State Government

As tensions rise between the U.S. and Canada, the Alaska House of Representatives says it recognizes Canada’s right to govern itself and opposes efforts to restrict cross-border trade.

The state House passed House Joint Resolution 11 on Monday, recognizing Alaska’s close ties with its eastern neighbor.

“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,” reads part of the resolution. “The Alaska State Legislature opposes restrictive trade measures or tolls that would harm the unique relationship between Canada and Alaska or negatively affect our integrated economies,” reads another.

Every member of the largely Democratic bipartisan majority joined most of the Republican minority to approve the resolution 33-4.

House Majority Leader Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage, said lawmakers want President Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney “to work together amicably to resolve the tariff situation in a way that shows the respect for territorial [integrity] and sovereignty of both nations, and in a way that recognizes how urgent we need this relationship.”

The once friendly relationship between the U.S. and Canada has taken a turn towards acrimony in recent months.

Trump has directly threatened Canada’s sovereignty. He has called for its annexation by “economic force” and addressed its prime minister as “governor.” He has also questioned the validity of the 1908 treaty that marks the boundary between the two countries, according to four unnamed people who spoke to the New York Times.

Trump has also at a dizzying pace imposed, paused, delayed and promised to expand tariffs on Canada and Mexico, among other countries.

Trump said early this month he would pause the sweeping 25% tax on Canadian imports — but only for the roughly 38% of goods and services covered by a trade deal Trump negotiated during his first term in office.

Canada’s leaders have repeatedly asserted their country’s sovereignty, sometimes with hockey-themed slogans. Canada has also retaliated with tariffs of its own. Concerns over a trade war between the two allies and beyond have spurred fears of an economic slowdown in the U.S. and around the world.

Closer to home, leaders in British Columbia have threatened tolls on Alaska-bound trucks.

The dispute has led residents and officials in border towns like Haines and Skagway to urge their leaders to cooperate with one another and find a way forward.

Anchorage Republican Rep. Dan Saddler called Alaska and Canada “partner provinces” that share a “frontier spirit.”

“No relationship or friendship is perfect, and no relationship is conflict-free, but if there is any stress in that relationship, we work it out,” he said. “It’s like, if you have a spouse, and you have a disagreement, you don’t divorce. You work it out based on your mutual commitment and mutual benefit.”

Republican Reps. Jamie Allard of Anchorage, Bill Elam of Soldotna, Mike Prax of North Pole and Cathy Tilton of Wasilla were the only members to vote against the resolution. They did not provide a reason for their opposition during debate.

The resolution now heads for the Senate, which is considering a similar measure.

Alaska officials are seeking emergency authorization to keep killing bears and wolves in a region in the western part of the state even though a judge ruled a week ago that the state predator control program there was unconstitutional.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Friday petitioned the state Board of Game for an emergency regulation allowing the “intensive management” program to continue for a third year in the range of the ailing Mulchatna Caribou Herd.

The proposal came on the first day of an eight-day Board of Game meeting in Anchorage. The board sets hunting rules that are carried out by the department.

The Mulchatna herd, in Western Alaska, peaked at 200,000 animals in 1997, but it is now down to about 13,000 animals. Hunting has been closed for several years. Department officials argue that removal of bears and wolves is needed to help the herd population grow back. Residents of dozens of rural communities in the region have traditionally depended on the herd for food, and increased caribou numbers would allow their hunts to start again, department officials argue.

So far, the state program that started in 2023 has killed nearly 200 bears and 19 wolves through the program, according to the department.

That has already benefited the herd, as seen in the increase in the number of calves born, the department’s proposal said. Continuing the program is “critical” to the goal of getting the herd large enough to allow resumed hunting, it said.

“Not being able to conduct control efforts in the third year is detrimental to the program and will result in a loss of the improvements in calf recruitment and survival that have been realized since the department treatment began in 2023,” the department’s proposal said.

The Alaska Wildlife Alliance, the plaintiff in the case that resulted in last week’s ruling, said the Department of Fish and Game is attempting to circumvent the law.

“We’re just kind of stunned right now,” Nicole Schmitt, the alliance’s executive director, said during a break in the Board of Game’s meeting on Friday.

The late proposal, released just that morning, was also rushed without proper public notice or opportunity for public comment, just as the earlier predator-control authorization had been, Schmitt said.

“The state is trying to push through an emergency regulation, in the hopes that it is not stopped before they are done killing bears, lawfully or otherwise,” she said.

Superior Court Judge Andrew Guidi, in his March 14 ruling, found that the Board of Game’s action in 2022 that authorized the predator control program violated constitutional standards for public notice and public comment. The Alaska Wildlife Alliance and Michelle Bittner, an Anchorage attorney who filed a separate lawsuit challenging the predator-culling program, argued that the board rushed its approval through improper and secretive means.

Guidi also found that the board’s approval of bear kills in the Mulchatna caribou range failed to properly consider impacts to the bear population, in violation of constitutional mandates for sustainable management.

Supporters and opponents of the Mulchatna predator control program disagree about the causes of the caribou herd’s decline.

While department officials point to bears and wolves as limiting recovery, opponents of the bear- and wolf-killing program say other factors caused the caribou decline. Those include some sweeping habitat changes, with a warming climate allowing woody bushes and trees to spread into tundra territory. Caribou from herds like the Mulchatna depend on tundra plants for food, but the proliferation of woody plants has made the area more favorable for moose.

Disease is another factor cited as a reason for the caribou population decline.

The Board of Game has identified a goal of getting the population back up to between 30,000 and 80,000 animals, enough to support hunts of 2,400 to 8,000 caribou a year, according to the Department of Fish and Game.

In remarks to the Alaska Legislature on Thursday, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan praised the work of President Donald Trump, saying the new president’s promining and prodrilling views are “great for those of us in Alaska.”

Sullivan, who walked through a crowd of anti-Trump and prodemocracy protesters en route to the speech, downplayed the chaos caused in Alaska by the Trump-empowered “Department of Government Efficiency,” which has orchestrated the firing of hundreds of Alaskan workers and halted millions in federal spending within the state.

“Our national debt of over $36 trillion has reached dangerous, unsustainable levels,” Sullivan said, adding that DOGE is “making some noble progress” in reducing the debt.

Sullivan said he doesn’t like every decision DOGE has made, and that job cuts “need to be done humanely and not randomly, but is the end goal of a smaller, more efficient federal government that lives within its means necessary at this point in time? Yes.”

Sullivan’s speech came two days after one by fellow Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski to the Legislature. Murkowski was willingly critical of some Trump actions but said that Americans chose him as their president, and she must be willing to work with him.

During his time in office, Sullivan has endorsed mining, drilling, logging and other forms of natural resource development as the best way to grow Alaska’s economy and boost the well-being of its residents.

Trump’s support of Alaska development is a huge opportunity for the state, Sullivan said.

“We’re pushing on an open door, because this president and this administration — and you can see it almost daily — they want to help us,” he said.

Hours before the speech, the Interior Department confirmed plans for widespread oil and gas leasing on the North Slope, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The agency also said it would transfer land to the state for the Ambler Road and portions of the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline.

That pipeline, Sullivan said, offers “transformative possibilities” for the state’s economy, and while the effort to advance it has felt like “smashing into a wall,” Sullivan said it has been worthwhile.

On Thursday, Taiwan’s state energy company signed an agreement to buy liquefied natural gas from the AKLNG project and invest in the pipeline’s development. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“The project is still not right around the corner, but the corner is in sight,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said the U.S. Navy has begun investigating the possibility of reopening its base at Adak, and touched on a variety of other topics during his prepared remarks, including the need to restrict the drug fentanyl, improve aviation safety, and grow a national missile defense system.

After more than 45 minutes of prepared remarks, Sullivan faced questions from members of the Legislature, some of whom were prepared to interrogate him on key issues.

State Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, asked whether Sullivan would oppose cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, and asked the senator to answer “yes or no.”

Sullivan refused, but his answer implied that he’s open to cuts.

“Almost one-third of Alaskans … are on the rolls of Medicaid now. We, I think, accept that. Some see it as a good. I don’t see it as a good. I think our goal should be to increase our private-sector economy and increase the opportunities for people to move off Medicaid and get private-sector insurance,” Sullivan said.

The share of uninsured Alaskans fell over the past decade, after Medicaid eligibility was expanded, from 14.5% in 2015 to 10.5% in 2023.

Sullivan, formerly a vocal defender of American military aid to Ukraine, has grown quiet on the subject since Trump entered office. The Trump administration has repeatedly wavered on support for Ukraine and has acted more in line with Russia than the country it invaded.

Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, asked how Sullivan is pushing back on the White House’s “whiplash-inducing change in foreign policy,” including its attitude toward Canada.

Sullivan said he considers Russia’s leader to be “brutal and expansionist” but said he believes “what the president and his team are doing right now — and they’re putting an enormous amount of effort into it — is trying to bring both sides together to stop the war and stop the killing.”

He did not address the administration’s attitude toward Canada.

Responding to a question about fired federal employees from Rep. Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, Sullivan said affected Alaskans should fill out a form about their situation and send it into his office so he can make the case for the relevant DOGE cuts to be reversed.

That form was originally written for Alaskans to complain about DOGE program cuts, Sullivan’s office said, but it can also be used for feedback on job cuts.

Responding to questions from reporters, Sullivan said he does not think the Trump administration’s actions on deportation flights represent a constitutional crisis. Murkowski, who spoke earlier in the week, offered a similar view.

Also Thursday, Trump signed an executive order with the intent to begin the process of eliminating the federal Department of Education. The department oversees federal aid for school lunches, special education, low-income schools and college grants and loans, among other programs.

Asked whether he supports Trump’s effort, Sullivan was noncommittal, saying he had not yet seen the order.

“The key question to me is, are they just dismantling everything, or is the vision to dismantle and then get the money to the Alaska State Legislature and local communities, who — mind you — have a way better sense, especially for Alaska, on how to spend the money and how to prioritize the money.”

Lawmakers narrowly rejected an executive order from Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Wednesday that would have created a cabinet-level state agriculture department.

Dunleavy’s proposal would have split out the existing Division of Agriculture from the Department of Natural Resources. Dunleavy pitched it as a way to give farmers, ranchers and other food producers a seat at the cabinet table, even after he’s no longer governor.

He said he was inspired by supply chain interruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as speculation swirled that the Port of Seattle might close temporarily.

“It was at that moment that myself and a number of other leaders in the state of Alaska decided that we were going to make agriculture and growing things here in Alaska a priority,” Dunleavy said in a promotional video.

Lawmakers in the largely Democratic coalitions that control the House and Senate said they supported the idea of a state agriculture department. But Rep. Sara Hannan, D-Juneau, told her fellow lawmakers the governor’s order was not the right approach.

“Executive Order 136 as currently constructed and described before the Finance Committee does not grow agriculture. It grows government,” she said. “It appoints a commissioner, establishes administrative offices, and does not add one dollar to our supports for food security.”

Dunleavy revised the initial cost estimate for the order after lawmakers said they were skeptical the state could afford it while facing large deficits. Dunleavy most recently pitched the plan as cost-neutral.

But Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, said he wasn’t convinced the department could be both cost-neutral and effective, especially over the long term.

“If you’re just going to stand up a new department and have 13 people who are accountants and IT people, I don’t know how that helps farmers a whole lot. You have to add technical people to that,” he said.

Opponents also said they would’ve preferred the governor introduce a bill creating the new department rather than an executive order. They said that’s because there’s little lawmakers can do to tweak an executive order in response to testimony from experts and the public.

The combined House and Senate voted 32-28 to reject the proposal.

Lawmakers who favored the order — which included every member of the all-Republican minority caucuses in the House and Senate, plus Reps. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, Nellie Jimmie, D-Tooksook Bay, and Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage — said lawmakers could allow the order to go through and later pass a bill modifying the new department to their liking.

Senate Minority Leader Mike Shower, R-Wasilla, said any costs associated with the new department would be minor when compared to the state’s $15 billion overall budget. He chalked much of the opposition up to politics.

“They’re just unwilling to give the governor a win on almost anything. That’s my view of it,” he said.

Senate leaders rejected the accusation.

The most vocal supporter of the governor’s agriculture department proposal has been Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer. She chaired a legislative task force that wrote a lengthy report offering numerous recommendations for improving the state’s food security.

“We did accomplish some things, but there’s probably about 30 or so that we have not yet accomplished,” she said during debate on the order. “The only way that they will be accomplished is if there’s a Department of Agriculture, because you need someone to oversee that they happen.”

But even Hughes, in an interview ahead of the vote, said Dunleavy was at least partially to blame for what she called “confusion” over how the department would be paid for.

“There were some misstatements by the governor,” she said.

Dunleavy released a video in the runup to the vote in which he said “proceeds from what the farmers are growing” would help offset the department’s cost. Some conservative commentators took that to mean that Dunleavy was contemplating taxes on crops. The governor’s office later clarified that state land sales, not taxes, were what Dunleavy was referring to.

Though members of the Senate majority said they’d spoken with Department of Natural Resources Commissioner John Boyle about the proposal, Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said Dunleavy had not been personally lobbying lawmakers to assent to his order.

Compared to Dunleavy’s predecessors, that’s unusual, Stevens said.

“Past governors have been in the building and much more receptive and much more willing to meet with us,” he said. “The governor normally would — say, in this issue, [he] would have been around the floor, you know, talking to us, knocking on our doors.”

Asked whether the governor should have done more to convince legislators to support the proposal, Hughes said the governor is only human.

“All of us can always do more. He’s got some big things on his plate right now regarding the opportunity for a gas line [from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska], for example,” she said.

Rep. Rebecca Schwanke, R-Tazlina, disagreed, saying the governor could not have prevented a “last-minute change of heart” on the part of some unspecified lawmakers whose votes she said ultimately doomed the executive order.

In a statement on social media after the vote, Dunleavy thanked the lawmakers who supported his proposal and said food security would remain a priority.

Senate leaders said they planned to schedule hearings on newly introduced bills that would create a state agriculture department in the near future.

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Outside the Alaska State Capitol on Wednesday, nearly 150 people from around the state demanded improved services for disabled Alaskans. 

Many were part of the Key Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy organization in Alaska that supports people with disabilities.

Key Coalition Director Michele Girault said they advocate for the community as a whole since anyone can develop a disability at any point in their life.

“It’s not just today, it’s tomorrow,” Girault said. “So let’s prepare and have services and accessibility for everyone, whenever the need occurs rather than having to wait for a service.”

This year’s priorities include improving the state’s Infant Learning Program, which supports infants with disabilities and developmental delays. Girault said Alaska is one of the only states in the country where the eligibility threshold for services is a 50% developmental delay.

“We want to reduce that to 25% to support more children, and in the end, it saves more money because if you intervene early, then those kids don’t need special education,” she said.

Nikki Bass co-owns TIDES, a Juneau-based agency that provides care to people with disabilities. She said the coalition is also working to improve wages for care providers.

“Everyone in their lifetime is going to need caregiving at some point and we have a whole network of strong, passionate care providers, so we’re here to support them as well and ask for a living wage and to continue supporting Medicaid,” she said.

Kim Champney, one of the rally speakers, is executive director of the Alaska Association on Developmental Disabilities. She said legislators want to hear from more than just service providers.

“It’s really the voices of people, the family members of the people that rely on the services with us in partnership,” she said. “We work together and share our story, and that’s how we build the system that we need in the future.

Advocates spent the afternoon after the rally meeting with legislators and sharing their experiences.

The Alaska House Resources Committee met on Friday to hear testimony on a resolution recognizing the longstanding partnership between Canada and the United States. It also acknowledges Canada’s sovereignty.

Two of Skagway’s elected officials participated and outlined how a trade war with Canada could, and perhaps already is, harming the Upper Lynn Canal.

Skagway Vice-Mayor Deb Potter had just two minutes to articulate her support for House Joint Resolution 11. She participated in the hearing telephonically.

“We are seeing very real effects here in Skagway,” she said. “One of our local restaurants, one of the few of them that is able to stay open year-round, received some calls from folks in Whitehorse expressing that because of actions that are being taken in Washington, D.C. they will be boycotting and no longer supporting our locally-owned restaurant that’s owned by a fantastic year-round family with a couple of young kids.”

Potter said that the Skagway Borough Assembly has received letters expressing a similar sentiment.

Assembly member Orion Hanson, who is also a builder, made the trek to Juneau to testify in person.

“We need our Canadian neighbors,” he said. “We need each other.”

Hanson shared numbers to illustrate how intertwined Skagway’s economy is with Canada.

“Skagway welcomes 1.2 million cruise ship tourists,” he said. “Nearly half of those tourists originated their cruise in Vancouver. At least half of the cruise ship tourists that come to Skagway take a shore excursion … Since the Gold Rush, millions and millions of tons of Canadian ore have traveled from the mines of the Yukon through Skagway and onto the world marketplace. In 2024, 24 million gallons of fuel was transported from Skagway’s Ore Dock to Whitehorse.”

Hanson, who often gets building supplies from Whitehorse, said that Skagway families rely on Whitehorse dentists, vets and grocery stores due to the remote location of his hometown.

“If a trade war ensues between the United States and Canada, the cost of living in Skagway will go up,” he said. “It’ll spiral up very fast.”

State Representative Chuck Kopp is a Republican from Anchorage and a co-sponsor of the resolution.

“What we are saying is that we recognize that there is a lot on the line here, besides a dollar value in a partnership that goes back thousands of years,” he said. “And that the mutual trust and support that Alaska and Canada specifically have with each other is unparalleled in modern times within a shared 1,100 mile border.”

Anchorage Republican Julie Coulombe is a member of the House Resources Committee. She asked Kopp about the purpose of the tariffs.

“The context in which these tariffs are being put forward, though, is in relation to border security and drugs,” she said. “Do you have any concerns about — maybe Canada is not doing all it needs to do to stop drugs coming through their border? Or is that not a concern for you?”

“I don’t have any such concern,” Kopp said. “So, the U.S. Border Patrol itself reports that less than 1% of all fentanyl comes across the Canadian border.”

Coulombe said she supports the partnership between the two countries, but has a “problem” with Canada’s leadership.

“I want to support that partnership, but this is basically, running against our own leadership and supporting the leadership of Canada, and that’s not something I’d like to do,” she said.

“Just in response, I would say this isn’t about the leadership of two countries,” Koff said. “This is about the people of two countries and standing together.”

The premier of Yukon, Ranj Pillai, also spoke telephonically. He introduced his location distinctly.

“In Canada, a country that is not and will never be the 51st state,” he said.

Pillai praised the relationship between his territory and Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration, calling it the strongest he can remember.

“We are pleased to be working with this administration on important issues like salmon conservation, justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women, as well as building up northern infrastructure, trade and tourism,” Pillai said.

Besides trade, Alaska has agreements with Canada for help with search and rescue and fire incidents near the borders.

The resolution’s next stop is a full House vote. It’s not yet clear when it might come up for debate.

A similar resolution is awaiting a floor vote in the Senate.