Alaska Beacon

Alaska would be on the same time zone as Seattle for four months of the year, if a bill passed Monday by the Alaska Senate becomes law.

The Senate voted 18-2 to pass Senate Bill 26, which would eliminate daylight saving time in Alaska and ask the federal government to put Alaska on Pacific Standard Time.

“Senate Bill 26 is a compromise that addresses long-standing frustrations with Alaska’s timekeeping system,” said Sen. Kelly Merrick, R-Eagle River and the bill’s sponsor. “This bill would permanently exempt Alaska from daylight saving time, keeping us on standard time year-round.”

If fully implemented, the bill would leave Alaska in the same time zone as Seattle from November through early March.

The rest of the year, it would be one hour behind that city, as Washington state observes daylight saving time. If Congress passes a bill allowing permanent daylight saving time, Alaska would return to being one hour behind Seattle permanently.

Merrick said her bill is supported by the state’s tourism trade association, as well as financial institutions, “because it keeps us within three or four hours of the stock market and financial center in New York.”

Daylight saving time has been a regular topic of conversation in the Alaska Legislature.

The Alaska Senate voted to request the elimination of daylight saving time in 2015, but the House failed to pass the bill.

No DST bill was introduced in 2017 or 2018, but since then, a daylight saving time bill has been introduced in either the House or Senate every year since 2019.

The bill goes in a different direction from Alaska’s neighbor, Yukon, which moved to permanent daylight time in 2020, leaving the territory geographically adjacent but two hours away, chronologically, from November through early March.

For a century, Alaska stretched over four time zones. That changed in 1983, when the state’s time zones were consolidated to two, with Yakutat being the only community that kept its previous time zone. The result means that in most parts of Alaska, the clock has little to do with the position of the sun in the sky.

Sen. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks, proposed a competing bill that would move Alaska to permanent Alaska Standard Time, but that idea stalled out in committee.

“I do believe that permanent standard time makes more sense for daylight. It’s more in sync for where we’re at. However, because we’re at such a high latitude, it matters a lot less,” he said, explaining that the amount of daylight changes rapidly throughout the year.

Kawasaki ended up voting for the bill.

“My main issue with time is that you have to reset your clocks twice, and that’s a big pain in the ass,” he said.

Sens. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, and Robert Myers, R-North Pole, shared his concerns about solar time but voted against the bill.

“I’ve opposed changing it numerous times over the years,” Stedman said.

“It just doesn’t work relative to sun time,” he said.

Myers said the bill has the potential to aggravate that problem.

“I am not a fan of the time zone change portion of that bill,” he said. “Most of Alaska … is already an hour off of where we should be solar time, and there are some studies out there dealing with both health and energy use that say we should stay close to solar time.”

“I really would love to see the federal government repeal daylight saving time across the board,” he said.

In April, President Donald Trump said he was open to the idea and urged Congress to pass a bill making daylight saving time permanent, thus eliminating the annual clock change.

That makes this the right time to pass SB 26, Merrick said.

“Having the federal administration on board greatly increases our chances of successfully  eliminating daylight saving time,” she said. “I know sometimes change is hard, but SB 26 will keep us from having to change our clocks, at least.”

President Donald Trump has endorsed incumbent Rep. Nick Begich III, R-Alaska, for reelection.

In a social media post Thursday afternoon, Trump said Begich “is doing an incredible job representing the Great People of Alaska, a State I love, and WON BIG THREE TIMES, in 2016, 2020, and 2024!”

Begich responded by posting a social media message of his own, thanking Trump for his support.

“Together we are working to Unlock Alaska’s FULL potential!” Begich wrote.

In the 2024 U.S. House election, Begich was Trump’s second choice. He initially supported Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, but when Dahlstrom withdrew from the race after finishing third in the primary election, Trump switched to Begich.

In 2024, Begich defeated incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, by 7,876 votes out of 321,846 counted, or 2.44 percentage points.

Begich is the only candidate who has formally indicated his intent to run for Alaska’s seat in the 2026 election so far.

The national Democratic Party has named Alaska as one of its top targets for the 2026 election, but no candidates have yet signed up to challenge Begich.

Campaign finance documents published by the Federal Elections Commission show Peltola as a candidate, but that is incorrect; Peltola has $20,794.30 remaining from her 2024 election run.

Begich raised more than $800,000 during the first quarter of 2025 for his reelection campaign, with much of the money coming from Republican-aligned political committees. Jeffery Hildebrand, the billionaire owner of oil and gas firm Hilcorp, also was a major contributor.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which is supporting Begich’s reelection, said in a statement that the Trump endorsement and Begich’s fundraising shows his “growing momentum” for 2026.

Under Alaska’s elections system, all candidates run in the same primary election, and the top four vote-getters advance to the general election, where a winner is chosen by ranked choice voting.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game does not have the right to carry out a controversial plan to kill bears this spring, at least for now, a state judge has ruled.

Superior Court Judge Christina Rankin found that the department’s predator control program, aimed at boosting a caribou population that has declined dramatically since the 1990s, remains unconstitutional, despite an Alaska Board of Game emergency authorization for the bear-killing to resume.

Through the program, which began in the spring of 2023 after the board first authorized it in 2022, the department has killed 175 brown bears, five black bears and 19 wolves.

Rankin’s order, released late Wednesday, was in response to a request by the Alaska Wildlife Alliance for a restraining order barring the department from carrying out this year’s predator control. The department had planned to start culling bears this weekend.

A restraining order is not needed because the program is already legally invalid, under a ruling issued by Superior Court Judge Andrew Guidi on March 14, Rankin said.

Neither the Department of Fish and Game’s March 21 petition for an emergency nor the Board of Game’s March 27 approval of the emergency changed the fact that there is an existing court ruling that the predator control program violates the constitution, Rankin said.

The state has not satisfied the requirements in Guidi’s order for adequate public notice and analysis of the predator control program’s impact on the bear population, Rankin said. Because of that, “the Court specifically finds that the requirements of the Order have not been met and are still binding on the State,” she said.

Critics of the state’s program argue that bears are not to blame for the Mulchatna Caribou Herd’s decline. They point to numerous other factors, including a changing habitat in which tundra vegetation favorable to caribou has been replaced by woody plants favorable to moose.

They also argue that the predator control program poses a threat to bear populations, including those that roam through Katmai National Park and Preserve.

The Alaska Wildlife Alliance sued the state in 2023 to block the program, and that lawsuit resulted in Guidi’s March ruling.

On Thursday, the alliance counted Rankin’s ruling as a victory, even though it did not result in a restraining order blocking the state’s plans to start roving bears on Sunday.

“The Superior court ruled that the existing predator control program was unlawful, which means that the State poached almost 200 bears over the past few years, including dozens of cubs, from planes and helicopters,” Nicole Schmitt, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. “Instead of remedying those legalities, the State and the Board tried to skirt the public process again. We’re grateful the Court saw this process for what it was: an attempt to run-around a Court order without meaningful engagement from the public.”

In their petition to the Board of Game for emergency authorization, state officials argued that they were under a time crunch to remove bears from the caribou herd’s range.

The bear culling has to be conducted during the spring and early summer, the time when caribou are giving birth to calves on which the bears might prey, department officials argued in their petition and at the March Board of Game meeting.

But Rankin, in a hearing Tuesday, expressed skepticism about the justification for the emergency finding.

She peppered Kimberly Del Frate, an assistant attorney general for the state, with questions about how the emergency action would not be seen as an end run around Guidi’s ruling.

“I know it’s a hard fact, but you need to just admit it: The emergency was created because you lost with Judge Guidi. You wouldn’t have needed to do it if you didn’t have this decision,” Rankin told Del Frate.

Department of Fish and Game officials did not provide information Thursday on their plans now for predator control in the Mulchatna area. The department was still evaluating Rankin’s decision, a spokesperson said.

Joe Geldhof, one of the attorneys representing the organization, said he fears that state officials will carry out their predatory control program in defiance of the ruling.

He and fellow attorney Joel Bennett, a former Board of Game member, see parallels with the Trump administration’s defiance of court rulings.

To try to bolster the case against the bear-killing program – and potentially give Rankin legal grounds to issue a restraining order against the Department of Fish and Game — Geldhof and Bennett on Wednesday filed an amended complaint that adds the Board of Game’s emergency authorization to the list of state actions that they want to overturn.

Both chambers of the Alaska Legislature have approved a resolution stating its support for Canadian independence and opposing “restrictive trade measures or tolls” that would affect commerce between Alaska and Canada.

House Joint Resolution 11, which would be sent to President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and other top officials in both countries, implicitly rejects Trump’s call to make Canada the 51st state in the United States.

“Alaska recognizes the importance of a strong and sovereign nation of Canada and firmly supports Canada’s right to self-determination, national security, and economic independence,” the resolution states in part.

The Alaska Senate approved that language in a 13-6 vote on Monday with one lawmaker excused absent. The state House voted 33-4 on March 24 to approve a slightly different version.

Resolutions are statements of opinion by the Legislature and not subject to a governor’s veto.

The resolution will return to the House for a concurrence vote before becoming final.

Rep. Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage and the resolution’s sponsor, said he believes there is good support in the House for the amended language.

The Senate’s vote came a day before Trump met Carney at the White House and declined to back down from claims that Canada should be “the 51st state.”

The Trump administration has prepared a large number of tariffs against Canadian imports, and the Canadian government has preemptively enacted retaliatory measures.

In British Columbia, the government has introduced legislation that could lead to tolls on traffic traveling between Alaska and the Lower 48.

In floor debate, Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, noted the amount of trade that goes across the border between Alaska and Canada.

“The purpose of HJR 11 is to remind Alaskans that we have an important relationship with Canadians, those shared values of Arctic partners, our relationship as good neighbors, and keeping our partnership with Canada alive isn’t just good policy, it’s critical to the way we live,” she said.

Parts of Alaska are unconnected to each other without a trip through Canada. Fresh produce, dairy products and other perishable goods are shipped to Alaska via Canada.

Alaska Natives and Canadian First Nations are connected across the border, the resolution notes, and even the region’s sports teams compete together. The resolution observes that curling teams in Whitehorse and Fairbanks have been playing against each other for decades.

All of the votes against the resolution came from members of the Senate’s Republican minority caucus.

Senate Minority Leader Mike Shower, R-Wasilla, alleged that the resolution is more about speaking against Trump than speaking in support of Canada. The resolution “is kind of a slap in a certain direction,” he said.

He suggested that if Alaska is serious about improving relations with Canada, it should consider reviving the state’s liaison program, which used to have an Alaska delegate communicating with Canada and a Canadian in Alaska to work on cross-border issues.

Sen. Mike Cronk, R-Tok, represents a broad district that abuts the Canadian border along the Alaska Highway. He supports Trump and opposed the resolution.

“This really doesn’t change anything,” he said of the resolution. “We still respect each other, we still support each other, and the resolution is not going to change that.”

“It’s just poking at Trump,” said Sen. James Kaufman, R-Anchorage, after the vote.

He said Canada isn’t pulling its weight in NATO, and that’s reason for concern.

“If you look at their contributions to defense, they’re lagging way behind,” he said.

Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, represents northern Southeast Alaska, including the towns of Skagway and Haines, which are connected by road to Canada but not to the rest of Alaska.

“My constituents are asking for it,” he said of the resolution.

“When there are conflicts going on, when someone else has issues, and it starts to impact the relationships we do have, have long had, it’s worth it for us to reaffirm those relationships, to reach back out and say the close ties we’ve always had are good. We should continue them, because there’s real damage going on right now,” he said.

He gave an example: Over the winter, a restaurant in Haines burned down. Its owner later told Kiehl that they had good news from their insurance company and would get a full payout.

“I said, ‘Wonderful. Are you going to rebuild?’ And the answer was, ‘No.’” Kiehl said.

The owner said that customers from Canada had represented a significant portion of their income, and with Canadians shunning Alaska, it wasn’t worth reopening.

Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, represents the town of Hyder, which is almost split in two by the Canadian border. Hyder’s children go to school in Stewart, British Columbia. Its residents shop in Stewart.

He voted in support of the resolution and said that “the boys in Washington, D.C.,” might be seeing problems with Canada, but he’s not.

“We’re not having problems with our border here,” he said.

In an emailed statement, Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai congratulated the Alaska Legislature for its action.

“The Yukon and Alaska benefit from strong people-to-people connections, close economic ties, and a shared appreciation for the realities of life in the North. Yukoners appreciate the efforts by the Alaska legislature to ensure that these important cross-border connections are understood by federal leaders on both sides of the Canada-US border,” he wrote.

“While Canadians will always stand up for our sovereignty, our economy, and our way of life, we hope that Americans will continue to come visit the Yukon and experience all that our incredible territory has to offer.”

Murray Lundberg, a Yukon resident and member of the Order of Yukon, is an outspoken critic of Trump on social media and said the resolution is unlikely to help matters because Canadians remain scared of their treatment by American border guards.

“It’s not a minority opinion, and I don’t know why it’s not being mentioned more. People are soft-pedaling around this, and it’s a big issue,” he said.

In March, a Yukon-born woman was imprisoned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for two weeks in squalid facilities before being released with no charges filed.

“I love visiting Skagway and Haines, but you know, it’s just not going to happen,” Lundberg said.

“Friends do not convince friends to put themselves in a dangerous situation. So I really object to (messages like the resolution) because that’s what it is. That’s not what a friend would do.”

Former Republican state Sen. Click Bishop of Fairbanks and Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom are running for governor.

On Monday, Bishop filed a letter of intent with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, an act that signals his readiness to begin raising money for the 2026 election. Hours later, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom filed a similar letter of intent.

Incumbent Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited and unable to run for reelection in 2026. Bishop was the first person to formally launch a campaign in next year’s governor’s race.

“I got bib No. 1 coming out of the starting chute,” Bishop said. “I just hope that we can maintain that through to the election.”

Dahlstrom did not answer a call on her listed number or immediately respond to a voicemail message seeking comment.

Dahlstrom, 67, has been Alaska’s lieutenant governor since replacing Kevin Meyer in 2022. A resident of Eagle River, she ran for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat in 2024 but withdrew from that race after finishing third in the primary election. That decision helped consolidate Republican support behind the eventual winner, Republican Nick Begich.

Bishop, who served 11 years in the Alaska Senate, often as a member of a bipartisan coalition, declined to run for reelection in 2024. At the time, he said he was not done with public service, a comment that was widely interpreted to mean that Bishop was taking a break before running for statewide office.

“People have mentioned it over — about the last eight years, ‘Man, we think you’d make a great governor.’ And of course, your friends are going to tell you that, and they’re sincere. I don’t mean that in a flippant way. And, I got to thinking … (I’m) going to be 68 in July, and I think that if I’m going to do it, now is the time to do it,” he said.

Alaska’s next governor is likely to face immense challenges. The state’s budget is expected to be in deficit, and lawmakers are predicting that they will seek to tap the state’s main savings account next year, possibly leaving the incoming governor with few financial levers.

The state’s public schools are performing poorly by national testing standards, its population has plateaued for more than a decade, its violent crime rate is among the worst in the nation, and it has a large problem with homelessness.

In the Senate, Bishop governed as a moderate, willing to work across party lines while representing his district.

Asked if he governs like U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, he said, “I think that’s it. I don’t get mad and take all my toys home because I don’t get my way. I mean, you have to continue to work with people. … If somebody’s wanting an incendiary bomb-thrower, I’m not that person.”

While in the Senate, he proposed a per-person tax to benefit schools and an increase in the state’s lowest-in-the-nation gas tax. Neither proposal became law. He was able to create a statewide education lottery system based around the Permanent Fund dividend.

Monday’s filings are unusually early by historical standards. When Dunleavy applied for the 2018 governor’s race, he filed a letter of intent in July 2017. Ahead of the 2022 election, the three leading candidates all filed letters of intent in August 2021.

The 2026 governor’s race is expected to feature a crowded field of candidates. It will be the first time since 2002 that an incumbent governor is not on the ballot.

“I don’t know — you might see a dozen (candidates),” Bishop said when asked how many people he expects to enter the race.

Under Alaska’s election system, governor and lieutenant governor candidates run together, on a single ticket.

Bishop said he’s thought about some names for his lieutenant governor, but he isn’t ready to make a decision.

“I will not commit to anything as far as lieutenant governor at this point; we’re a long ways off, but we’ll see how it goes,” he said.

He added that a bellwether for his campaign will be his ability to raise money.

Alaska currently has no limit on the amount of money that an individual can donate to a political campaign. In the 2022 governor’s race, the top two candidates each reported raising more than $2 million. The third raised more than $1.5 million.

“I know a lot of little people and big people, but we’ll see,” he said. “We’ll give ‘er our best shot. Now we’re going to see who was serious about me running or not serious about me running.”

Bishop owns a small gold mine in Interior Alaska and when reached on Monday said he plans to spend the next week working there before fully launching his campaign.

“We’re going to mine this summer, but we’ve got strategic events — listening sessions — over the course of the summer, but they will ramp up after freezeup,” he said.

“I’m just looking forward to seeing and meeting with the people of Alaska to hear them.”

On Friday, the Alaska Senate’s finance committee finished work on a draft state operating budget for the coming year and sent the draft ahead to a vote of the full Senate.

Senators are scheduled to begin debating amendments on Monday, with a vote on the draft expected later in the week.

The committee’s draft is $384 million less than a version passed by the House in April and $1.7 billion less than Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposal for the fiscal year that starts July 1 and runs through June 30, 2026.

Most of the cuts came from the 2025 Permanent Fund dividend. Dunleavy proposed a payout of about $3,900 per recipient, and the House reduced that to about $1,400. The Senate’s latest draft has it at $1,000.

The budget arrived in the finance committee with a substantial deficit, and it leaves with a surplus of between $100 million and $200 million, using only numbers in various budget bill drafts to date.

That surplus is almost certainly an illusion, the committee’s two leading members warned.

Sens. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, and Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, said that lawmakers next year are likely to face a significant deficit, somewhere between $300 million and $600 million at current estimates.

“We argue that this is sort of a transitional budget, getting prepared for the headwinds that we’re going to face,” Hoffman said.

The upcoming budget is based on a state forecast from March that predicts North Slope oil prices will average $68 per barrel in the coming fiscal year. Since that forecast was released, futures markets have plummeted, so much so that the Department of Revenue later approached the co-chairs with concerns, Hoffman said. When spending exceeds revenue, lawmakers must make up for it with a supplemental budget bill in the next legislative session.

“It may be as low as $64, which will mean a potential supplemental (bill), if that’s the case, of an additional $150 million, estimated,” Hoffman said.

On top of that are several large union contracts that remain under negotiation. Pay and benefit increases are expected after a salary survey found significant numbers of state employees are underpaid.

“They may be between $100 million and $300 million,” Hoffman said.

Then add the federal government programs cut because of DOGE, Hoffman said. That White House office has been slashing federal programs and spending. If the state were to lose 5% of its federal funding, keeping programs alive would cost as much as $300 million.

Then there’s fire season to consider, he added.

“If it’s higher than an average year, which may happen, we could see a substantial hit on the state’s coffers. So you know, I and others in the Senate are concerned,” Hoffman said.

He added that there’s yet another area of concern.

“We’re using north of $100 million in one-time funds in this year’s budget that aren’t going to be available next year,” Hoffman said. “So that is why we may have a gap of between $300 million and $600 million next year.”

Legislators have removed the possibility of closing the budget gap with new revenue — opposed by some key House members — or spending from savings, opposed by Senate leaders who say it wouldn’t be sustainable.

Stedman referred to the temporary budget surplus as a “buffer” that likely would be consumed by expected cost increases. “We’re a little cautious,” Stedman said.

Some of that buffer could be consumed later this year as members of the House negotiate with the Senate on a budget compromise that integrates parts of the Senate and House drafts.

Stedman said he hopes there will be few items added back into the budget.

“The fact of the matter is,” Hoffman said, “at some point, the message needs to be that we can’t continue as we are.”