Alaska Public Media

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration proposes to open nearly all of the oceans off Alaska to potential oil and gas drilling.

The draft offshore leasing plan includes the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska and other areas important to the fishing industry. It’s part of a national proposal that includes the entire coast of California, where drilling is fiercely unpopular.

“By moving forward with the development of a robust, forward-thinking leasing plan, we are ensuring that America’s offshore industry stays strong, our workers stay employed, and our nation remains energy dominant for decades to come,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in an emailed announcement.

The top Democrat on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Jared Huffman of California, pledged to fight, in court and in Congress. Huffman said it doesn’t make sense for Alaska either.

“I just think it’s incredibly reckless,” he said. “I mean, we know what the seafood economy means to the state of Alaska.”

The plan goes beyond what Alaska advocates of offshore development have favored in the past. In 2018, Alaska’s all-Republican delegation to Congress praised an offshore plan that included lease sales in Cook Inlet and the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. But they asked the first Trump administration to remove the Bering Sea and the Gulf from consideration.

The plan released Thursday is a “first analysis,” with two more planned before final approval. If it survives, the first lease sale would be in the Beaufort.

It’s not clear oil companies would be interested. Shell spent 10 years and $7 billion trying to drill there before giving up on offshore Arctic exploration.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s pick to be a federal judge in Alaska encountered no turbulence at his nomination hearing Wednesday in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Aaron C. Peterson is from Eagle River and is an assistant attorney general in the Alaska Department of Law’s natural resources section. He told the senators that an asset he’d bring to the U.S. District Court bench is extensive knowledge of Alaska-specific federal laws, including the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

“The deep familiarity that I have with those laws, with my history of litigating them, I think prepared me for many of the cases that will come before the District Court,” he said.

While he now works exclusively on civil cases now, he also worked as a municipal and state prosecutor for about eight years, which took him around the state.

Peterson got a law degree from Gonzaga University in 2010, is married to a math teacher and is a father of three. He said in documents submitted to the committee that he became a member of the conservative Federalist Society this year.

“He knows and understands our great state and the federal laws that reflect on Alaska,” Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said as he introduced Peterson at the hearing. “I think he will be a great federal judge.”

Sullivan mentioned the last nominee he supported for the federal bench in Alaska. Joshua Kindred (“not my first choice,” Sullivan added) was sworn in in 2020 but resigned in disgrace in 2024, after an investigation found he mistreated a law clerk, among other improprieties.

Sullivan said Peterson is the first nominee to be interviewed by the Alaska Federal Judiciary Council, an advisory committee the senator created that meets in private and vets potential nominees for him.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski favors the prior system for vetting federal judicial applicants. It starts with a poll of the Alaska Bar Association, to gauge the person’s reputation among fellow attorneys.

Peterson went through Sullivan’s vetting system but thanked both Alaska senators for their support.

He was among three nominees at Wednesday’s confirmation hearing. The others have higher-profile positions as U.S. attorneys in Arkansas and Texas and drew more scrutiny. Senators repeatedly asked Peterson to weigh in on constitutional questions only after the others had answered, leaving him little to say.

“Senator, again, I agree with my colleagues. I was only going to add separation of powers concerns, but Mr. Ganjei did that,” he said, referring to his fellow nominee at the hearing table.

The committee could vote on Peterson’s nomination next month and then send it to the full Senate for a vote.

A lawsuit from Alaska’s only Native reservation will proceed over the objections of other Southeast Alaska tribes. A federal judge last week declined a request from a coalition of tribes, including the largest in Southeast, to throw out Metlakatla Indian Community’s lawsuit challenging the state’s authority to regulate its fishermen.

Metlakatla Indian Community asserts in its five-year-old lawsuit that the state has no right to regulate the tribe’s fishermen. Its attorneys say that’s because when Congress created Metlakatla’s reservation in 1891, Congress implicitly included a federally guaranteed right to fish in nearby waters.

The state disagreed, saying Metlakatla members should be subject to the same rules governing the rest of Alaska’s fishermen. A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, though, sided with Metlakatla and sent the case back to U.S. District Court to determine where exactly Metlakatla’s members have the right to fish.

The case was headed for trial when a coalition of tribes, including the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, weighed in, arguing it should be dismissed outright.

“They felt this was something that should be resolved between the tribes and not by a federal judge,” attorney Richard Monkman said in an interview.

The tribes argued granting Metlakatla’s members the right to fish in waters near Ketchikan and Prince of Wales Island would violate their rights to their cultural property.

“We would analogize this to other cultural rights, like dances, stories, carvings, other types of rights that all sort of fall under the general category of at.oow, in the Lingít language, or cultural rights, which belong to the clans and belong to the houses within clans,” Monkman said.

Metlakatla’s attorneys, however, argued that the right to fish in those areas wasn’t legally protected — in part because of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Chris Lundberg is an attorney representing Metlakatla.

“With the exception of Metlakatla, all Alaska Natives participated in that act,” Lundberg said. “In exchange for releasing all claims to aboriginal rights-type claims and claims to land and fishing areas, the tribes received compensation.”

There’s still a long way to go, and it’s unclear when it might go to trial — for one thing, the state has filed a motion to end the case without a trial — but Lundberg said the decision from Judge Sharon Gleason puts the case back on track.

Metlakatla Indian Community Mayor Albert Smith said in an interview he was pleased with the decision and is optimistic about the road ahead.

“Now we are excited about getting back to the main issue: restoring the community’s reserved fishing rights,” he said.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House voted nearly unanimously to force the Justice Department to release documents and investigative materials on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Alaska’s lone member of the House, Republican Rep. Nick Begich, voted for the bill, too. And Begich said he would have voted yes even if President Trump was still urging Republicans to block it.

“The American people deserve transparency,” Begich said Tuesday, before the vote. “This (investigation) is a product of the taxpayers’ investment. A lot of money has gone in to investigate these crimes, and I think the people deserve to know what’s there.”

For months President Trump pressed Republicans to block the Epstein bill. That put House Republicans in a political bind: Should they follow Trump, or his MAGA followers, who voted for Trump in part because he promised to release the files?

Trump abruptly reversed course over the weekend and said Republicans should vote for it, releasing his House allies from their dilemma.

The Epstein bill goes next to the Senate, where one of the controversies is whether to make changes.

Begich said he agrees with House Speaker Mike Johnson that the bill needs to be amended, to allow the Justice Department to redact or withhold information to better protect victims and investigative methods.

“I think Leader (John) Thune in the Senate has provided some strong indications to House leadership that those will be addressed once this bill goes over to the Senate,” Begich said. “I think that’s important.”

House Democrats and the four Republicans who signed a discharge petition bringing the Epstein bill to a vote say the bill doesn’t need amendment. They say the bill already protects victim identities and investigative sources and methods.

Survivors of Epstein’s abuse cheered from the House gallery when the 427-1 vote was announced. Many House members turned to face the House gallery, applauding victims who spoke out and have campaigned to release the documents.

The cheers and applause was still underway as the clerk read the procedural rule for the next measures — to repeal Biden administration rules that put the brakes on oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and, to the west, in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

Last week marked one month since the remnants of Typhoon Halong devastated communities in Western Alaska with high winds and flooding.

The scale of the destruction in the remote, isolated region is still only starting to emerge.

As of Thursday, the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management reported that 471 homes sustained major damage. Another 208 were destroyed. Among the 3,472 homes surveyed across the affected area, only about a quarter made it through the storm undamaged.

The storm killed one person and left two more missing.

The Association of Village Council Presidents, a regional tribal government consortium, reported that more than 50 communities saw impacts from the storm, with more than a dozen reporting serious damage.

The damage, especially in the villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, led residents to evacuate in what the Alaska National Guard called the largest airlift in the state’s history. After rescuing 51 people in the storm’s immediate aftermath, first responders evacuated nearly the entire population of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok. More than 500 people are sheltering in hotels, and their long-term future remains in question.

Kipnuk

In Kipnuk, only the school and a handful of houses made it through the record flood in good shape. The vast majority of structures were damaged or destroyed — some 90%, according to the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.

James Paul is one of a small group of locals remaining in Kipnuk and working on the immense task of rebuilding. There have been some small wins, he said — for one thing, the local school, still serving as a hub for the relief effort, is also now connected to village electricity. Some street lights are even on.

“They have been making good progress every day,” he said in a phone interview earlier this month.

But there’s a lot left to do. The community’s water system is still offline, and most homes don’t have power.

Meanwhile, Paul said, aid is surging in. Cargo planes drop off heavy equipment and building supplies.

“Every agency and everybody that comes out here, I think has been really helpful,” he said. “They want to help, and I can’t say enough (about) all the help we’re getting.”

A staggering amount of aid has been flowing to the region from governments, nonprofits and the private sector.

But it likely won’t be enough for large numbers of residents to return this winter. Paul said his future is uncertain.

“I’m not sure about that,” he said. “I want to keep working as long as I can stay here.”

But another resident, Benjamin Kugtsun, said he had no plans to leave — at least, as long as they keep making progress.

“As long as we’ve got power from our power plant and some lights that can power up how we’ve been living, we’re not going to leave,” he said. “We’re going to stay here and work on Kipnuk — rebuilding Kipnuk.”

Kwigillingok

In another village devastated by the storm, Kwigillingok Tribal Resilience Coordinator Dustin Evon said there’s just too much damage.

“We feel like it’s not going to be habitable through the winter,” he said.

Locals and aid workers are keeping busy working to restore the homes that can be saved, Evon said, lifting homes back onto their foundations, replacing insulation soaked by the flood, restoring water and power and so on.

But once the sun goes down, he said, Kwig feels like a ghost town.

“It feels empty, and it’s not as lively as it used to be before the storm,” he said.

For now, the focus is on restoring homes in place, but the long-term future for the village is miles away. The tribe’s members voted in the weeks after the storm to officially relocate about 20 to 25 miles northeast to higher ground, Evon said.

“A lot have said that if a complete rebuild happens in Kwig, many don’t feel safe coming back,” Evon said.

But financing that relocation, which could cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, will be a challenge.

Bryan Fisher, director of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Management, said finding funding for relocation will take time. At a town hall meeting in Anchorage this week, he said that the emergency funding the communities have access to now can be used for rebuilding homes and infrastructure and making them more resilient. The relocation work will have to be addressed with different types of funding later on, he said.

“The programs that we have to respond and recover from Typhoon Halong in this disaster will not relocate the communities. They’re intended to repair and replace damaged infrastructure, homes, personal property, subsistence, gear and equipment from the storm,” he said. ” However, we will be working with all of the agencies and the councils to talk about what we can do to support your desire — if you have it — to relocate in the longer term.”

Fisher said he hoped the currently available aid funding would at least buy communities time.

Napakiak

The village of Napakiak was already working on relocation to a nearby bluff when Halong hit — what the local tribe calls a “managed retreat” from the eroding banks of the Kuskokwim River. And Walter Nelson, who coordinates that effort, said the vast majority of homes in Napakiak were flooded during Halong. Approximately a dozen residents have yet to return to their homes, he said.

“I’m 65 years old. I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “I’ve talked to our eldest elder. He’s never seen anything like this, the aftermath of Halong.”

Still, Nelson said he’s grateful the damage in Napakiak was not as severe as it was in Kipnuk and Kwigillingok. For now, crews are working to dry out flooded homes, replace insulation and restore heat, he said.

Nelson said the flood underscores just how urgent relocation is — and not just for his village.

“We can’t predict Mother Nature, and we can’t challenge her,” he said.

Tuntutuliak

Around 30 miles southwest, in Tuntutuliak, the most severe damage came in the low-lying part of town along the banks of Qinaq River. Twenty-six people evacuated, at least a dozen homes were knocked from their foundations, and large sections of boardwalk in the roadless community were ripped away by the storm surge. Elder Henry Lupie said that nearly all of the community’s traditional steam baths were flooded or displaced.

“We need steam house(s). We don’t have bath and showers readily available in homes,” Lupie said.

Lupie said most of the oil-fired heaters in the community have been repaired or replaced. He said the volunteer and agency-led efforts to tear out and replace wet insulation have made multiple homes livable through the winter.

Floodwaters destroyed numerous freezers full of subsistence foods, forcing residents to shift to winter harvests — ice fishing for lush and setting black fish traps, Lupie said. He said his son was among the first residents to harvest a moose under an emergency hunt opened by the state in early November, and that others are waiting for thicker ice to do the same.

“We’re just now cutting it up and passing it to the ones down in the lower village … and the ones from Kwigillingok, evacuees,” Lupie said.

Quinhagak

Further south, the Kuskokwim Bay community of Quinhagak dodged the worst effects of the storm.

“We are fortunate that our community was not devastated and acknowledge that the communities across the bay have a lot more needs than we do,” Mayor Jerilyn Kelly wrote by email.

Nevertheless, Quinhagak saw erosion of as much as 60 feet along miles of beach. The storm surge brought the shoreline closer to the community’s already threatened sewage lagoon. It also destroyed unexcavated portions of a nearby archaeological site, the largest known precontact Yup’ik site in Alaska.

Kelly said that 10 homes were damaged by the storm, and that multiple fish camps, drying racks, smokehouses, and boats were washed away by floodwaters. She said the community’s water intake line is still damaged and will need to be replaced after break-up.

Nightmute

Far to the northwest, at least 19 people evacuated after floodwaters inundated homes in the Nelson Island community of Nightmute, roughly 10 miles up the Toksook River, according to the National Guard. The flooding made the riverside community appear as if it were in the middle of the ocean, said Tribal Administrator Clement George.

A month later, rebuilding work is still underway, he said.

“We’re rebuilding houses, boardwalks are mostly rebuilt, repaired … I think there’s three homes to be demolished,” George said.

George said a contractor has finished constructing a temporary landfill on higher ground after the storm pushed water into the community’s landfill and sewage lagoon.

George said it’s the worst disaster he’s ever experienced. The nearby community of Toksook Bay saw the highest wind gust ever measured on Nelson Island, at 100 miles per hour. George said the level of erosion around Nightmute stands out.

“Some of the tundra is folded and the small creeks, they’re bigger than before,” George said.

At the nearby coastal subsistence camp of Umkumiut, dozens of structures were all but wiped out. The site holds deep cultural importance for many on Nelson Island, and according to George, provides as much as 75% of Nightmute’s subsistence needs.

Alaska has the highest percentage of veterans in the country, according to new economic data from the state Department of Labor. Roughly 59,000 residents are veterans, making up 8% of the state’s population. The national average is 5%.

State economist Dan Robinson said the military brings many service members to the state. He said many of them make Alaska home after they retire.

“A lot of people see Alaska and because there’s something about us that they like, they choose to stay here or come back here when their service is done. We also have a relatively high percentage of our population that enlists in the military,” he said.

The study describes a veteran as someone 18 or older who has served on active duty in the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, or Coast Guard, or in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II. Those who’ve served in the National Guard or reserves are only considered veterans if they were called or ordered to active duty, the study says.

Alaska has long had a higher share of veterans than any other state. More than 35% of veterans in the state are over the age of 65, according to the data. Almost a third are between 35 and 54 years old.

Montana, Wyoming and Maine also have large shares of veterans, while New York and New Jersey have the lowest rates. The data suggests there’s a lifestyle preference among veterans for a certain quality of life, Robinson said.

“Alaska would share a lot of those things with all three of those states: rural, hunting and fishing, natural beauty,” Robinson said.

“You look at the states at the other end, and you confirm that a little bit.”

Alaska’s veterans most commonly live in Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and the Fairbanks area.