Federal Government

A Washington state-based conservation group filed a lawsuit this week in an effort to speed up the federal government’s review of a proposal to list king salmon as threatened or endangered across the Gulf of Alaska.

The Wild Fish Conservancy filed its lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., saying that the National Marine Fisheries Service had missed a 12-month deadline under the Endangered Species Act to decide on the conservancy’s proposal to list Gulf of Alaska king salmon.

The conservancy, in its 17-page complaint, said it formally asked the service to list the king salmon in a petition Jan. 11, 2024, which gave the agency until Jan. 11, 2025, to respond. The lawsuit asks a judge to order the service to “promptly issue” its decision on the petition by a specific date.

“With the crisis facing Alaskan chinook, we are out of time and options,” Emma Helverson, Wild Fish Conservancy’s executive director, said in a prepared statement, using another name for king salmon. She added: “The Endangered Species Act sets clear deadlines for a reason, to evaluate the risk of extinction and trigger action while recovery is still possible.”

The conservancy’s press release announcing the lawsuit points to other listing proposals that the fisheries service had failed to act on within 12 months and described “systemic dysfunction” at the agency.

A top Alaska official at the fisheries service, Jon Kurland, said in a brief email Friday that the agency is “continuing to review the petition and to develop the required 12-month finding.”

The lawsuit to force action from the fisheries service is “fairly routine,” said Doug Vincent-Lang, fish and game commissioner for the state of Alaska, which has opposed the conservancy’s proposal and numerous other efforts to list species as endangered in Alaska.

Vincent-Lang said that the fisheries service is “working through the process” — if, perhaps, slowed by the change in presidential administrations — and that two state scientists have been given access to a team reviewing the petition, though they’re not voting members.

“I understand they’re getting closer to a decision,” he said. “I’d much rather have them take their time and have a deliberative process than to rush to a decision because of a statutory timeline.”

The conservancy has taken multiple actions in Alaska in recent years that have drawn sharp rebukes from the state’s elected officials and commercial fishermen.

Another lawsuit filed by the group with the intent of preserving salmon as prey for endangered Pacific Northwest orca whale populations threatened to close down Southeast Alaska’s small-boat troll fishery.

And Vincent-Lang has expressed concerns that, if the Endangered Species Act listing of Gulf of Alaska king salmon is approved, it could lead to sharp restrictions on harvests of the fish, as well as in other salmon fisheries that accidentally hook or harvest kings.

The conservancy says that Alaska king salmon are threatened by accidental harvest in trawl fisheries, and by fish hatcheries, habitat destruction, climate change and overfishing.

Libraries in Alaska may no longer be able to request books from out of state, or mail books and other media to Alaskans who don’t live near a library. 

Trump administration cuts to federal staff that distributes funding for libraries means has left funding for the state’s Interlibrary Loan services and the Alaska Library Extension program are uncertain after the end of June.

Juneau Public Libraries Director Catherine Melville said these programs mean people who live in small communities without libraries can still access library books.

“Alaska Library Extension fulfills the State of Alaska’s mission to make sure that everybody, no matter where you live in Alaska, you receive some form of library service,” she said. 

In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that heavily reduced the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the federal agency that funds museum and library programs across the country.

Since then, IMLS staff have been placed on leave. A federal judge has granted an injunction to pause Trump’s dismantling of IMLS, but Melville says there’s still uncertainty that Juneau’s libraries will receive the funding they were awarded. 

Three Juneau library staff positions that facilitate these programs would be cut in the absence of other funding, and losing those positions would mean a reduction in library hours. 

“We have no communication saying the money is coming, or even communication saying the money is not coming,” Melville said. “And because this program employs staff and operates year round, it’s not it’s not something that we can just pause or wait. I have to either be paying my staff or not.”

The library is asking the City and Borough of Juneau for $130,000 to compensate for how the potential funding losses would affect local library users. The federal uncertainty doesn’t prevent Alaska libraries from sending books to other libraries the state’s library consortium, but any requests for materials outside of that may be affected. Melville said she suspects cuts to IMLS will have broader impacts in Alaska in the long term.

Correction: This article has been corrected to reflect that Trump administration cut the staff that distributes federal funding to libraries, rather than the funding itself.

WASHINGTON — In an unusually quiet session, the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee passed a bill to mandate new oil lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and allow construction of the Ambler Road, crossing protected federal land in Northwest Alaska.

Lawmakers approved those items early Wednesday, as part of a budget reconciliation bill, with barely a peep from the Republican side of the room.

Democrats taunted. They fired off passionate assertions that usually get a rise out of the other side. They cajoled. They pleaded. Nothing they did could get Republicans on the committee to debate them.

Alaska Congressman Nick Begich III, like other Republicans, sat calmly scrolling on his phone or leafing through papers.

Republicans had a strategy, and they stuck with it.

Democrats tried to defeat portions of the bill with more than a hundred amendments. The first one would’ve removed the requirement to hold oil lease sales in the Arctic Refuge and killed any chance of ever drilling there.

“The Trump administration’s reckless and thoughtless push to sell off the refuge isn’t about lowering energy costs. It’s about sacrificing your public lands for his billionaire buddies, and that’s why I urge support for this amendment,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif. “We should be voting to permanently protect this special place rather than auctioning it off to the highest bidder.”

In response, Republicans said nothing. Although, as soon as Huffman yielded the mic, Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., made an announcement: Sandwiches were enroute.

“Soon we’ll have lunch in the back,” Westerman said. “We’re not going to recess for lunch, but if you want to go have lunch, you can go in the back room and have lunch.”

That’s how it went, through more than a hundred amendments, for hours at a time.

Democrats said Republicans wanted to avoid debating policy so that the bill wouldn’t get derailed in the Senate. A reconciliation bill is special because Senators can’t filibuster it, but to qualify, all the components have to be about revenue and spending.

The silent treatment had another benefit: The proceedings moved along faster. Still, it was after midnight when the committee passed the bill, by a vote of 26-17. One Democrat voted for it.

Alaska Congressman Nick Begich did not respond to an interview request but he claimed the win.

“This is a major victory for Alaska and for American energy independence,” he said in a statement emailed from his office.

At the U.S. Capitol, opponents of drilling in the refuge often cite the Gwich’in people, whose traditional culture depends on the caribou that give birth in the refuge. But oil development is more popular on the North Slope, in and near the refuge.

The bill “will advance Iñupiaq self-determination on our homelands and support economic development opportunities in our region that are crucial to sustaining our Indigenous culture,” said Nagruk Harcharek, president of a well-funded advocacy group called Voice of Arctic Iñupiat, by email.

Athan Manuel, the Sierra Club’s director of public land protection, has watched the House Resources Committee hold countless Arctic Refuge debates, many of them fiery, since 1998.

“This one feels weirder and worse,” he said.

Years ago, there were Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the debate. The Arctic Refuge fight didn’t entirely align with party labels.

Now, Manuel said, there’s less independent thought in Congress and more partisan dictates.

It was clear from the start, Manuel said, that all the Democratic amendments would fail. And they did.

In addition to the Arctic Refuge provisions, the bill mandates lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve and Cook Inlet.

The reconciliation bill is controversial for other reasons, and GOP unity might not hold in Congress. Some Republicans say they’ll vote no because the bill adds trillions to the deficit.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on Tuesday that it will defund a program that catalogs decades sea ice data in Alaska. Scientists say the program’s termination could create a gap in climate research at a time when polar ice is dwindling to historic lows.

Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy in Fairbanks, is among them. On Tuesday, just a couple hours after he got the news about the program cuts, he was taking a tour group past an art installation about sea ice at the International Arctic Research Center.

The installation is in a long hallway at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, covered with vertical stripes in shades of blue and red. Thoman explained that bluer stripes mean the temperature was cooler than the 100-plus year average, while red stripes were warmer than average.

At the end of the hallway, the stripes stop. The years from about 2000 until the present day blend together, forming a solid block of scarlet.

A guest asked Thoman what changed, and his answer was simple: less ice means higher temperatures.

“A lot of what’s driving this is the collapse of sea ice,” he said. “Both decreased extent and the thinning of sea ice — and, of course, increasing greenhouse gasses.

That long-term Arctic temperature data is safe, but the United States’ premier catalog of sea ice data — NOAA’s sea ice index — isn’t. The organization announced earlier this week that it will decommission the program, and the index stopped updating on May 6.

That development came as a shock to climate specialist Rick Thoman, but it comes after many other NOAA cuts this year. According to an internal budget document, the Trump administration is seeking to end nearly all of the agency’s climate research.

The termination of the index is one chapter in a long series of cuts the White House has made — or proposed — in recent months. February saw hundreds of probationary jobs slashed. And April saw a request for sweeping cuts to research funding.

It also follows an Alaska Climate Research Center report that said Arctic sea ice has been at or near record low levels since December, with 58,000 square miles fewer than the previous record low, which was set in 2017.

Scientists and barges left without a map

Hajo Eicken, director of the International Arctic Research Center at UAF, said the loss of the ice index could greatly impact the lives and livelihoods of coastal Alaskans. For example, it could make it harder for people to know the best time to schedule the barges that resupply communities off the road system.

“All of that type of activity relies on the sea ice information that gives you a sense of what’s normal,” Eicken said. “Like, what can we expect for a particular year?”

And Thoman said the scientific community will mourn the loss of the sea ice index, which he uses for his own research all the time. He said he used fresh ice data from the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas every day, which allowed him to track how things are changing relative to previous years.

Thoman said other global sea ice monitoring programs, like those in Europe and Japan, could pick up the slack. But the loss of the NOAA-funded sea ice index, which he calls “the gold standard,” will sting.

“When people ask me, ‘What does the sea ice concentration look like in the Bering Sea? What’s the ice extent now compared to last year in the short term?’ The answer is going to be: ‘We don’t know,'” he said.

NOAA officials did not respond to a request for comment by press time Wednesday.

The Juneau Assembly is considering a resolution in support of keeping the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area federally owned. It also urges the U.S. Forest Service to rehire recently fired workers there. 

The resolution comes as some congressional Republicans in other states consider selling off federal lands to pay for President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda. 

Juneau Visitor Industry Director Alix Pierce said city officials have heard about interest from private entities.

“We are aware of at least one. I’ve heard a rumor of a second private entity, that has expressed interest in taking over the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area,” she said. 

Pierce said Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski specifically asked Juneau’s city leaders for the resolution. Murkowski was not immediately available for comment.

The federal government is the largest landowner in Alaska, with 60% of the total area. The Mendenhall Glacier is one of Alaska’s most-visited tourist attractions. The U.S. Forest Service estimates more than 1 million people visited last year.

Discussions about selling federal public lands to private owners have been happening since Trump took office. On Tuesday, U.S. House Republicans approved an amendment authorizing the sale of federal public land in Nevada and Utah.

The Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area is currently managed by the Forest Service.

The Trump Administration’s mass federal firings left the glacier’s visitor center dramatically understaffed. Forest Service staff from other departments are maintaining summer operations. The Assembly is also considering a separate ordinance that would set aside $200,000 in city dollars to support staffing at the glacier. 

Some Assembly members, like Maureen Hall, were hesitant about the urgency of the resolution. 

“Anyone can say anything, but that seems like something that I wouldn’t think we’d need to be concerned about at this point,” she said. 

Pierce declined to say which private entities have expressed interest in taking over ownership of the recreation area. 

Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration has shown interest in taking ownership of the recreation area. So far, its attempts to do so have been unsuccessful. Last year, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by the State of Alaska in 2022 that sought ownership of the land beneath Mendenhall Lake and part of the river.

The Assembly will take up the resolution at an upcoming meeting on May 19. 

The executive director of the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council will resign following the board’s decision to cut diversity, equity and inclusion language from its website.  

The organization announced Monday that Phil Huebschen is leaving the nonprofit after two years.

“I found myself unable to authentically engage in implementing the decision of the board,” Huebschen told KTOO.

The board says its February decision to cut DEI language from the website is temporary, in the hopes that it would help the JAHC continue to receive federal grants. It comes in response to the Trump administration’s threat to cut funding to organizations that use DEI language in their programming. 

The board plans to rearticulate and restore the language at a later date. 

Several local arts and culture organizations have been impacted by canceled federal grant funding unrelated to DEI language. 

Huebschen said they understand the board’s decision. 

“Both options it was faced with were poor options, frankly,” Huebschen said. “One of them was to potentially lose critical funding for programs that are very strategically important for the JAHC, and the other was to just completely comply with federal directives, which is very much against our mission, our vision, our values, all of it.” 

The JAHC board released a statement Wednesday that explained its reason for removing the language, and said the decision wasn’t unanimous.  

“The very purpose of these directives from a federal level is to create lateral conflict,” the statement reads. “We understand experiencing anger surrounding these decisions, but do not want this to pit the JAHC against the communities we serve.”

Huebschen said that the federal grant funding in question makes up about 15% of the JAHC’s budget, and it’s not money that can be easily replaced. 

“I’ve heard people comparing the JAHC to Harvard – the JAHC does not have a $53.2 billion endowment,” they said. “We do not have a pillow of funding, flexible operational funding that can fill in that gap. So if that money were to go away, those programs disappear. And we cannot fund them.”

As of Wednesday, Huebschen said they don’t know if the nonprofit will get the grants anyway. Their last day as executive director will be May 14.