Economy

Funding for a program subsidizing rural air travel is set to continue through early November despite the ongoing government shutdown, the U.S. Department of Transportation told airlines on Wednesday.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday that funding for the Essential Air Service program, the source of the subsidy, could lapse as soon as Oct. 12. That date has now been pushed back to Nov. 2, according to notice to air carriers from Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel Edwards.

“Air carriers must continue to fulfill their obligations under existing contracts unless or until the Department notifies air carriers otherwise,” the document reads.

Essential Air Service subsidies are meant to ensure small communities have access to air travel, even if commercial flights aren’t necessarily profitable. The program supports more than 170 routes in 34 states and Puerto Rico with grants that total nearly $600 million a year, according to an October report from the Transportation Department.

That includes 65 Alaska communities at a cost of $41.7 million per year, most of which are not connected to the road system.

“Of all of the Essential Air Service communities around the country, we are the ones that really define what it means when we say essential,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski said on the call-in program Talk of Alaska on Tuesday.

The extended deadline is a relief to airlines serving the state, Alaska Air Carriers Association head Will Day said in an interview.

“That’s hopeful, from an industry perspective. It gives time for the government to recover and appropriate those funds,” he said. “We’re cautiously hopeful that funding will be restored before Nov. 2, and business continues as usual.”

Even if funding does run out, some airlines serving Alaska communities say they’re not expecting disruptions, at least in the short term. But the impacts would be uneven, Day said.

Smaller airlines would face an especially difficult path forward. Day said a small carrier serving the Interior community of McGrath would be forced to nearly quadruple its fares for a one-way flight to or from Anchorage.

Alaska Airlines, which receives about 40% of the state’s total subsidy for routes serving Adak, Cordova, Yakutat, Gustavus, Petersburg and Wrangell, said Essential Air Service funding is “necessary to maintain this vital community service” in a statement from spokesperson Tim Thompson.

But flights would continue even if funding lapsed, he said.

“Despite this potential uncertainty, Alaska Airlines currently plans to continue operating reliable flights as scheduled while the federal government works to resolve the shutdown,” Thompson said.

In Southeast Alaska, Alaska Seaplanes Marketing Manager Andy Kline said the subsidies helped keep fares down but made up a relatively small portion of the smaller carrier’s overall revenue. The company receives some $2.1 million per year for routes from Juneau to Angoon, Kake, Tenakee Springs, Elfin Cove and Pelican.

“We are ‘steady as she goes’ with all of our regular deliveries and will be that way for the foreseeable future,” Kline said in an email.

Island Air Service, which receives $1.3 million yearly to operate 13 Essential Air Service routes from Kodiak, also plans to continue flying as scheduled through at least mid-November, co-owner and operations director Erik Howard said in an interview.

“We’re going to do our best to just kind of keep providing service to the Essential Air Service communities as best we can uninterrupted, and hopefully the government figures it out,” he said. “But if it does go more than a month, then we might have to reevaluate and see from there.”

The state’s second-largest Essential Air Service carrier, Grant Aviation, offered support for the program and said it was advocating for funding to be restored but did not say whether passengers should expect disruptions.

Day, with the Alaska Air Carriers Association, said he hoped the shutdown would be resolved ahead of the early November deadline.

“At this time, we’re just paying a lot of attention and hoping that things get resolved quickly,” he said. “Towards the end of the month, we’ll start to be more concerned.”

Democrats and Republicans each blame each other for the shutdown, which shows little sign of resolving anytime soon.

Republicans need 60 votes to pass a government funding bill through the Senate, which requires support from some Democrats. Democrats, meanwhile, have said they are not willing to end the shutdown without an extension to expiring health care subsidies, a rollback of some health care cuts included in President Donald Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and limits on the president’s power.

Alaska’s lone U.S. House member, Republican Rep. Nick Begich III, said Democrats were holding programs like Essential Air Service “hostage” and that their demands amounted to a “$1.5 trillion-dollar partisan spending spree.”

“The stark reality here is that this shutdown didn’t have to happen,” Begich said in a statement. “Republicans passed a clean, responsible bill to keep the government open and ensure programs like EAS continue uninterrupted.”

Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan also blamed the shutdown on Democrats and said in a statement that he was “actively working with the Secretary of Transportation and his team to ensure funding disruptions are avoided if at all possible.”

“I’m also pressing more of my Senate Democratic colleagues to come to their senses and quickly pass our clean, bipartisan continuing resolution to reopen the government and safeguard these and other vital programs that millions of Americans rely upon,” he said.

Murkowski offered support for negotiations to end the shutdown.

“We’re trying to figure out, can we get this off of dead center? Because there is no win, in my view, for either side. There is no win for anybody in a government shutdown,” she said.

Alaska Desk reporter Avery Ellfeldt contributed reporting.

Editor’s note: The graphics in this story were generated using an AI tool and verified by an editor and reporter. Alaska Public Media’s news team follows NPR’s ethics policy. You can find their AI section here.

On a dreary evening late last week, dozens of people packed into the back of the Haines Public Library. Before long, two attendees broke into a chant.

“No road! No road! No road!” they shouted.

Their words captured the tenor of the gathering, which centered around a controversial effort by the state of Alaska to study what it would take to build a road that would – at least in theory – better connect Juneau, Haines and Skagway.

The Department of Transportation and Public Facilities announced the study last spring, indicating that the plan was to assess options for the route along the west side of the Lynn Canal.

The agency organized last week’s open house-style event to provide information to the community and get feedback.

“We’re trying to show people what this project looks like, what potential benefits there are. We also want to understand everybody’s concerns,” said Greg Lockwood, DOT’s Southcoast region project manager.

Some locals have expressed support for the idea, noting that the state ferry system is unreliable and that a road could open up access for recreation and other purposes. But others are opposed, for a long list of reasons.

Attendee Shannon Donahue, who initiated the “no road” chant, is among them. In an interview, she said that as she sees it, it’s clear the state’s central goal is to “create roads to resources.”

“It’s unlikely that this whole thing is going to come to fruition,” Donahue said. “Pieces may come to fruition. Roads to logging, roads to mines, and you know, that can do a lot of damage.”

Others at the open house raised the same concern, particularly given that state officials recently unveiled plans to remove longstanding logging restrictions in the Haines State Forest and open up the entire area to logging. The potential west-side road would run through that forest and could provide better access for timber sales.

In a phone interview following the open house, DOT’s Lockwood said finding ways to partner with and benefit industry is an important part of the process. He added that the potential project “is just not purely a ferry terminal, and road to a ferry terminal.”

“If we can find added value, a freight dock, if we can find a way for mining trucks coming from the Yukon to use [a west side road] and stay out of town, or if there’s timber to be harvested, that would all be value added that would help support this roadway,” Lockwood said.

Critics of the idea have also raised concerns including the rugged terrain along the canal, which would complicate building a road and maintaining it, particularly during winter.

Other worries include implications for people traveling by ferry without a vehicle – and potential environmental impacts of the road itself.

“The Marine Highway is an excellent alternative,” said Sky Skiles, another attendee. “I think putting money into that to keep it in good shape is a better alternative than to cause so much damage to our environment.”

A new ferry terminal, route options

The idea of building a road between Juneau and Haines has been around for decades. But it’s never come to fruition, despite a smattering of earlier feasibility studies. This time around, the study will cost at least $1 million and is being carried out by DOWL LLC, a Washington-based consulting firm.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration says a road would create more cost-effective and efficient transportation for the region. That idea is that the road in Haines would reduce the length of ferry service between the two locations.

The contractor is studying two main route possibilities, which were illustrated in detail on maps set up during the event last week. Both rely on a yet-to-be-built ferry terminal at Cascade Point, about 30 miles north of Juneau.

The state signed an initial contract for that project this summer, a move that sparked criticism in the upper Lynn Canal but was welcomed by a mining company planning an ore shipping facility in the same location.

Under the first route option, travelers starting in Juneau would need first to travel from town to Cascade Point. From there, they would take a ferry across the canal to William Henry Bay, at which point they would drive north until they hit a bridge back into Haines.

In the second option, travelers would still need to get to Cascade Point and board a ferry. But the ferry would take them further north to Pyramid Harbor, near Haines. From there, they’d drive a much shorter distance to a bridge and then cross back into Haines.

Notably, neither option, as illustrated on maps, indicates how people would get to Skagway.

Lockwood, of DOT, emphasized that it’s still early days, and the agency is still purely gathering information.

“People need to understand this, this isn’t a done deal.” he said. “We haven’t made any decisions.”

The agency plans to have a draft report in December and a final version in January, which will be used to inform next steps. The public can ask for more information and provide feedback by emailing ChilkatConnector@dowl.com.

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Canagold representatives faced resistance from residents about their proposed New Polaris underground gold mine at an open house in Juneau last month. 

The mine site is a remote area where the Tulsequah River joins the Taku River in British Columbia, around 40 miles northeast of Juneau. As the mine goes through its environmental assessment across the border, some Alaskans feel they don’t have a meaningful say in the process. 

The Taku River runs through the traditional homelands of the T’aaḵu Kwáan. Butch Laiti is president of the Douglas Indian Association, which represents the T’aaḵu Kwáan. He said the tribe isn’t willing to gamble with the health of the river.

“We’re not gonna back down or give way, because there’s too much at stake here,” Laiti said. “If we lose the Taku, and then that’s it, it won’t come back. And that’s the bottom line, right there.”

The mine is projected to produce around 800,000 ounces of gold over about a decade. The project is part of a controversial wave of mining expansion in British Columbia upstream of the Taku, Stikine, and Unuk Rivers in Southeast Alaska.

Laiti said past mining projects in Canada set a precedent of damaging and neglecting the rivers that flow into Southeast. 

“I know you understand our nervousness, but a lot of that’s from the history of all the mining that comes out of BC,” Laiti said.

The Tulsequah Chief mine, located just across the river from the New Polaris site, was abandoned in 1957 and has been leaching unsafe levels of toxins, including aluminum, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury and zinc into the Taku River since. 

Canagold CEO Catalin Kilofliski said that the province is cleaning up the site, but it could take a decade. And he said it’s given mining a bad rap. 

“I think the issues you mentioned, unfortunately, that’s the legacy of mining,” Kilofliski said. This is the legacy we are faced with — miners too.” 

That legacy has continued. 

For instance, the Premier gold and silver mine in British Columbia was found responsible for releasing toxic materials into the Portland Canal Watershed for years near Hyder, Alaska, and was fined in March. Also this spring, the Red Chris copper mine in British Columbia was found to have leached heavy metals into the Stikine River Watershed. In September, the province fined that mine for failing to monitor the water. Last year, a failure at the Eagle gold mine in Yukon spilled cyanide into the Yukon River Basin. 

The state of Alaska signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with British Columbia a decade ago meant to keep Alaskans informed about water quality beneath existing mines and to engage them in the public process for developing new mines. But some Alaskans say it’s not enough to make sure they’re heard or to protect the waters they depend on. 

So far, almost all of the public comments submitted on New Polaris were written with concern for the lower reaches of the Taku River in Alaska. 

Heather Hardcastle has been fishing at the mouth of the Taku River since she was a kid, and said the mine could harm this essential salmon run. She’s a campaign advisor at SalmonState, a nonprofit that advocates for salmon habitat across borders, and said the provincial government isn’t required to take Alaskans’ concerns into consideration. 

“We still don’t have any kind of binding forum through which those of us downstream have any meaningful say in whether or not and how a mining project is developed,” Hardcastle said. 

The U.S. has a treaty with Canada called the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. It states that “waters flowing across the boundary shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other.” 

Despite pressure from Southeast cities and Alaska’s congressional delegation, the federal government has yet to raise the issue with the International Joint Commission, which is a framework for resolving issues under the treaty. 

Canadian officials are mandated to consult with Indigenous peoples on projects that could affect their territories. There’s an ongoing dispute about whether that mandate extends consultation to tribes across the border. 

Canagold signed an agreement with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, whose territory is on the Canada-side of the border, that it won’t build the mine without their consent. It’s unclear when the First Nation will decide. The Taku River Tlingit First Nation did not respond to requests for comment.

New Polaris is now going through Canada’s environmental assessment process. A representative from Canagold said mine construction could start in 2027 at the earliest. 

Bering Sea crabbers will see a boost in catch limits this season, after years of cancellations and small harvests due to low snow and king crab stocks.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Monday that it’s nearly doubling the harvest for the upcoming Bering Sea snow crab commercial fishing season from last year’s totals.

Fish and Game set the cap at 9.3 million pounds. That’s a low number compared to historic levels. In 1991, crabbers harvested more than 320 million pounds of snow crab.

The catch limit was set at 45 million pounds back in 2020, the year before the snow crab stock crashed. And the next year, the fishery closed for two seasons after more than 10 billion snow crabs disappeared from the region.

Researchers blamed warming waters from climate change for the crash.

Fish and Game now says survey results show increases in all sex and size groups compared to last year. Large males remain at historic lows, but the population is showing signs of stabilization and recovery after the recent collapse.

Officials said a return to colder ocean conditions and increased numbers, especially in juvenile crab, are reasons to be optimistic.

And for the first time, a portion of the harvest will be reserved for a hybrid snow-tanner crab. Those are crabs that share some characteristics of both snow and tanner crabs, like eye color and tooth shape.

Regulators said recent surveys show an “unprecedented” amount of the hybrid crab. To incentivize harvest of them, Fish and Game designated about 11% of the total snow crab catch to the snow-tanner mix. According to officials, the fleet will be encouraged to harvest about a million pounds of the hybrids from the “hybrid grounds.”

Meanwhile, Fish and Game also boosted the Bristol Bay red king crab catch limit by about 16% from last year, with a total harvest of about 2.7 million pounds. Tanner crab harvests more than doubled for the western district of the Bering Sea but dropped by almost 40% for the eastern area.

All of those fisheries open Oct. 15. The lucrative Bristol Bay red king crab has the highest priority harvest, as that fishery closes shortly after the new year. Snow and tanner crab both close in the spring.

President Donald Trump on Monday signed an order that overturns a decision by the Biden administration to cancel a 211-mile mining road through Alaska’s Brooks Range by denying a right-of-way permit.

The action removes a major hurdle for the project, but developers would still need to overcome lawsuits and opposition from environmental and tribal groups. They would also need approval from NANA and Doyon Ltd., two Alaska Native regional corporations who own land in the road’s path.

Ambler Road, planned by the state of Alaska’s development bank and supported by state officials and Alaska’s congressional delegation, would link the Dalton Highway with a mineral-rich region of northwest Alaska, providing access to the mining of rare minerals needed for batteries and high-technology manufacturing.

“It’s an economic gold mine, so to speak. I signed this years ago, and Biden un-signed it for me,” Trump told reporters on Monday at the White House.

Last year, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management concluded that the road would have a litany of negative impacts, and the Biden administration issued a record of decision saying that the best route for the project was no route at all.

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, Alaska’s state-owned investment bank and the road’s developer, sued the Biden administration, seeking a reversal.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, speaking at the White House on Monday, said the state of Alaska requested an appeal of that decision, and that under federal law, President Trump has the executive authority to make decisions on land use.

The appeal in question was filed by AIDEA under Section 1106 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980.

“This opens up a wealth of resources,” Burgum said, adding that the federal government will also take partial ownership of Trilogy Metals, one of several firms exploring for minerals in northwest Alaska.

As currently planned, the road would consist of a gravel strip stretching from the Dalton Highway almost to Kotzebue. It is envisioned as a toll road, with no public access, and the cost of construction would be paid for via fees levied on users, similar to the way the AIDEA-funded DeLong Mountain Transportation System provides a port for lead and zinc exported from the Red Dog Mine in northwest Alaska.

In a special late-September meeting, AIDEA’s board voted to authorize limited negotiations with landowners in the road’s path.

The road is expected to cross more than 10 miles of land owned by Doyon Ltd., the regional Alaska Native corporation for Interior Alaska.

To date, that corporation hasn’t expressed official support or opposition for the road. Sarah Obed, senior vice president of external affairs for Doyon, said by email that Monday’s announcement was “not a surprise to Doyon” because of a different executive order signed earlier this year.

NANA Regional Corp. owns more than 20 miles of land in the path of the road. In a written statement, NANA President and CEO John Lincoln said the company “appreciates the Trump Administration and Governor Dunleavy’s support for economic development in Alaska and their work towards stabilizing the federal permitting process” but he declined to express support for the road.

In 2024, NANA ended its involvement with the road process, citing concerns about the way the project was being managed.

Lincoln said that still stands: “Our position on the Ambler Access Project has not changed and will only be reconsidered if and when our established criteria are satisfied, in consultation with shareholders, local communities, and other stakeholders.”

Trump’s action on Monday restores a federal right-of-way grant issued in 2021, at the end of the first Trump administration. It also requires federal agencies to issue clean-water permits and other approvals needed for the road.

A lawsuit challenging the 2021 right-of-way grant remains open in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. Attorney Bridget Psarianos with the non-profit law firm Trustees for Alaska is one of the attorneys challenging that right-of-way.

By phone, she said she hasn’t ever seen a president use the authority that Trump did on Monday.

“He’s wielding this presidential power like a cudgel, including to overturn decisions that his own agencies have made and provided good reasons for,” she said.

Several dozen communities and Alaska Native tribes in Interior Alaska have opposed the road to date.

“I think it’s also just important to remember that there’s widespread opposition to this road in Alaska and by local communities, and the reason the alums said no to this was because they found that there would be significant impacts to subsistence and to communities and their health along the road corridor,” Psarianos  said.

Athan Manuel, director of the environmental non-profit Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program, offered similar thoughts in a written statement. “This order ignores those voices in favor of corporate polluters. The Ambler Road will lead to significant harm to fragile Alaskan landscapes and the local communities and wildlife that rely on them,” he said.

Most of the road’s path is on land owned or controlled by the state of Alaska; an easement allowing the road remains under consideration by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, but approval is expected.

In a statement published after Trump’s announcement on Monday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy thanked the president for his action, saying, “this decision will unleash development opportunities, create new jobs for Alaskans and secure access to strategic minerals.”

Similarly, all three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation expressed support for Trump’s decision.

“By advancing this access, we are creating new opportunities for Alaskans while strengthening America’s supply chain and reducing dependence on foreign adversaries for our critical mineral needs,” said U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska. “I applaud the President’s decision to support this appeal, and I look forward to working with the Administration, state leaders, and Alaska Native communities to ensure this project moves forward in a way that benefits all Alaskans.”

U.S. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan also thanked the president for his action.

“The President’s re-approval will unlock a world-class mining district, deliver quality-of-life benefits for communities in the region, and help grow Alaska’s economy. It will also improve our national security by strengthening our mineral security and enabling us to produce more of our most important resources here at home,” Murkowski said.

Sullivan said, “I’m glad to see another critically important project for our state’s economy and working families being put back on track.”

Haines might soon join communities across Southeast Alaska that have tweaked their tax policies to shift the local tax burden off year-round residents and onto tourists.

Voters this week will consider a ballot measure that would increase sales tax during the summer, when visitors flock to town, and reduce the rate in winter. Sweetening the deal is a provision that would exempt groceries from sales tax entirely during the winter months.

“Over the course of a year the visitors and seasonal residents will pay more and year-round residents (depending on who they are and what they buy when) should pay less or the same as they do now,” Haines Borough Finance Director Jila Stuart said in an email on Thursday.

Local sales tax in Haines is currently set at 5.5%. If the measure passes, it would boost the rate to 7% between April and the end of September. The rate would fall to 4.5% for the rest of the year – excluding groceries, which would not be subject to sales tax at all in winter.

The goal is to raise funds for two key purposes: school funding and road improvements.

“I think it’s an agreeable enough deal, in so much as folks will get 5.5% off groceries all winter long, and they’ll get 1% off everything else,” Haines Mayor Tom Morphet said in an interview this week.

Morphet has been a major proponent of the provision, which is modeled after versions adopted in communities across Southeast. Among them are Craig, Pelican, Seldovia, Ketchikan, Sitka and Skagway – Haines’ closest neighbor.

Each seasonal sales tax looks slightly different. But the goal generally speaking is to take advantage of the busy summer season to generate local tax revenue.

Consumers in Skagway for instance, currently pay a 5% sales tax in the summer and 3% in the winter. But that could soon change. On the Skagway ballot this year is a measure that would boost summer sales tax by another 2%. In exchange, the borough would waive local utility fees.

Juneau voters, for their part, will soon weigh in on their own seasonal sales tax proposal, which would bump sales tax from 5% to 7.5% in the summer and drop it to 3% during winter.

Morphet has done a handful of public presentations about the tax. He said he has heard some concerns, including extra administrative costs for businesses, and that the tax could discourage people from shopping in Haines.

All told, the tax is expected to generate about $280 thousand dollars – which amounts to a 6% boost to local sales tax revenue, according to the borough.

Morphet acknowledged that 6% is an “incremental” figure. But he emphasized it’s still a crucial sum given that the borough is grappling with a $1 million budget deficit that he says has to be made up somewhere.

The deficit is due in part to federal funding cuts and a senior tax exemption passed by voters last year. But it also resulted from the borough needing to kick in more than half a million dollars more for the school this year compared to last, to make up for insufficient state funding.

That’s a challenge facing communities across Alaska.

“Communities are responding by adopting a seasonal sales tax,” Morphet said. “In Craig, the seasonal sales tax goes entirely to the school. And you know, until we have a new governor, our hands are going to be tied.”

If passed, the Haines borough expects that year-round residents would spend roughly the same amount in sales tax that they currently do.

Someone who spends $30,000 per year on taxable goods and services – $7,000 of which is groceries – would spend about $80 less on tax under the new structure, according to a borough fact sheet.

That could look different depending on the person. The math might not pencil out as well for someone who spends a lot on gasoline in the summer, for instance, as opposed to groceries.