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Alaska is the home of the world's biggest piedmont glacier - meaning it falls from a mountain into a flat plain. But a new study has revealed that the Malaspina Glacier is not quite as big as previously believed, and that its low elevation makes it more highly susceptible to melting that would affect the rise in global sea levels. The glacier spills out of the St. Elias Mountains into a wide circular lobe atop a broad plain that stops short of the sea. At its widest, the glacier spans 40 miles...
With a week remaining in Alaska’s regular legislative session, leading lawmakers say they still haven’t reached agreement on a deal to finish the state budget and end the session on time. “We are meeting daily with the Senate … just working on finding some way to come together to put this kind of ‘endgame’ package together, which I can tell you right now, we don’t have the details as of yet,” House Speaker Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, said last Friday. Since 2015, odd-numbered years have brought tortuously long arguments over the budget as lawma...
State Sen. Click Bishop remembers his first paycheck as a teenager in Fairbanks in the early 1970s. His boss explained the $10 deduction for the state’s so-called school head tax. “That pays for your education,” the boss told his young employee. “I’ve never forgotten that,” said Bishop. The Legislature in 1980 abolished the small education tax, along with Alaska’s personal income tax and a tax on business gross receipts. The state was getting rich from oil and a majority of lawmakers saw little need for taxes. Bishop, now in his 11th year in...
An Anchorage legislator has added another idea to the growing list of tax proposals before lawmakers who are struggling to cover the state’s revenue needs. Rep. Zack Fields has proposed a personal income tax limited to no more than the amount of each year’s Permanent Fund dividend. “It’s a net-zero tax on Alaskans,” he said last week. No matter how much an individual earns, the annual tax would not exceed the amount of the PFD. In addition, anyone earning less than $75,000 a year would be exempt from the tax. The second-term Democrat described...
A Washington state family has pleaded guilty in federal court to violating the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act when they owned and operated several businesses in Ketchikan. They sold carvings and wood totem poles made by people in the Philippines, misrepresenting the items as authentic artwork made by Alaska Natives, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. According to the department, Cristobal Rodrigo, 59, Glenda Rodrigo, 46, and Christian Rodrigo, 24, sold carvings imitating traditional Alaska Native designs out of two stores in...
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate failed to advance a symbolic measure to enshrine in the Constitution equal protection for women, a century after the idea began circulating among lawmakers. Senators on April 27 voted 51-47 to go forward with a bill that would lift Congress’ self-imposed 1982 deadline for three-fourths of the states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. However, the procedural vote, or cloture vote, required 60 senators for the ERA to move forward. The joint resolution, sponsored by Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Dem...
Legislation to impose a state tax on e-cigarettes and vaping devices appears headed to next year’s legislative work list. Lawmakers raised multiple questions about the bills at two committee hearings last week, and the Legislature faces a May 17 adjournment deadline. Bills not acted on by then return for consideration next year. The legislation was heard in the Senate Finance Committee and House Health and Social Services Committee, both on May 4, with bill sponsors fielding multiple questions about penalties for underage use, the tax burden o...
The Legislature has passed and is sending to the governor a bill intended to reduce the cost of Alaska-made lumber for housing projects. After it is signed into law by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, the legislation would set up an in-state quality testing system for lumber produced by Alaska sawmills. Currently, that lumber must be tested and graded by a national standards organization, and bringing an outside grader to Alaska adds significant costs, state forester Helge Eng said last fall. The state House overwhelmingly approved Senate Bill 87,...
The Legislature passed a bill Friday extending Medicaid coverage from two months to 12 months for a couple thousand new mothers a year. Senate Bill 58, proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, is intended to prevent gaps in health care coverage and to address the state’s high and rising maternal mortality rate. State Department of Health officials told lawmakers that 51% of births in Alaska are covered by Medicaid; those new mothers would benefit from the legislation. The Senate passed the final bill 19-1 on Friday. The House passed the legislation f...
Alaskans affected by monthslong food stamp delays have agreed to pause their class-action lawsuit against the state, with the Department of Health pledging to clear 50% of the backlog by mid-October. The lawsuit was filed in January on behalf of thousands of Alaskans who had waited months to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps. Under federal law, states must provide food stamps to eligible applicants no later than 30 days after an application is made. The state met with attorneys for the...
The Alaska Legislature is changing some procedures after Capitol phone lines became overloaded by public testimony for a record fifth time this year. The Capitol’s phones reached capacity on May 2, during a hearing about a bill that intends to repeal the state’s new ranked-choice voting law. The phone lines have filled more times this year than in the past six years combined, legislative statistics indicate. Overall call volume hasn’t changed significantly from past years, but Alaskans’ habits have: Members of the public are now much more li...
Thousands of Alaskans who depend on government assistance have waited months for food stamp benefits, exacerbating a long-standing hunger crisis worsened by the pandemic, inflation and the remnants of a typhoon that wiped out stockpiles of fish and fishing equipment in Western Alaska. The backlog, which began last August, is especially concerning in a state where communities in far-flung areas, including Alaska Native villages, are often not connected by roads. They must have food shipped in by...
JUNEAU — An Anchorage civil rights law firm has filed a class-action lawsuit against the state Department of Health over delays in processing applications for a program that provides assistance for thousands of vulnerable Alaskans. The state’s adult public assistance program pays an average of $308.20 per month, and is often supplemented by federal assistance programs, according to the Department of Health. During the past fiscal year, an average of 15,385 Alaskans received the monthly aid, alongside a separate transition program. In Wra...
A bill advancing in the Alaska Legislature would dramatically shorten the time needed to authorize logging of some state-owned lands, shrinking approval time from years to days in the most extreme cases. Proponents say the bill will alleviate fire danger and revitalize the state’s dwindling logging industry by expanding the amount of timber that can be sold from public land, but legislative and public critics contend that the bill’s lack of specificity gives the commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources almost unlimited discretion to...
As public employees rallied in front of the Alaska Capitol last week, demanding reinstatement of a pension system the Legislature abolished 18 years ago, leading members of the state Senate said their request was unlikely to be fulfilled this year. Members of the 17-member bipartisan Senate majority said at the start of this year’s legislative session that a bill intended to improve recruitment and retention of state employees was a priority. But with only a week left in the regular legislative session, Senate President Gary Stevens said a p...
Parents of Alaska public school students would be required to OK every lesson taught by their child’s teacher under newly revised legislation approved by the House Education Committee, but which is not expected to pass the Legislature this year. Without permission, the student would be held out of field trips, extracurricular activities, and even basic lessons on algebra, biology and history. The revised bill also requires school districts to make single-person restrooms available to students. An earlier version of the bill, proposed by Gov. M...
A staffing crisis in the state agency that provides guardianship services for some of the most vulnerable Alaskans means it can no longer accept new cases, agency heads said in a letter to the Alaska court system. The Office of Public Advocacy is required by law to provide guardianship services for adults with severe mental illness, intellectual or developmental disabilities, dementia or traumatic brain injuries, along with young adults transitioning out of the custody of foster care or the juvenile justice system. That means connecting them...
A pair of connected Southeast Alaska waterways are on the 2023 list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers issued by a national environmental organization. The Chilkat River and its biggest tributary, the Klehini River, are among the rivers cited as at risk by the organization American Rivers, which issued its annual list of top 10 threatened rivers last month. The Chilkat and Klehini rivers flow through the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, which holds the world’s largest congregation of eagles. The rivers also support salmon runs and a pop...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy, once a staunch opponent of tax increases, said last Thursday that they are now a core part of any long-term state fiscal plan. Speaking in a news conference, the governor said there is a broad recognition in the Legislature and in his office that the state can no longer rely on oil to balance the state budget. “To simply ride oil in a do-or-die situation for the state of Alaska is folly,” he said. Dunleavy confirmed reports that he intends to propose a statewide sales tax, saying work on the proposal was almost done — though...
The Alaska Senate rolled out its latest version of the operating budget on April 26, with a $1,300 Permanent Fund dividend, a $175 million one-time boost for public schools and a $90 million surplus to cover contingencies or if oil prices drop. The 17-member bipartisan Senate majority caucus — unlike the House Republican-led majority — has insisted that lawmakers should not draw from state savings to balance the budget. Following gloomy revenue projections last month, the House spending plan — with a $2,700 dividend — was projected to create...
Almost two weeks after Gov. Mike Dunleavy told lawmakers he would propose a new sales tax, legislators have yet to see the governor’s bill — and are still far from reaching agreement on the state’s fiscal future. Lawmakers broadly agree on the need for new revenue sources amid declining oil taxes. But any proposal from the governor, along with other revenue measures considered by lawmakers this year, are unlikely to pass with only two weeks until the constitutional deadline marking the end of the regular legislative session, key lawma...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced this month that commercial salmon fishermen across all gear groups caught a total 31.7 million salmon in Southeast Alaska during 2022. Last year's all-species harvest was low, Fish and Game reported. The 2022 catch amounts to 69% of the average harvest over the past 10 years of 46.1 million salmon. The Southeast salmon harvest has been erratic in the past few years. The 2022 catch of 31.7 million was about half of the 2021 catch of 58.9 million and about double the 2020 catch of 14.6 million...
The budget battle between the Alaska House of Representatives, the Senate and the governor is shaping up as a fight between the size of the Permanent Fund dividend and a proposed increase to public school spending after years of flat funding. Dozens of education advocates rallied on the Alaska State Capitol steps last Thursday evening in support of a substantial increase to the state’s per-student funding formula. The formula has not been significantly increased since 2017, and school administrators have reported struggling to balance their b...
Alaska posted the nation’s highest rate of increase in electronic cigarette use by young adults from 2016 to 2021, according to a report tracking patterns in all 50 states. The rate of e-cigarette use by Alaskans in that age group more than tripled, from 4.8% in 2019 — the lowest rate in the nation at the time — to 15.8% in 2021, according to the report. The sponsor of a bill in the Alaska Legislature to impose a tax on e-cigarettes, vape sticks and other electronic smoking devices has said the tax is intended to deter young people from vapin...
Rather than requiring a specific course in financial literacy for high school graduation, lawmakers have amended the legislation so that school districts could incorporate the same information into one or more classes as long as the material is covered. The amended Senate bill would require school districts to teach students how to open and manage an account at a financial institution, prepare a budget and manage debt and credit cards. It also would require districts to teach students about loans, insurance, taxes, financial fraud, retirement...