Alaska Beacon

The Trump administration plans to lift environmental protections on roughly half of the National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope, reopening the area to possible oil and gas drilling.

The new move would reverse actions taken during the Biden administration to restrict development in the 23 million-acre reserve.

The plans, announced Sunday in Utqiagvik and formally on Monday by the U.S. Department of the Interior, open a public comment period, with final action to come later. The plans were announced as three of the Trump administration’s top officials visit Alaska.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Lee Zeldin, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, are in Alaska this week for a series of events, including a speaking engagement at Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s annual sustainable energy conference, which begins Tuesday in Anchorage.

During a brief question-and-answer session with reporters on Sunday, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, sat alongside the three cabinet members and called the effort to restrict development in NPR-A the “most egregious effort of the Biden administration,” adding that “one of the top priorities is to get the NPRA back to where it was supposed to be by the intention of Congress, to develop oil and to remove all the regulations that the Biden guys put on NPR-A, and that is a huge priority.”

While large oil companies have expressed little interest to date in drilling within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which lies to the east of the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, there has been interest in drilling within the reserve, which lies to the west.

Since the first days of the second Trump administration, federal officials have said that they are prioritizing an effort to eliminate obstacles for companies interested in digging or drilling for natural resources in Alaska.

Burgum, Wright and Zeldin traveled to the North Slope after meeting with state officials in Anchorage on Sunday and were scheduled to tour Pump Station No. 1 of the trans-Alaska Pipeline System before returning to Anchorage on Tuesday to participate in the governor’s energy conference.

The two-hour Anchorage event was largely closed to the public, but reporters were able to listen to closing remarks and ask limited questions at the end.

There were no new details about the potential construction of a trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline, and officials did not address the Trump administration’s decision to freeze or rescind grants awarded to renewable energy projects in Alaska.

Burgum, speaking in Anchorage, noted that Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport offers direct flights to 16 countries and talked about the “rise of the Pacific” in terms of global commerce.

“Alaska can play such a huge role in this, but we’ve got to get the federal government out of your way. That’s what the three of us are here to do,” he said.

In response to a question, Burgum said the administration plans to prioritize development of the planned Ambler Road, a 211-mile mining access road through the Brooks Range, and the proposed King Cove Road, an 11-mile road connecting King Cove to the Cold Bay airport, among other projects.

On Monday, environmental groups responded to the NPR-A decision with scorn and concern.

Grandmothers Growing Goodness, an environmental group that supports Indigenous communities in the Arctic, said that the repeal of the Biden administration protections would significantly impact Teshekpuk Lake and its surroundings, which are important for the Teshekpuk caribou herd. “The area is also integral to Indigenous subsistence practices, supporting hunting, fishing, and gathering,” they said, in an email statement with the announcement

Protest demonstrations are planned in Anchorage for Monday and Tuesday to oppose the proposed Alaska LNG pipeline project and “other fossil fuel projects promoted by Gov. Dunleavy’s ‘sustainable energy conference,’” according to organizers.

“It’s hard to overstate the havoc this could wreak on the Western Arctic’s undisturbed habitat for caribou, polars bears and belugas,” said Marlee Goska, Alaska attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Trump’s fixation on plundering Alaska’s ecosystems for short-term gain is matched only by the stupidity of turning this precious place into a fossil fuel extraction site. Alaska’s vast expanses of wild lands are a big part of what makes our state so special, and we’ll do everything possible to protect these places.”

Alaska’s rates for childhood vaccinations are well below the national average, and the percentage of kindergarteners who had received all recommended vaccines was the lowest last year since at least 2017, according to a new report from the state Department of Health.

Only 54% of kindergarteners in the state had received all of their recommended vaccinations in 2024, according to a bulletin issued by the department’s epidemiology section. That compares to a national rate of about 93%, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are six recommended vaccines for severe illnesses for kindergarten-age children, and Alaska rates fall below the national average for all six, including polio and chickenpox. For the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, commonly called MMR, only 76% of Alaska kindergarteners in 2024 had completed the recommended two-dose series, the bulletin said. That compares to a 93% national rate for the MMR vaccine, said the bulletin, which documented a downward drift in vaccination rates over recent years.

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory virus, causing fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes, and can cause serious illness and death. Symptoms usually appear 7 to 14 days after infection.

The bulletin has a warning: “Declining measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination rates in Alaska could jeopardize the health of Alaskans.”

Information about Alaska’s lagging childhood vaccination rates comes at a critical time.

Anchorage health officials on May 22 reported the city’s first case of measles in several years. The patient was an unvaccinated child, municipal officials said.

The Anchorage case follows two reported earlier in the year on the Kenai Peninsula, one an adult who had traveled internationally and one a minor, according to the Department of Health.

Unlike the adult Kenai Peninsula case, the sickened Anchorage child had not traveled, said Dr. George Conway, the municipality’s chief medical officer. The child had not had contact with anyone who showed signs of having measles, such as skin rashes, so the source of exposure remains unclear, he said.

But the infected child did spend time at numerous public spaces in Anchorage before being diagnosed on May 21, including a trampoline park and the local YMCA, officials said.

No related measles infections have been reported in Anchorage as of Thursday since this month’s single diagnosis was revealed.

 

Though measles was declared to have been eliminated in the United States in 2000, thanks to the vaccine, the proclamation may have been premature.

Currently, there are large outbreaks elsewhere in the nation, particularly in Texas and neighboring states. There were 1,046 cases and three measles deaths reported nationally as of May 22, according to the CDC. Almost all the cases have been among unvaccinated people, the CDC said.

Conway said the national situation makes the Anchorage case unsurprising. Reduced rates of vaccination around the nation and in Alaska have set up conditions for outbreaks, he said.

“We have a vulnerability and that’s manifesting itself in our susceptibility to cases,” he said. “Alaska is certainly no shining star as far as vaccination rates, but we’re not the worst off, either.”

There are a few states, such as Idaho, that have vaccination rates for kindergarteners that are below Alaska’s rates, according to the CDC. But most states have higher rates for all childhood vaccines.

Conway, who has four decades of experience working in public health, used two words to describe the downward trend in childhood vaccinations: “discouraging” and “disappointing.”

Much of that is the result of misinformation and confusion spread on the internet, including a debunked theory that vaccines cause autism among children, he said. That intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.

“It’s a much harder environment in which to give advice,” he said.

When it comes to measles, many in the public may underestimate the danger, he added..

“The thing about measles that a lot of people may not understand is it is one of possibly the most readily transmissible respiratory viruses, and it can cause serious illness and deaths,” he said.

The state Department of Health has a similar warning message on its website. “Measles isn’t just a little rash. It’s a highly contagious viral respiratory illness that can be dangerous, especially for babies and young children. Each year around the world, an estimated 10 million people get measles, and about 110,000 of them die from it,” the department warns.

Use of the measles vaccine began in the 1960s. Conway said it is credited with saving 93 million lives worldwide since then.

Health officials hope the news about the Anchorage child who contracted measles – now recovering well – will motivate residents to ensure that they and their children are vaccinated against that and other diseases, Conway said.

However, Anchorage health officials have not noticed any rush toward vaccination yet, he said.

Sarah Aho, the Department of Health’s immunization program manager, said Alaska’s low rate of childhood vaccination is “a multi-faceted situation” that needs a broad-based response.

Disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic were among them, she said by email.

“We saw fewer children vaccinated early in the COVID-pandemic, initially due to fewer kids attending their well-child visits for routine vaccinations in 2020. Many of those kids are now in kindergarten and may have not gotten up-to-date on their routine immunizations,” she said.

A previous report, issued in 2023, also suggested that COVID-related disruptions have resulted in lower vaccination coverage, though for younger children.

Aho, like Conway, also cited bad information leading to mistrust of health science as a factor in reduced vaccination rates. The “increasing prevalence of misinformation might impact vaccine confidence,” she said by email.

Additionally, there are logistical complications in some areas of Alaska, Aho said. “Access to vaccines is a challenge in some communities, further exacerbating barriers of time and potential vaccine availability,” she said.

To address those issues, health officials are developing an Alaska Immunization Coalition and increasing educational efforts, including focused use of postcard reminders, she said.

A federal magistrate judge has ruled that the state of Alaska did not violate the U.S. Constitution when it acted to limit intoxicating hemp products in 2023.

In an order published May 23, Magistrate Judge Kyle Reardon granted summary judgment in favor of the state and against the Alaska Industrial Hemp Association, which sued two years ago in an attempt to overturn regulations imposed by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

The court order means intoxicating hemp products, common in many other states, will remain illegal in Alaska unless sold through a licensed marijuana retailer.

“It was rewarding to be part of the process developing the regulations, and I was happy when we successfully defended against the motion for a preliminary injunction in 2023,” said Assistant Attorney General Kevin Higgins, by email. Higgins represented the state in the case.

“I’m not patting myself on the back too hard though,” he said. “The Division of Agriculture was motivated by public safety concerns when it took measured action to regulate an emerging industry. This was an easy case to make, which is probably why the plaintiffs didn’t file an opposition to the motion for summary judgment.”

An attorney representing the plaintiff did not answer a request for comment on Wednesday.

Alaska legalized the sale and use of marijuana for recreational purposes in 2014. The state subsequently created a tightly regulated market in which only licensed businesses may grow, process and sell marijuana.

Under a 2018 federal law and a state law enacted in 2021, cannabis plants that contain less than 0.3% THC — a common psychoactive chemical — were considered hemp, not the more tightly regulated marijuana.

Even though those hemp products contain only small amounts of psychoactive chemicals, they could be extracted, processed and turned into intoxicating products that were available at convenience stores, gas stations and other stores not restricted by the state’s marijuana regulator.

While hemp products are federally legal, marijuana remains federally prohibited, and social media companies frequently restrict marijuana advertising, giving an advantage to the hemp market.

Marijuana retailers urged action, and a task force organized by Gov. Mike Dunleavy recommended that the state enact regulations to limit intoxicating hemp products.

The Alaska Division of Agriculture enacted those in 2023, leading to the lawsuit that was resolved this month.

Plaintiffs had argued that the division’s regulations violate the constitution’s supremacy clause, violate the dormant commerce clause, constitute a regulatory taking and are void for vagueness.

In each case, Reardon ruled against the plaintiffs and in favor of the state.

Early in the legal dispute, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason rejected a request for a preliminary injunction, allowing the state to enforce its regulations as the case progressed.

Already this year, enforcement officers from the Division of Agriculture and Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office have seized products from three businesses in Anchorage and one in Fairbanks.

Trevor Haynes, president of the Alaska Marijuana Industry Association and manager of a Fairbanks marijuana business, said that while the association has issues with the way the state is regulating hemp, it’s good that the state’s regulations for intoxicating hemp products were preserved in court.

“That is one way to stop the development of a gray area where people will … basically sell marijuana under the guise of hemp,” he said.

He was critical of the state’s decision to require hemp retailers to sell products that contain absolutely no psychoactive substances. Removing all traces requires costly, specialized equipment and generally isn’t economically feasible for small-scale Alaska businesses.

“I have a business that’s purely a hemp business and so I understand it from both sides. It’s unfortunate, and there might be a better solution, but (the regulations are) certainly a way to ensure that there’s no gray area where intoxicating hemp, aka marijuana under another name, can be produced in the state and sold in the state.”

To help pull the struggling Alaska seafood industry out of its tailspin, state lawmakers passed some bills aimed at lightening the financial load on harvesters and advanced others that are intended to help businesses and fishery-dependent municipalities.

The bills stemmed from recommendations made by the Joint Legislative Task Force Evaluating Alaska’s Seafood Industry, which was created by lawmakers last year and which completed its work with a report at the start of this year’s session.

Lawmakers passed two task force-related bills, giving unanimous or near-unanimous support. One of them, House Bill 116, allows Alaska fishing organizations to establish their own insurance cooperatives. The other bill, Senate Bill 156, shores up the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank with a long-term loan from the state to keep the cooperative organization in business.

The bills pose little to no costs to the state, according to legislative analysis. And they are only incremental steps toward addressing the big problems facing a major Alaska industry.

Multiple and often interrelated forces have dragged down nearly all sectors of the seafood industry: low fish prices resulting from glutted world markets, high operating costs, financial turmoil among processing companies, labor shortages and numerous stock collapses or poor returns tied to a variety of environmental conditions, including climate change.

While Alaska produces about 60% of the nation’s seafood, that volume is overwhelmed by international supplies and global economic forces, limiting lawmakers’ options to respond effectively, said Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau.

“Our role is not as big as we imagine. That means the Legislature has only so many tools,” said Kiehl, who served on the task force. “But you see us, I think, turning the knobs.”

Beyond the bills passed this year, other bills resulting from the task force recommendations have advanced far enough to be approaching full floor votes; the Legislature works in two-year cycles, and bills introduced this year carry over to next year.

Those remaining seafood task force bills carry price tags for the state, however. They will get some extra scrutiny next year, given the state’s dire fiscal condition created by reduced investment earnings and lower oil revenues, task force members said.

“We are in new and unusual times where, you know, we have to look at every issue and try to decide if it’s worth the additional cost,” said Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, who served as the task force’s chair.

One bill, Senate Bill 135, would increase local governments’ share of seafood taxes that are currently split with the state government. Currently, fishery business and seafood tax revenues are split evenly between the state and local governments; the bill would allow the local governments up to 75% of those revenues.

Some fishing communities endured steep losses from the industry’s woes. The island community of St. Paul, for example, saw a drop of nearly 90% of its tax revenue in 2024 after key crab harvests were canceled, according to legislative information.

To Stevens, the sacrifice of state revenue through a smaller cut of fish taxes seems justified. Local governments’ troubles are likely to continue, he said. “I think that it’ll be even more apparent that we need to give those fellows a break,” he said.

High hopes for value-added product development

Another important bill that resulted from the task force’s report would broaden the state tax credit granted to companies that invest in equipment to create new seafood products, adding value to the fish they process. The two versions of the measure, Senate Bill 130 and House Bill 129, both had been sent to their respective bodies’ finance committees prior to last week’s adjournment of the session.

The annual cost to the state would range from $930,000 to $4.2 million a year, depending on different scenarios, according to the state Department of Revenue’s analysis of the Senate version.

That might be seen as considerable, Stevens conceded. “But I think it’s a fair cost,” he said.

It could improve the fortunes of the processing sector and potentially result in more revenues ultimately to the state, he said.

Kiehl has high hopes for the bill. It will encourage the development of high-end products, key to the industry’s recovery, he said.

“As much as our seafood as we can put into a premium space, that will help,” he said.

Differentiating Alaska salmon, for example, as a premium product is critical when competition comes from huge amounts of cheap Russian salmon harvested by fish traps rather than by small family businesses, he said.

At the same time, there are opportunities for Alaska fish oil and fish meal to be molded into new products like nutritional supplements, Kiehl said. Those opportunities could be explored by companies investing in equipment to add value to the raw fish they process, he said.

The budget that lawmakers passed also reflects task force recommendations for boosted state marketing efforts. The budget includes a $10 million allocation for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, the state agency that promotes Alaska fish products domestically and internationally.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a similar amount from last year’s budget but has expressed support for the ASMI funding this year.

An estimated 70 percent of Alaska’s fish is sold outside of the United States, according to ASMI. To Kiehl, that shows the importance of the organization’s international marketing.

 

“I don’t see a point in the next several decades when Americans buy all of our fish,” he said. “Americans aren’t eating salmon roe or herring roe. Americans don’t eat sea cucumbers.”

State and federal budget concerns

Not in the budget, however, is any significant increase for Alaska Department of Fish and Game fishery research, Stevens said.

That may be possible in the future if the state manages to bring in more revenue through tools like changes in oil taxes, he said.

More ominously, the Trump administration has slashed positions and fisheries research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with potentially dramatic impacts to Alaska.

“That’s really shocking,” Stevens said. “I am really concerned when the federal government talks about cutting science and research and all the things that they do right now to protect our fisheries.”

The state cannot replicate that work by NOAA and its National Marine Fisheries Service, he said.

“The assumption that some people make, ‘Oh, the feds can’t do it, the state will,’ However, we don’t have the money to do all these things,” he said.

Beyond fisheries, Stevens worries about deep cuts to federal social programs like Medicaid. “It’s going to be an enormous problem, maybe $1 billion, that the feds walk away from. We can’t fill that gap.”

Other fishery-related bills in addition to those recommended by the task force are also pending.

One of them, House Bill 125, would reconfigure the state Board of Fisheries by designating two seats each to the commercial, sport and subsistence sectors, with the seventh seat to represent the science community. Sponsored by Rep. Nellie Jimmie, D-Toksook Bay, the passed the House on May 17 by a relatively close 22-17 vote. It now moves to the Senate.

A bill introduced by Dunleavy would expand ASMI’s authority, allowing it to market mariculture products. The idea has received a mixed response from the mariculture industry; some kelp harvesters are receptive, but many key shellfish growers oppose it. The Senate version of the measure, Senate Bill 131, had reached that body’s finance committee by early May. The bodies’ finance committees are usually the last stops for bills before they put up for floor votes. The House version, House Bill 135, had not seen action since March.

The three pieces of legislation that make up Alaska’s annual state budget are on Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s desk.

According to legislative records, the state’s operating, capital and mental health budgets were transmitted to the governor on Tuesday, giving the governor until June 19 to veto the bills or sign them into law.

The governor has the ability to use a line item veto to reduce or eliminate specific items within the budget, and Dunleavy has previously indicated that he may reduce funding for public schools below the amount prescribed by a formula in state law.

State legislators voted to raise that formula in the session’s last days, overriding Dunleavy’s decision to veto the bill containing a $700 increase to the base student allocation, the core of the state’s school funding formula.

If Dunleavy reduces education funding below what’s called for by the formula, it would be unprecedented and akin to former Gov. Bill Walker’s decision in 2016 to veto part of the Permanent Fund dividend: Since the education funding formula was created, every governor has followed the law.

Two policy bills also were transmitted to the governor on Tuesday.

The first, House Bill 75, cleans up some state laws pertaining to the Permanent Fund dividend and was uncontroversial in the House and Senate. The second, Senate Bill 183, would require the executive branch to deliver reports in the form requested by the Alaska Legislature’s auditor.

Under the Alaska Constitution, the Alaska Legislature has audit authority over the executive branch, but since 2019, lawmakers have been unable to analyze the performance of the section of the Alaska Department of Revenue that audits tax settlements with large oil companies.

Lawmakers say the Department of Revenue has switched policies and no longer provides a report that once allowed them to examine the section’s work.

Members of the department testified that they have turned over raw data, but the legislative auditor testified that her department lacks the information and capability to turn that data into actionable information on the state’s oil revenue.

The bill was transmitted to the governor’s office with a letter from the Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham and Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, asking Dunleavy not to veto it.

“This letter accompanies the bill not as a routine legislative communication, but as a reflection of the extraordinary nature of the circumstances we face,” it read. “The ongoing obstructions by the DOR must not be allowed to become a precedent for future administrations. We must reinforce, not erode, the norms of oversight and accountability that are vital to Alaska’s republican form of government.”

If Dunleavy does veto a bill, the Alaska Legislature is not expected to consider an override until January, when lawmakers reconvene in regular session.

A state judge has extended a restraining order that bars the Alaska Department of Fish and Game from killing bears in a controversial predator-control program.

Superior Court Judge Christina Rankin, in an order issued late Monday, said the department’s decision to shoot bears earlier this month in violation of a previous court ruling justified her decision to keep the temporary restraining order in place beyond the 10 days that is standard in Alaska law.

The department will be prohibited from conducting its planned bear cull in the Mulchatna caribou herd range until it corrects the legal flaws identified in a March 14 ruling issued by a different judge, Rankin said.

She rejected the state’s request to lift the restraining order and its argument that the prohibition was no longer needed.

“Despite the State’s stated intention of discontinuing its bear predator control measures this season, due to its prior position that it would continue bear abatement unless specifically enjoined, this Court thinks it is prudent to specifically state that the TRO will not expire after ten days and extends the TRO until further order of the Court or until the State obtains proper legal authority, consistent with the March 14 Order, and the May 7, 2025 Order,” she said in her order.

It is the latest development in a lawsuit filed in 2023 by the Alaska Wildlife Alliance that challenged the predator control program.

State officials say the program is needed to boost Mulchatna caribou herd numbers, and it must be conducted in spring and early summer, when newborn caribou calves are vulnerable to bear predation. But the Alaska Wildlife Alliance and other critics say the program lacks scientific validity and was put into place without proper public input.

Superior Court Judge Andrew Guidi ruled on March 14 that the department and the Alaska Board of Game had violated state constitutional requirements when approving and starting the program. He agreed with the Alaska Wildlife Alliance’s argument that public notice and opportunity for public input was inadequate. He also found that state officials violated the constitution’s mandate that replenishable resources be maintained for sustained yield, by failing to properly analyze the program’s impact on bear populations.

After Guidi’s ruling, and after Rankin ruled on May 7 that a Board of Game emergency regulation allowing the program to resume was legally void, the department restarted the bear culls on May 10 anyway.

Eleven brown bears and one wolf were killed that weekend, the department said. That toll added to the 175 brown bears, five black bears and 19 wolves that the state said were killed during 2023 and 2024.

That weekend action led to Rankin’s determination that the state had acted in “bad faith” and her decision to impose the temporary restraining order.

The Alaska Wildlife Alliance has also served notice that it may ask for the department to be held in civil contempt for its bear kills earlier in the month.

The Mulchatna caribou herd numbers about 15,000 animals, after hitting a peak size of about 200,000 in the 1990s, according to the department. The department’s goal is to have the herd expand to between 30,000 and 80,000 animals, big enough to support a hunt. Hunting of that caribou herd was closed in 2021.