alaskans receives health care through Medicaid, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank opposed to the big bill, estimated that 35,000 Alaskans could lose health insurance if the bill passes.

Republicans proposed $6.7 billion in additional Medicaid spending for Alaska to offset some of those cuts, but over the weekend, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that change violated the rules of the budget procedure being used to advance the bill.

Large numbers of Alaskans receive SNAP food aid from the federal government, and the bill would require states to pay for a share of that aid, which is currently fully funded by the federal government.

Alaska, which has repeatedly been scolded by the federal government for mistakes managing SNAP, would be required to pay as much as $37 million per year to keep food aid steady, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated.

Republican senators inserted a provision into the bill that would have temporarily exempted Alaska and Hawaii from having to pay into the program, but on Monday, the Senate parliamentarian seemed likely to nix that benefit as well.

In a weekend opinion column published in the New York Times, Alaska Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, and Alaska Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, urged Congress to reject the bill, saying it would be bad for Alaska. By phone on Monday, Giessel said her view had not changed since that column was published.

Other parts of the bill, geared toward Alaska, remained intact: a new tax exemption for Community Development Quota fishing groups and an increase in a federal tax deduction for Alaska whaling captains.

The bill contains more than $7 billion for Coast Guard icebreakers and $300 million to homeport a newly purchased civilian icebreaker commissioned into Coast Guard service. That icebreaker is slated to be homeported in Juneau.

On Monday, Murkowski was working to amend a section of the bill that threatens to deter low-cost solar and wind power projects that could reduce energy costs in Alaska.

Currently, federal law provides tax credits that incentivize those projects, but the new bill would eliminate those credits.

In addition, as of Monday afternoon, the bill contained a new excise tax on solar and energy projects placed into service after 2027 if they use parts from China and other prohibited foreign countries.

Almost all solar and wind projects use Chinese components because of their low cost and high quality.

Murkowski was seeking a gradual phaseout of those tax credits by allowing projects to collect them as long as they begin construction by 2027.

The bill would have significant effects on oil and gas drilling in Alaska. It mandates four new oil and gas lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and it requires other sales in Cook Inlet and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Seventy percent of rental and royalty payments from those sales would go to the state of Alaska, starting in 2034, up from 50 percent currently.

That’s down from a proposed share of 90%, which was in an earlier Senate version of the bill.

The revenue sharing is particularly important for the state because a growing proportion of North Slope oil production is coming from federal land, rather than state land, and most promising new oil finds in the North Slope are on federal land.

An earlier version of the bill proposed to ban states for 10 years from passing laws restricting AI computer software development. That’s now down to five years and has multiple exceptions.

In the Alaska Legislature, Anchorage Reps. Alyse Galvin and Andrew Gray had issued a statement asking the Senate to reconsider the 10-year ban.

A provision advancing development of the Ambler Road was rejected by the Senate parliamentarian, and Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has withdrawn a proposal to sell large amounts of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land.

Overall, independent analysts have found, the tax cuts within the bill will bring increased financial benefits for the wealthiest Alaskans, while the poorest Alaskans will be left worse off because their tax cuts do not equal the cost of lost federal benefits and services.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a Sunday estimate that the bill will increase the federal debt by more than $3.2 trillion over 10 years.

If the bill advances through the Senate, it will be subject to a vote in the House, where lawmakers passed a different version earlier this year.

That vote could come before the Fourth of July holiday.