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Gov. Mike Dunleavy has vetoed five bills passed by the Alaska Legislature after the constitutionally mandated date to end its session. The vetoed bills include bonding authority to build a new cruise ship dock in Seward, a bill allowing licensed 18-year-olds to serve alcohol at bars, a measure that would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to elected officials, legislation to eliminate duplicative registration requirements for boats, and a proposal that would have allowed employers to pay workers with short-term electronic...
Financial documents published July 31 by the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. show the fund lacks enough spendable money to immediately pay for items in the state’s annual budget, a sign that the state’s top source of general-purpose revenue is on course for a future crisis. This year, lawmakers and Gov. Mike Dunleavy approved a $1 billion transfer from the spendable portion of the Permanent Fund to the constitutionally protected principal, to help the principal keep pace with inflation. As of July 1, there was only $571.7 million available for tha...
The National Indian Gaming Commission has approved plans for a casino-style tribal gaming hall proposed by the Native Village of Eklutna for a site near Anchorage. The decision, published this month by the commission, follows an Interior Department decision in February that reinterpreted the legal status of Alaska Native trust land, reversing decades of precedent. The gaming hall, which is expected to hold rows of electronic gambling machines, is similar to the Southeast Winds Casino in Metlakatla but would be a first in the state’s p...
Alaska’s population is set to decline by 14,000 residents by 2050, according to a new forecast from the Alaska Department of Labor, with Wrangell showing the highest rate of annual population loss over the period, dropping on average by 1.5% annually. The community’s population is forecast to drop to under 1,400 people by 2050, continuing its steady decline from 2,369 residents in the 2010 U.S. Census and 2,039 in last summer’s state estimate. The ongoing loss of working-age residents is a leading cause of the statewide population decli...
In closely watched oral arguments on July 18, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals indicated that it is unlikely to grant an environmental group’s petition for an order that could halt — at least temporarily — a valuable Southeast Alaska king salmon fishery. In May 2023, a judge in the U.S. District Court covering western Washington issued an order that said federal officials were allowing Alaska fishermen to harvest king salmon at rates that harmed an endangered population of killer whales in Puget Sound. The whale...
A federal judge has ruled that the Department of the Interior may take land into trust on behalf of Alaska Native tribes, a decision that could allow tribes to create “Indian country,” which had been mostly eliminated here by the 53-year-old Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. In a 39-page summary judgment order on June 26, Anchorage Judge Sharon Gleason ruled mostly but not entirely against the state, which sued the Interior Department in 2023 to challenge an administrative decision that the department has the power to take land into tru...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is prodding the state of Alaska over its failure to update water pollution rules. On Thursday, June 6, the EPA issued a formal determination that the state should update pollution limits that are based in part on the amount of fish consumed by individuals. Under federal law, those limits are supposed to be reviewed every three years, but Alaska has not updated its limits since 2003. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has been working since 2013 on an updated list of water quality...
The state last month sued the owners of three Ketchikan jewelry stores, alleging a broad scheme to defraud Alaskans and tourists by selling fake made-in-Alaska jewelry. The stores, which include Soni Inc. and Colors Fine Jewelers, initially continued operations despite the state’s request for a court order closing them, reported radio station KRBD in Ketchikan. As of Thursday, June 6, Soni was still open; no one answered the phone at Colors Fine Jewelers. The case is one of several consumer-protection lawsuits filed by the Alaska Department of...
A Southeast Alaska fisherman has agreed to plead guilty to a federal misdemeanor after admitting that he directed a crew member to shoot a sperm whale northwest of Sitka in March 2020. According to federal court filings, Dugan Daniels, 54, also tried to ram the whale with his fishing boat, the Pacific Bounty. The whale died, according to the court filing. In addition, Daniels agreed to plead guilty to a felony for lying about a sablefish catch in fall 2020, according to the text of the plea deal. The charges and the plea deal were filed by...
A group of young Alaskans, backed by a nonprofit legal firm, is suing the state of Alaska and the state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corp. in an attempt to block construction of the corporation’s long-planned but economically questionable North Slope natural gas pipeline. In a complaint filed May 22 in Anchorage Superior Court, the eight plaintiffs argue that the corporation’s founding laws are unconstitutional because the gas pipeline would result in so much climate-altering greenhouse gas that it would endanger their constitutionally guar...
A full-fledged embargo of Russia-sourced seafood took effect in the United States on May 22, with importers prohibited from buying Russian products, even if they were processed in another country. The next day, a delegation of Alaska businessmen and local government officials, all with ties to the fishing industry, met with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and other federal officials in an attempt to expand that boycott internationally. “Russia is the No. 1 problem when it comes to our fishing industry,” said Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, who...
Though legislators passed dozens of bills during the two-year legislative session that ended May 15, they left behind multiple big issues for future consideration. Lawmakers were not able to finalize any part of a plan intended to bring the state’s revenue in line with expenses over the long term. In 2022, a bicameral, bipartisan working group recommended changes to the Permanent Fund dividend formula, an effective state spending cap, new taxes and constitutional changes to guarantee the dividend and limit spending from the Permanent Fund. W...
The Alaska Legislature has approved the state budget with a Permanent Fund dividend and bonus of about $1,655 per recipient. The exact figure this fall will depend on the number of approved applicants. The Legislature finished work and adjourned May 15. As has been the case the past several years, the amount of the annual payment was debated at length. Last year, senators wrote the budget so that if oil prices exceeded what the state needed to pay its bills, some of that extra revenue would be reserved for an “energy relief” payment att...
The Alaska Legislature voted May 7 to remove Bob Griffin from the state school board amid bipartisan unhappiness over his perceived political actions as a board member. The vote came amid the Legislature’s annual vote on gubernatorial nominees. Legislators approved 78 of the 81 people subject to legislative confirmation during a joint session of the state House and Senate. They rejected Griffin for a second term on the board. Legislators also rejected Anchorage radio host Mike Porcaro as a new appointee to the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commiss...
The Alaska Senate is moving toward a final vote on its draft state spending plan for the coming fiscal year, with senators expected this week to approve a budget that includes enough money to pay a 2024 Permanent Fund dividend estimated at $1,580. The Senate’s draft operating budget is different from one passed last month by the House which included a $2,270 proposed PFD. Senate action will trigger the creation of a conference committee charged with writing a compromise budget deal to fund state services after July 1, the start of the fiscal y...
The Alaska House of Representatives voted by a wide margin and with bipartisan support on April 26 to ban children younger than 14 from using online social media. House Bill 254, from Homer Rep. Sarah Vance, also requires companies that provide internet pornography to check whether an Alaskan viewing that pornography is at least 18 years old. The bill, which passed on a 33-6 vote, advances to the Senate for further consideration in the final two weeks before the legislative adjournment deadline. Vance said the age requirement, which also...
As the state Senate is launching a legislative push intended to quickly fix a looming problem with correspondence school programs in Alaska, the House of Representatives signaled that it is so split that it may need more than a year to act on the issue. House lawmakers spent more than three hours on April 24 debating an informal declaration asking Anchorage Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman to postpone until June 2025 the implementation of a court ruling that struck down two laws which govern programs used by more than 22,000 Alaska...
The Alaska Supreme Court overturned a 20-year-old precedent April 26 by ruling that Alaska Native tribal organizations can more easily receive the kind of sovereign legal immunity that individual tribes have. The 4-1 decision means that tribal consortiums, such as SEARHC in Southeast, which provide health care for tens of thousands of Alaskans — both Native and non-Native — are largely immune from civil lawsuits in state court, unless those consortiums waive their immunity. Under the decision, immunity is now established by a five-part tes...
State legislators said they are unlikely to immediately act to address an Alaska Superior Court ruling that struck down key components of the state’s correspondence schools programs — and will wait for the Alaska Supreme Court to consider the issue. Speaking to reporters on April 17, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said his administration is also waiting for the high court to take up the issue. The ruling said the state’s cash payments to the parents of homeschooled students violates constitutional restrictions against spending state money on private and r...
An Anchorage Superior Court judge has struck down an Alaska law that allows the state to allocate cash payments to parents of homeschooled students, ruling that it violates constitutional prohibitions against spending state money on religious or private education. “This court finds that there is no workable way to construe the statutes to allow only constitutional spending,” wrote Judge Adolf Zeman, concluding that the entire law must be struck down. The April 12 decision has major and immediate implications for the more than 22,000 students en...
The Alaska House of Representatives on April 11 rejected a constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed payment of the annual Permanent Fund dividend. The final vote was 22-18, five votes short of the two-thirds majority required to advance the amendment to the Senate for further debate. If it had won legislative approval, the amendment would have gone to the public in this fall’s general election. The amendment was part of a plan created in 2021 by a bipartisan working group after the state came within a week of a government shutdown d...
Under legislation passed March 21 by the Alaska House of Representatives, police searching for a lost hiker could obtain cell phone and satellite phone location data without a warrant. The House approved House Bill 316 by a 38-1 margin after moving it forward with unusual speed. The Senate has referred the bill to committee for discussion. The Legislature faces a mid-May adjournment deadline. The measure is modeled after similar laws in other states and is known as the “Kelsey Smith Act.” Smith was an 18-year-old who was abducted and mur...
A new legal opinion by the top attorney at the U.S. Department of the Interior has extended the land jurisdiction of Alaska tribes, upending decades of precedent and offering new opportunities for the state’s 228 federally recognized tribal governments. The opinion, issued Feb. 1 by Interior Department Solicitor Robert Anderson, says tribal authority applies on land allotments given to individual Alaska Natives, unless those parcels of land are owned by a non-tribal member or are “geographically removed from the tribal community.” “That...
A new state revenue forecast based on modestly higher oil prices gives the Alaska Legislature some additional breathing room as lawmakers craft a new state budget. The forecast, released March 13 by the Alaska Department of Revenue, updates a fall estimate and predicts that the state will collect $140 million more in revenue than previously expected during the 12 months that begin July 1. That represents about a 2% gain in state revenues. That will help legislators as they write a budget bill that must be passed and become law before July 1,...
Leading Alaska legislators said there is little appetite for spending from savings to pay a super-sized Permanent Fund dividend this year, likely killing a proposal from Gov. Mike Dunleavy. In December, the governor proposed spending almost $2.3 billion on a dividend of roughly $3,500 per recipient this fall under an unused formula in state law. That would result in a $1 billion deficit in the state budget and require spending from the state’s Constitutional Budget Reserve, but as a draft spending plan takes shape in the House, top members of b...
