Politics

On a typical day at Bluff Point Golf Resort in Plattsburgh, N.Y., you used to be able to spot around 20 or 30 cars from Quebec or Ontario in the parking lot, according to owner Paul Dame.

But over the last several months, at the business just 25 minutes from the U.S.-Canada border, it has been more like one or two cars.

“It’s tough, because we’ve developed this relationship with the cross-border economy,” Dame said. “And now here we are, the rug getting pulled out from underneath us.”

New data confirms that far fewer Canadians are making trips south. Canadian residents made just 1.7 million return trips by motor vehicle back into their country from the U.S. in July, a nearly 37% drop from the same month in 2024, according to a report published this month by Statistics Canada.

The dip comes as relations are strained between the U.S. and Canada after President Trump vowed to make Canada a U.S. state earlier this year and imposed steep tariffs on his northern neighbor. Some worried that the tough political rhetoric — combined with a strong U.S. dollar — would damage an important source of U.S. tourism.

Data released by the U.S. government confirms a similar slide in Canadian travel. Canadians made just over 7 million visits to the U.S. between January and May, according to statistics published by the International Trade Administration. That’s a nearly 17% decrease compared with the same period in 2024, data shows.

The U.S. Travel Association said in an emailed statement to NPR that its “latest view continues to show a decline in travel from Canadian residents to the United States, consistent with the recent Canadian data released.”

Leah Mueller, vice president of sales and services at Visit Buffalo Niagara, said tourism companies in her region have been feeling the impact of a drop in Canadian travel too, from smaller tour groups to tour boats with fewer passengers.

“It’s a decline that’s not stopping things from happening, but it is affecting the revenue that people are collecting,” she said.

The U.S. saw 20.4 million visits from Canadians last year, making Canada the top source of international tourists to the United States, the U.S. Travel Association reported. The group said in February that those visits generated $20.5 billion in spending and supported 140,000 U.S. jobs.

There have been some efforts to soften the blow of the tourism slump.

In June, Maine Gov. Janet Mills made an official visit to Canada to urge Canadians to visit her border state. Maine, which saw nearly 800,000 Canadian visits in 2024, also installed new road signs welcoming travelers from the north, reading: “Bienvenue, Canadiens!”

Dame, the golf resort owner, said he has redirected some of his marketing efforts to other parts of New York and Vermont. But he said he hopes the U.S. and Canada can repair their relationship, and in the meantime he doesn’t blame his longtime Canadian customers for skipping their trips following the political attacks.

“It’s a very personal situation. They’ve been attacked personally, and it’s emotional,” he said. “It’s something that we would react [to] the same way if the opposite was happening to us.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday canceled projects worth nearly $500 million for vaccine development using mRNA technology. He defended that action while speaking at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

“The mRNA vaccines, we know from COVID, don’t work against upper respiratory infections,” he told reporters. “They don’t work very well — Let me put it that way.”

Kennedy is a long-time skeptic of the scientific consensus on vaccines. Reports published in peer-reviewed journals have found COVID-19 vaccines, using mRNA technology, to be highly effective. Kennedy said mRNA vaccines might be useful for cancers and diseases other than respiratory infections.

Alaska’s U.S. senators flanked Kennedy as he spoke. Both voted to confirm him in February, though Sen. Lisa Murkowski said at the time she was concerned about his “selective interpretation of scientific studies.” She said Tuesday she didn’t agree with some of his actions, such as dismissing the entire Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices and installing new members, some with controversial views.

“I am a strong believer that vaccines save lives,” Murkowski said, “as I believe the secretary himself has stated.”

Kennedy, as secretary, has sometimes spoken of vaccines as a crucial public health tool but also undermined their credibility.

He just happened to be in Anchorage on the day his agency announced he was canceling mRNA vaccine development contracts. It’s the season for cabinet secretaries to visit Alaska, and the secretaries of Homeland Security, Housing and Transportation are coming next week, Sen. Dan Sullivan explained.

“We have a lot of people — a lot of cabinet officials, sub-cabinet officials, admirals, generals — that we’re going to be hosting in Alaska in August,” he said. “It’s an exciting time.”

Unlike most cabinet members, Kennedy has visited Alaska many times. He came in years past to campaign for environmental causes. He also says he feels committed to carry on the work of his father and uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, to improve the lives of Indigenous people.

Outside the building, Susan Soule was among several dozen people who came to protest Secretary Kennedy.

“My sign says, ‘Respect the science. Vaccines save lives.’ That’s why I’m here,” she said. Kennedy, she said, “has not given any sign that he respects science. He’s killing people by what he’s doing to vaccines and the research.”

The medical campus where Kennedy spoke has for years championed vaccines to improve community wellness. In late 2020, the Alaska Native health care system led the rest of the state on COVID-19 vaccination.

On Saturday, Alaska legislators voted 43-16 to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of Senate Bill 183, which is intended to compel the executive branch to provide information about settlements paid by oil companies to the state of Alaska, in order to resolve tax disputes with the Alaska Department of Revenue.

That vote was overshadowed by an education funding veto override that took place minutes later, but the override on SB 183 could be more significant for state revenues in the long run.

Since 2020, lawmakers have unsuccessfully attempted to audit the Department of Revenue’s audit division in order to determine whether the state has been settling tax disputes with oil companies for what Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, calls “pennies on the dollar.”

“I would expect that we will see there has been significant underpayments,” he said, explaining that the state had been collecting tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement payments, “and then it dropped to $250,000. Based on the amount that the settlements dropped, which was huge, I expect there’s probably massive underpayments.”

In comparison, Saturday’s veto override on education funding involved just $50.6 million.

Legislative Auditor Kris Curtis, who has worked in that position since 2012, hasn’t been able to examine the Department of Revenue’s work because the department hasn’t provided the necessary information.

Until 2019, the department supplied that information regularly. Curtis previously conducted an audit of the same division in 2014.

“I’ve never seen this type of non-cooperation with any other administration,” she said in an interview Tuesday.

If the department still does not comply with the new law, the joint House-Senate Legislative Budget and Audit Committee is prepared to issue subpoenas to legally compel the department to release the information, said Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, D-Anchorage and chair of the committee.

“The engagement letter has been signed and executed, and the attorneys that we hired to move forward with the subpoenas are just waiting for instruction,” she said, speaking to reporters on Saturday.

Curtis said she hopes it doesn’t come to that.

“My plan is to reach out to the agency and basically restart my audit,” she said.

The commissioner of the Alaska Department of Revenue, Adam Crum, is scheduled to resign on Aug. 8, meaning that the audit will take place under a new commissioner.

“I’m hopeful that I can just restart my audit and everything will just proceed,” she said.

Curtis said she can’t provide much information publicly — or even to lawmakers — since the audit process is confidential.

“If they were to provide (the information) right away, it would be a few months,” she said of the timeline to complete her work. “And we also have financial and federal audits that are competing priorities.”

Asked whether the department will provide the information and for a timeline of work, the Department of Revenue forwarded questions to the Office of the Governor.

“The administration will continue to provide the information necessary for the legislative branch to complete its audits,” said Jeff Turner, the governor’s communications director, in an emailed response.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Curtis said when told about the answer. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

Wielechowski said that under SB 183, state officials could face criminal charges if they refuse to comply. That possibility is a long way off, he said.

“The Legislature is not itching for a fight with the executive branch,” he said. “We just want the information.”

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski isn’t ruling out running for governor.

When asked by a reporter Monday afternoon if she had considered adding her name to a long list of Republican candidates for the seat next year, she gave a short reply.

“Sure,” she said. “Lots of Republicans have.”

Associated Press reporter Becky Bohrer later asked Murkowski if she was being sincere.

“Was that a flippant response or a serious response?” Bohrer asked. “Is that something that you’re seriously considering at this time?”

“Well it was a little bit flippant, I have to admit,” Murkowski said laughing, “because everybody asks me about it. So you know when you’re asked, you’re like, ‘I don’t know. I was thinking about it.'”

Murkowski spoke during a wide-ranging, nearly 90-minute sit-down with reporters in her Anchorage office. Other topics included her displeasure with reductions in staffing for the National Weather Service, the delay in getting judicial nominees confirmed for Alaska’s U.S. District Court vacancies and the zeroing out of funding for the Denali Commission. She also defended her vote on President Trump’s reconciliation bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, and the carveouts she secured for rural health care.

“I did everything within my power as one lawmaker from Alaska to try to make sure that the most vulnerable in our state would not be negatively impacted,” Murkowski said. “And I had a hard choice to make, and I think I made the right choice for Alaskans.”

Alaska Survey Research released a poll Monday that showed Murkowski’s favorability with progressives and moderates had plummeted after she voted for the president’s bill. Both of those blocs of voters helped her get re-elected in 2022. Murkowski said the bill would have passed without her support.

“What I’m trying to do is not win elections,” Murkowski said. “I am just trying to do the best that I can for Alaskans.”

Murkowski has served as one of Alaska’s two U.S. senators since 2002, when her father Frank Murkowski appointed her to his seat following his successful bid for governor. She did not commit to a re-election bid for her Senate seat either on Monday, saying the election is years away. She’s not up for re-election until 2028.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski was one of only two Republicans to vote against confirming senior Justice Department attorney Emil Bove to be an appellate judge on the East Coast.

Still, Republicans confirmed him Tuesday night, by a vote of 50 to 49.

Murkowski cited the accounts of whistleblowers to explain why she was unwilling to confirm Bove to a lifetime appointment on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

“When somebody who is going to be placed on on the bench as at the Circuit Court level, basically tells other attorneys that you should disregard the law —That, to me, is disqualifying,” Murkowski said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “Just plain and simple, disqualifying.”

She and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine joined all Democrats in voting against Bove.

Murkowski’s vote shows that she’s still sometimes willing to disappoint Trump and fellow Republicans, even as progressives remain mad at her for helping Republicans pass Trump’s big tax and policy bill a month ago.

Sen. Dan Sullivan was one of the 50 yes votes.

Six retired Alaska state judges penned an op-ed last week, urging Sullivan to reject Bove’s nomination.

“In recent times, highly regarded and long-experienced attorneys at the DOJ have resigned, publicly stating that Bove demanded that they act unethically in their handling of high-profile cases,” the retired judges wrote.

Sullivan did not respond to an interview request Tuesday.

Other Republican senators emerged from their weekly policy lunch saying they’re committed to doing what it takes to get around Democratic objections and more swiftly confirm Trump’s nominees. Some said they had coalesced around a plan to let Trump bypass the Senate and install nominees while senators are on their August recess.

Murkowski said she’s not on board with any plan that evades the Senate’s authority to confirm nominees.

“It is our responsibility. It is part of our constitutional assignment, on this whole role of advise and consent,” she said.

The White House is pushing the Senate to approve Trump’s nominations faster, but Murkowski said the number of confirmations is on par with the past two presidencies at this stage.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced his policy priorities for the Alaska State Legislature for when they reconvene for a special session scheduled to start on Saturday.

On Monday, the governor called for legislators to address what he called “Alaska’s chronic education outcome crisis” and to reconsider his executive order they had previously voted down, creating a new Department of Agriculture that he said would strengthen food security in Alaska.

Separately, the Alaska State Legislature released a joint statement on Monday from leaders of the House and Senate majorities announcing their focus for the special session: two override votes. One would override Dunleavy’s budget veto of more than $50 million for Alaska schools, and the second vote would be on a bill to boost legislative oversight of oil and gas revenues. After the votes, they said they intend to adjourn.

Dunleavy called the session last month, then asked the 19 Republican members of the House minority caucus to stay away from the session for the first five days to boycott the override votes. This drew outrage and criticism from some members of the House and Senate majorities as they rally support for the overrides, particularly to restore funding for K-12 schools.

The Legislature is required to take up veto override votes within the first five days of the next session, and 45 votes of 60 members are needed to override the governor’s budget veto of school funding. A lower bar, of 40 votes, is needed to override non-budget bills.

Dunleavy’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Monday about whether he is still asking Republicans to stay away. In a statement posted on social media, Dunleavy said he would be in Juneau when the special session begins. “I invite all legislators to be there to focus on solutions that deliver real results for Alaskans,” he said.

Dunleavy released an agenda with eight items, including an executive order creating a Department of Agriculture to focus on food security for Alaska and growing the state’s agricultural sector.

The other seven items were focused on education policy:

• tribal compacting between the state Department of Education and Early Development and select tribes to create better performing schools;
• expand the corporate tax credit program for education;
• authorize the Department of Education as a charter school authorizer in addition to local districts;
• allow public school students to enroll in any public school that has room, including outside of a student’s resident district;
• support grants for reading improvement and for a new after school reading tutoring program;
• pass recruitment retention payments to classroom teachers to reduce turnover, especially in areas of the state that suffer from chronic teacher turnover; and
• establish long-term certainty in funding for K-12 schools if agreement is reached on policy.

“This is an opportunity to address Alaska’s performance issues and funding issues in K-12 education well into the future,” Dunleavy said in a statement released with the announcement. “By addressing this now, school districts, students, parents, teachers, and policymakers will have certainty and will not have to debate this issue during the regular session that begins in January.”

The Alaska House and Senate majorities have very different priorities for Saturday.

A statement from House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, and Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, on Monday said legislators will immediately go into a joint session at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday to take up two override votes: “restoring $51 million in public education funding and overriding the Governor’s veto of Senate Bill 183, which affirms the Legislature’s oversight of oil and gas tax revenues.”

“After which, the Legislature intends to adjourn later that day, having completed its work,” the statement said.

Stevens questioned the timing of the session, which is being held when legislators had previous commitments and plans. He emphasized both measures passed with broad bipartisan support.

“This special session was called under circumstances that raise serious concerns, not only about its timing but also its clear aim to complicate legislative participation. Nevertheless, I urge every lawmaker not formally excused to be present in Juneau to fulfill our constitutional duty,” Stevens said.

“These override votes are not just symbolic. They are about preparing Alaska’s students, restoring public trust in how we manage billions in state revenues, and maintaining the Legislature’s role as a co-equal branch of government. We owe it to our constituents and the future of this state to show up and do our jobs,” he said.

Edgmon also called on every legislator to appear in Juneau to participate in the override votes.

“Alaskans expect us to lead, not walk away from our responsibilities. Families, students, and teachers are counting on us to follow through on the commitments we made during the regular session,” Edgmon said. “This special session is not about partisanship, but about standing up for our students and preserving the checks and balances that keep government accountable. Every elected state lawmaker needs to uphold their constitutional duty, come to Juneau, and vote their conscience.”