Commercial fishing and recreational vessels are docked in the Homer harbor on Oct. 23, 2025. The commercial fishing industry endured a series of challenges over the year, some of them imposed by the new Trump administration. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
For Alaska’s fishing industry and fishing-dependent communities, 2025 was a year of turmoil and uncertainty, much of it imposed by ideological pursuits from the new Trump administration.
The short-lived agency called the Department of Government Efficiency hacked away at federal funding for science across the board. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in particular was in its crosshairs; the Heritage Institute’s Project 2025 blueprint for the second Trump administration heaped scorn on NOAA, saying its National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and other agencies “form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” The NMFS’ Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which does the bulk of the research on which fishery managers depend, was among the agencies that suffered deep budget and staffing cuts.
The prospect of more cuts is unsettling, some officials said. “I guess now we’re getting to a point that I’m getting really concerned and almost freaked out about how much data that we’re potentially losing that we’re used to having,” Anne Vanderhoeven, a member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, said on Dec. 4 during that body’s December meeting.
Even as the Trump administration cuts the support fishery management, it is demanding that the industry harvest more fish, in line with an administrative order issued by the president on April 17.
The federal government shutdown created more problems for fisheries managers, but the North Pacific Fishery Management Council used data from last year to set next year’s harvest limits for Alaska pollock — the nation’s top-volume commercial seafood — and other groundfish in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.
Hannah Scholosstein, international marketing and grants manager for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, works in her office in Juneau on May 22, 2025, amid promotional materials. A legislative task force has recommended boosted funding and support for ASMI, among other actions. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska’s seafood industry continues to endure a variety of economic challenges — competition in markets that are glutted, rising costs, declines of some important fish stock and labor shortages, among them. There are fewer people harvesting seafood commercially in Alaska than at any time on record.
Alaska legislators have tried to address some of those woes. A legislative task force made numerous recommendations about financial systems, marketing, industry diversification, workforce development and other subjects. Those recommendations produced a series of bills. Two of them passed during the 2025 session, gaining unanimous support, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed one of them, which would have shored up the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank. The Legislature has the opportunity to address the subject again in the coming session.
The Dunleavy administration ran into trouble with two of its other fishery-related efforts. The governor introduced a bill that would legalize salmon farming, which is widely disdained in the state. The bill went nowhere. The administration is also continuing to try to overturn federal subsistence management on federal sections of the Kuskokwim River, but it has lost in court so far.
There were some notable improvements in 2025.
Bering Sea snow crab stocks are starting to rebound after a massive crash that closed harvests for two years, the first. However, there has been a puzzling boom in the number of snow-tanner crab hybrids. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is treating the hybrids as snow crabs for harvest-management purposes.
The overall salmon harvest was much bigger and more lucrative than last year’s dismal totals. Bristol Bay reds were not as small as last year’s record tiny fish, and the region also had a bigger run than predicted. However, salmon runs in the Yukon River continue to be poor.
But trouble is brewing in the marine and freshwater environments that support fish.
In areas of thawing permafrost, particularly Northwestern Alaska, a phenomenon called “rusting rivers,” has released such high levels of metals that conditions at times are toxic for fish. The thaw creates acid rock drainage, similar to the type of pollution that can come from hardrock mining. Iron and other metals that are freed through the process turn clear waters orange or red. The problem is serious enough to have merited a chapter in this year’s Arctic Report Card, issued on Dec. 16 by NOAA.
A member of a multi-organization team combatting the spread of invasive European green crabs holds one of the crabs trapped in Southeast Alaska in the summer of 2023. The invasive crabs were first discovered in Alaska in 2022. The Metlakatla Indian Community is leading the effort to combat their spread, and this year workers in the program trapped more than 40,000 of the crabs. (Photo by Ginny Eckert/Alaska Sea Grant)
Alaska scientists have also confirmed that invasive northern pike, a bane to native salmon runs in Southcentral Alaska, can swim across Cook Inlet to colonize new territory. The freshwater pike, which gobble up salmon fry and other fish, are too entrenched in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to be eradicated from waterways there. Biologists have been working to keep Kenai Peninsula pike-free and believed they were successful in 2018, until scientists discovered that pike are able to survive the relatively short swim through the inlet’s saltwater into new freshwater sites. The eradication work has continued, and state biologists believe the peninsula is again pike-free.
Another looming threat comes from the south. Resource managers with the Metlakatla Indian Community, the tribal government in Alaska’s most southeastern spot, have been battling what its officials term an “explosion” of invasive European green crabs. The first Alaska discovery of the invasive crabs, which can devastate native fish stocks, was in 2022 in the Metlakatla area. At first, there were only a few shells. But this year, workers in the tribal program trapped more than 40,000 of the crabs, which have been steadily expanding north.
“I voted” stickers are seen on display at a polling station in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
One of Rep. Nick Begich III’s uncles is endorsing his main Democratic opponent, Matt Schultz, in next year’s election. Tom Begich’s name was atop a list released to the Alaska Beacon by Schultz’s campaign this month.
Begich’s endorsement of his nephew’s opponent won’t surprise people familiar with Alaska politics — he’s a longtime figure in the state’s Democratic scene, has been publicly critical of his nephew’s actions and is running as a Democrat in the governor’s election — but Schultz’s list and a similar list of endorsements by Republicans for Begich III shows how the state’s political establishment is settling on a two-person race for U.S. House, unlike the crowded contest for governor.
“It will be awkward. It’s always awkward,” Tom Begich said of the endorsement, “ but my mom taught us to learn to live with disagreement, to move beyond it. It doesn’t change the fact that I love my nephew. Just, I’m not supporting him in this election.”
Tom Begich is among 14 people — 12 Republicans and two Democrats — who have registered to run for governor in next year’s election.
Incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited and unable to run.
While there are plenty of candidates for the governor’s seat, the number of people running for federal office is tiny. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican, doesn’t have a well-known challenger yet. Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, has been rumored as a possible opponent but has yet to file.
The same is true on the Democratic side, where support for Schultz appears almost entirely united.
“I’m very pleased to support him and glad he’s running,” said state Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage and the other Democratic candidate in the governor’s race.
“I think he’s more connected with the general, broad spectrum of values in Alaska, more connected with some of the challenges we’re facing. He’s really looking carefully at how we’re dealing with homelessness, and I think he’s concerned about some of the affordability issues that are particularly a challenge in rural Alaska,” Claman said of Schultz.
Among the other people endorsing Schultz are independent state Rep. Alyse Galvin, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. House in 2020 and 2018, and Forrest Dunbar, a Democratic state senator who ran unsuccessfully for House in 2014.
One notable absence is Peltola, who held Alaska’s U.S. House seat for one term before Begich III defeated her in the 2024 election.
Also missing is longtime Democrat Mark Begich, the incumbent Republican’s other uncle and Alaska’s U.S. senator from 2009 to 2015.
“There’s definitely been a lot of support from Democrats all around the state, and I’m very grateful for that. It seems to be a lot of coalescing support,” Schultz said by phone.
A pastor in Anchorage, Schultz spoke on the day that the U.S. House announced that it would not vote to renew subsidies for health insurance policies purchased on the federal marketplace.
Without those subsidies, the prices of many policies will spike with the start of the year.
“That’s really, really sad and disturbing,” Schultz said. “It seems like it should be a no-brainer that you start out by making sure that people can afford their lifesaving medicine.”
Schultz said that as he’s gone around seeking early support for his campaign, he’s found joy and excitement among people who want to find a common good.
“It really is this wonderful excitement to say — just like we pulled together as a nation to go to the moon, we can pull together as a state to provide food and health care to people. It’s a goal that matters so much and is so basically good at its heart that people can’t wait to start working for it,” he said. “I think there’s a hope out there that has felt absent in the last decade or so.”
Cook Inlet near Clam Gulch is seen on Oct. 23, 2025. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Trump administration on Friday affirmed a controversial federal Cook Inlet oil and gas lease sale held at the end of 2022, asserting that impacts to endangered beluga whales and other resources were adequately considered and no changes in the leasing plan are needed.
In a Federal Register notice scheduled to be published on Monday, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced its decision to uphold Lease Sale 258 as held. The decision “balances the national policies mandated by Congress to expeditiously and safely develop the natural resources of the (Outer Continental Shelf), subject to environmental safeguards, in a manner that is consistent with the maintenance of competition and other national needs,” the notice said.
The lease sale, mandated by Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, offered 193 blocks over nearly 1 million acres, but it drew only one bid. The sole bid was from Hilcorp, the dominant oil and gas operator in the inlet.
The auction went through a tumultuous history and remains a subject of debate.
Planning for the sale started in 2020, but two years later, the Biden administration canceled it, citing a lack of industry interest. The sale was resurrected by a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that was inserted by then-Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia. That provision required Lease Sale 258 to be held by the end of 2022; it was ultimately held on Dec. 30 of that year.
Environmental groups that sued to block the sale secured a victory after it was held. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled in July 2024 that pre-sale studies failed to properly analyze impacts to endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and other resources. Gleason ordered BOEM to do the new analysis of beluga and other resource impacts, putting the sole lease that was sold into suspension.
The agency considered three additional alternatives that would have increased protections for belugas and other resources, but it rejected those and kept the original plan in place, according to the document.
“As LS 258 has already occurred, selecting any alternatives other than those described above would not affirm that lease sale and would void the one lease issued as a result of it,” the Federal Register notice said.
In its supplemental environmental impact statement, BOEM asserted that the risks of leasing and the development that would result from it are minor for Cook Inlet belugas and other marine mammals.
“The likelihood of a large oil spill affecting Cook Inlet marine mammals is relatively low, but the consequences could affect some populations. Sea otters face the highest vulnerability from a large spill due to their dependence on fur for insulation, resulting in a moderate impact level. Cook Inlet beluga whales are at risk due to the small population size, but geographic and temporal factors substantially reduce the risk of exposure to a large spill, yielding a minor overall impact level,” the document said.
The agency’s impact statement also describes impacts of noise as minor. While Cook Inlet belugas are highly dependent on hearing other whales’ calls to navigate the murky waters, ship and industrial noise that would drown out those calls “are expected to be temporary, with anticipated localized effects on beluga behavior and no anticipated long-term effect on survival or fitness.” Additionally, no injuries to belugas are expected from lease-related activities, the document said.
A beluga mother, in front, and her darker calf swim in Cook Inlet waters in this undated photo. A federal judge ordered the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to do more to analyze oil leasing impacts on the endangered Cook Inlet beluga population. (Photo by Janice Waite/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
The three new alternatives that BOEM considered would have added new protections for marine mammals and for subsistence and commercial fishing. Those alternatives would have reduced the available leasing territory in different increments, ranging from about one fifth to nearly half, according to the document.
The environmentalists who sued to overturn the lease sale criticized the decision and the lack of public participation leading up to it.
“BOEM’s decision to conduct the whole process in secrecy represents the federal government’s new approach to cutting the public out of decisions about our waters, and favoring the billionaire class and giant corporations over the people who call this place home. We are disgusted by this rushed and sloppy process on this final SEIS,” Bridget Maryott, co-executive director at Cook Inletkeeper, said in a statement, referring to the agency’s just-published supplemental environmental impact statement.
Hannah Foster, an attorney for Earthjustice, the environmental law firm that represented the plaintiffs, called the process leading to the decision a “black box.”
“We won our challenge against this lease sale because Interior failed to adequately consider sale alternatives and the impacts to the endangered beluga whales that will be harmed by blaring vessel noise and other oil industry operations. Yet BOEM has now reaffirmed the sale without seriously considering new alternatives or imposing any new measures to protect belugas,” she said in the statement.
Foster said Earthjustice and its clients are still reviewing the information about BOEM’s decision.
Including the lease sold in 2022, there are currently eight active leases in federal waters of Cook Inlet, all held by Hilcorp.
The Trump administration has already started planning a new Cook Inlet oil and gas lease sale, the first of six nearly annual sales mandates for the inlet through 2032 under the sweeping budget bill that was called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Additionally, the administration included five Cook Inlet lease sales among the 21 it has proposed for federal waters off Alaska through 2031. Those 21 sales are proposed in the administration’s five-year outer continental shelf oil and gas leasing plan, released last month. It envisions oil development in nearly all federal waters off the state’s coasts.
The five-year plan drew praise from Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Trump ally.
“Once again, the Trump Administration is leading the way to American energy dominance by restoring confidence in the federal government’s offshore leasing policies,” Dunleavy said at the time in a post on the social media site X.
Road construction is seen on March 12, 2017, at ConocoPhillips’ Greater Mooses Tooth Unit in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. (Photo by Sarah LaMarr/U.S. Bureau of Land Management)
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration is proposing to divert money from a program intended to compensate North Slope communities for the side effects of oil and gas drilling on federal land near them.
As Dunleavy prepares to unveil a long-term fiscal plan, the state is proposing to use at least some of that money across Alaska instead.
“Definitely a big deal,” said Alexei Painter, director of the Legislative Finance Division, which analyzes the budget on behalf of legislators.
It’s funded through revenue generated by oil production on federal land in the North Slope, and it is expected to grow significantly in coming years as more oil is produced from projects like Willow, which is located in the vast petroleum reserve between Utqiagvik and the Prudhoe Bay oil field.
The Willow project alone, for example, is expected to generate $3.1 billion for the grant program between 2029 and 2053, a boon for the borough’s 10,583 residents.
But in documents published recently, the Department of Revenue has reclassified money for the program as “unrestricted,” meaning it could be spent in a variety of ways.
During a Wednesday meeting of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. board of trustees, CEO Deven Mitchell told the board that he had just heard “that there’s been a federal law change” that could see more money end up in the Permanent Fund.
Mitchell couldn’t recall where he had read about that change, but it appears in the state’s newly published revenue forecast, which covers the fiscal year that starts July 1.
In several footnotes, the Department of Revenue describes a shift in policy. Currently, revenue from the leasing of federal land in the petroleum reserve is deposited in “a special revenue fund” dedicated to a particular purpose.
That changes with the new fiscal year, when “these payments will be divided between unrestricted revenue (74.5%), the Permanent Fund (25%) and Public School Trust Fund (0.5%).”
That would mean money from NPR-A would end up in the state’s general-purpose accounts, usable for services statewide or the Permanent Fund dividend.
Last year, the department wrote, “The federal government dictates that shared NPR-A revenue must be used for specific purposes, and therefore it is considered restricted revenue in this forecast.”
This year, that sentence doesn’t appear.
Comparing the two forecasts shows the difference. Last year, the department labeled NPR-A revenue as “restricted,” or locked in to a particular purpose. In the new fall forecast, it’s “unrestricted,” or available for general use.
While only $9.6 million in NPR-A revenue is expected in the next fiscal year, the state forecasts that amount will rise significantly after the end of the decade — to more than $200 million per year by 2033.
Speaking to reporters last week, an official with the Office of Management and Budget said the Alaska Department of Law was evaluating how changes to federal law in the Big Beautiful Bill Act will change the distribution of revenue to the state and local communities.
That act, passed with the enthusiastic endorsement of Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump, calls for the state to receive 70% of revenue from oil and gas leases on federal land in the National Petroleum Reserve, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Cook Inlet, starting in fiscal year 2034.
The Department of Revenue concluded that clause will ultimately have little effect.
“Since all current and forecasted production in the NPR-A is located on leases issued before 2025, only a small portion of revenue within the current forecast period is expected to receive the 70% share,” the department wrote in its new forecast.
More important for the short term, the Act contains a clause stating that “for each of fiscal years 2025 through 2033, 50 percent (of federal-land oil revenue) shall be paid to the State of Alaska.”
Previous federal law contained a 50-50 split but also contained a clause stating that “in the allocation of such funds, the State shall give priority to use by subdivisions of the State most directly or severely impacted by development of oil and gas leased under this Act.”
That priority doesn’t appear in the Big Beautiful Bill.
As a result, the Alaska Department of Law is determining whether the state may choose to keep that money for direct uses instead of sending it to communities, the OMB official said.
As a precondition for the interview, reporters agreed to allow the official to speak on background and not be quoted directly.
The Alaska Department of Law did not respond to an emailed inquiry about the effort, nor did staff for any of Alaska’s three members of Congress, who were instrumental in adding that language to the Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The North Slope Borough was unable to comment before deadline Wednesday. Officials from VOICE of the Arctic Inupiat, an organization that has acted as a local booster for oil production, also did not return a message seeking comment.
Gift card displays, such as this one in a CVS in Harlem, N.Y., have been a source of concerns for lawmakers hoping to combat gift card fraud. “Card draining,” or stealing numbers from poorly packaged cards, is one of the costliest and most common consumer scams, and states are trying to combat it with consumer alerts, arrests and warning signs on store displays. (Photo by Robbie Sequeira/Stateline)
The Federal Bureau of Investigations’ office in Anchorage issued an alert warning Alaskans of scams impersonating law enforcement or government officials demanding payment. Alaskans lost an estimated $1.3 million due to this type of government impersonation scam in 2024 — more than five times the previous year’s losses.
Officials say Alaskans should not respond to calls claiming they have missed jury duty or have warrants out for their arrest. Officials say anyone targeted by such calls should not provide personal information or payment to the caller, but they should report scams to the agency.
“This scam isn’t new, but we are certainly seeing an uptick in this type of scam here in Alaska,” said Chloe Martin, a public affairs officer with the FBI Anchorage office.
In 2024, the bureau reported 6,670 fraud complaints from Alaskans, with over $26.2 million in losses.
Scammers are calling residents and identifying themselves as an FBI official, a member of state or local law enforcement, or a government official. The scammer then claims the victim has missed jury duty or that a warrant has been issued for their arrest and demands payment from the victim, Martin said.
Sometimes scammers will call using personalized information to appear official. “So when they look at their caller ID, it might actually look like it’s a caller from a legitimate law enforcement agency,” she said.
Martin said scammers use urgency, intimidation and fear to demand immediate payment in the form of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, prepaid gift cards or wire transfers.
Martin urged Alaskans to pause, not give personal information or make payments and report the fraud to their bank and to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, a reporting hub for cyber-crime.
“If reported immediately, it’s actually not outside the realm of possibility to recover funds, so timely reporting is key,” she said. She added that victims should contact their bank to freeze funds if they have responded to a scam.
Last year, the FBI recorded a more than five fold increase in losses from these scams, from nearly $250,000 lost in 2023 to more than $1.3 million in 2024.
Austin McDaniel, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Public Safety said it is common for scammers to impersonate Alaska State Troopers.
“These scammers will go through and find the name of an Alaska law enforcement officer at that agency and call, pretending to be an actual state trooper, so that they’re sophisticated,” he said.
“This happens across the state. This targets every age demographic, and it’s something that we see a lot of,” he said. “I have personally received these types of scam calls demanding that I pay some type of exorbitant fee because I missed jury service. And thankfully, I know that’s definitely a scam, but not everyone does.”
McDaniel said it’s difficult to track, investigate and prosecute scammers because some of them are calling internationally, and are difficult to trace. He urged Alaskans to be cautious and not to make payments.
“Law enforcement, the government, a utility, a bank, is never going to call you and demand money with a gift card or with Bitcoin,” he said. “If you get some type of suspicion that something’s wrong, it probably is.”
Earlier this month, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued an alert warning Alaskans of scammers posing as government officials, insurance agents or aid workers targeting residents impacted by Typhoon Halong receiving disaster assistance.
Officials urged residents to contact FEMA to verify if a call is legitimate.
McDaniel and Martin said their departments could not confirm cases of scammers specifically targeting residents impacted by the Western Alaska storm at this time, but McDaniel emphasized his department sees scammers victimize those who may already be more vulnerable.
“We see it happen with missing persons,” McDaniel said. “Someone will call and try to defraud family members of missing people. Usually any type of situation where there’s some type of tragedy or emotional response to something, scammers will attempt to go through and exploit that.”
According to FBI data, Alaska ranked No. 1 in the nation in the number of internet crime complaints reported, at a rate of 914.7 complaints per 100,000 residents. Scammers target older residents because they can be more susceptible to scams The bureau estimates Alaskans in the age group of 60 or older lost more than $8.1 million to scams in 2024.
Cryptocurrency scams are growing nationwide, as they are difficult to trace. In 2024, the FBI estimates 45% of Alaskans’ losses, approximately $11.7 million, were related to cryptocurrency related scams.
Such scams have become a means to cheat investors, also known as “pig butchering,” according to the bureau. Scammers target victims, develop a relationship, and introduce a fraudulent investment opportunity in cryptocurrency. Victims are coached to invest more and more money into the fraudulent investment, only to then be unable to withdraw their funds.
Internet-based scams and fraud can range from emergency calls and extortion to identity theft and phishing or spoofing, where scammers identify as a trusted source and aim to gain login details or personal information to steal money or data. The FBI reports that complaints increased nationally by 33% in 2024, with $16.6 billion in losses.
The trans-Alaska pipeline, seen on Oct. 8, 2008, threads over snow-covered terrain in the Brook Range foothills. A gryfalcon is perched on one of the pipeline’s thermosphyons in the lower center of the photo. (Photo by Craig McCaa/U.S. Bureau of Land Management)
Though the state of Alaska is anticipating more oil production in the fiscal year that starts July 1, money from oil continues to make up a dwindling share of general-purpose state revenue, according to a forecast published Wednesday by the Alaska Department of Revenue.
Altogether, the state expects to earn $6.2 billion in general-purpose dollars between July 1, 2026 and June 30, 2027, the next fiscal year. Officially known as “unrestricted general fund revenue,” it’s the section of the budget where lawmakers and governors focus most of their attention.
Federal money and money designated for specific programs can sometimes be shifted around to different priorities, but not easily. General-fund dollars can (and are) assigned to different priorities each year.
The forecast for next year’s unrestricted general fund revenue is higher by almost $260 million than the current year’s expectation, but most of that increase isn’t coming from oil.
Since 2018, an annual transfer from the Alaska Permanent Fund to the state treasury has been the No. 1 source of general-purpose dollars for services and the Permanent Fund dividend.
That’s more true than ever, according to the state forecast.
In the next fiscal year, just 23% of the state’s general-purpose revenue is expected to come from petroleum revenue — royalties, property taxes and production taxes.
The Permanent Fund transfer would account for almost 66% of the general-purpose money.
That difference comes despite an expectation that oil production will rise significantly between this fiscal year and next — from an average of 457,000 barrels of oil per day to 517,800 per day on average.
According to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, that’s due to the startup of production in the Pikka oil field and other new production on the North Slope.
Despite that new production, oil revenue is expected to rise only slightly — from $1.43 billion to $1.44 billion.
That’s because the state is expecting North Slope oil prices to average just $62 per barrel during the next fiscal year, down from $65.48 in the current fiscal year.
At the same time, the Permanent Fund transfer is rising by almost $200 million, causing oil to become a still-smaller share of state revenue.
Even though revenue is expected to rise between the current fiscal year and the next one, the projected deficit in Dunleavy’s proposed spending plan stands at more than $1.8 billion.
If oil revenue alone were needed to fill that deficit, average North Slope prices would have to be near $100 per barrel, or the state would have to produce more than 1.2 million barrels of oil per day during the next fiscal year, an amount that is geologically, economically and mechanically unfeasible. The state hasn’t posted an annual average of over 1 million barrels of North Slope oil per day since the turn of the century.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy holds during a news conference on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in Juneau, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer)
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is proposing to spend more than $1.8 billion from the state’s principal savings account to balance a first-draft spending plan that would cover Alaska’s response to recent disasters, the state’s annual expenses in the next fiscal year, and a 2026 Permanent Fund dividend worth about $3,800 per recipient.
The governor unveiled his plan Thursday, ahead of the Dec. 15 deadline to submit a first-draft state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2026.
The governor’s $7.75 billion draft budget is similar to what he proposed last year, but this year’s proposal also includes a substantial supplemental budget intended to compensate for unforeseen costs in the current state budget.
That supplemental budget includes a large amount of transportation spending caught in a dispute with the Alaska State Legislature, and an additional $40 million for the state’s disaster response fund, a figure that could rise if President Donald Trump fails to approve a 100% reimbursement rate for the Typhoon Halong disaster requested by the state.
Thursday’s proposals won’t become final unless approved by the Legislature, and legislators have revised each of Dunleavy’s prior budget proposals before they became law.
Alongside his annual budget proposal, the governor unveiled a draft 10-year plan that appears to call for billions of dollars in tax increases to avoid deficits in future years.
Alaska has no statewide personal income tax or sales tax; more than 60% of general-purpose revenue comes from an annual transfer from the Alaska Permanent Fund, and about 30% generally comes from oil.
The long-term plan published by the governor’s Office of Management and Budget is required by state law, and both Dunleavy and previous governors have used prior plans to demonstrate their ideas.
Dunleavy did not hold a news conference to answer questions about his plan on Thursday, but members of the governor’s administration said he intends to unveil his long-term approach in January, before state legislators open their regular session in Juneau.
“As many of you know,” the governor said in a prerecorded video released Thursday, “oil prices are down … that negatively impacts our budget, and so we will have to fund the budget from savings this year. We all understand that spending from savings and spending the PFD is not a sustainable way to support a budget.”
Dunleavy, who is term-limited and unable to run for governor again, is entering his final year in office. Elected in 2018, he has proposed a variety of ideas each year but has thus far been unable to garner sufficient legislative support for them.
Simultaneously, he has vetoed incremental legislation to address the state’s fiscal problems, most recently with a bill that would have shifted tax revenue from other states to Alaska.
On Thursday, legislators said they were skeptical but hopeful that 2026 might bring a different result to the perennial debates over how to balance the state’s budget in the long term. “It’s probably doubtful,” said Sen. Mike Cronk, R-Tok and a member of the Senate Finance Committee. “But I’m going to stay on the hopeful side, because I know that’s really where we need to be. I’m always going to think that other people will finally say, ‘enough’s enough.’”
In all but one year during his time in office, Dunleavy has proposed a dividend paid under a disregarded but still-on-the-books formula that dates from the 1980s.
In 2017, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that lawmakers may ignore that formula because it is not in the state Constitution. Since then, legislators have typically reduced the dividend to what is payable without spending from savings.
Entering his last year in office, Dunleavy is proposing to spend $2.4 billion on the dividend. Divided among 624,000 recipients — the number of eligible Alaskans in recent years — that’s roughly $3,800 per person.
Dunleavy proposed a similar dividend last year; legislators ultimately approved a $1,000 PFD that could be paid without spending from savings.
Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage and co-chair of the House Finance Committee, said that at first glance, the governor’s proposal is “very much a status quo budget” when it comes to state services, albeit with some changes.
The governor plans funding for a separate Alaska Department of Agriculture, though the creation of that department has been challenged in court by the Legislature.
Funding for the Alaska Department of Corrections is up by 3%, while funding for the state’s Medicaid program is down. No money has been earmarked for the state program that pays for major maintenance and renovations at schools, and funding for public school operations is flat.
Dunleavy is proposing to refill the state’s higher education investment fund — used to pay for college scholarships — after it was drained last year during a budget dispute with the Legislature.
At the same time, the Alaska Department of Revenue is forecasting lower oil revenue due to a declining price forecast. The state Department of Natural Resources expects higher production in fiscal year 2027, but it isn’t enough to fully offset the lower prices.
To balance the budget despite the expected decrease in oil revenue, the governor is proposing to spend from the Constitutional Budget Reserve, which is the state’s principal savings account and contained about $3 billion as of Thursday.
Between supplemental spending and the upcoming fiscal year 2027 budget, Dunleavy is proposing to spend over $1.8 billion from the reserve.
Taking money from the reserve requires three-quarters of the House and three-quarters of the Senate to agree.
In previous years, that’s been a difficult task: The House and Senate are each controlled by coalitions that have taken a skeptical and at times critical view of many of the governor’s policies.
Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel and co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said on Thursday that the Senate Majority’s position is that the reserve should never be used for recurring expenses.
One-time expenses, like refilling the disaster response fund and the higher education investment fund could be acceptable, he said.
House Minority Leader DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer, said it’s too early to say what members of the 19-person, all-Republican House Minority caucus might want in exchange for voting to spend from the budget reserve.
“That’s still unfolding,” she said.
She also cautioned that the governor’s proposal is just a first draft and that it could change significantly before lawmakers convene in January. If oil prices or production fall below what’s forecast, the state might need to spend more from savings.
If additional disasters occur, that might mean another draw from savings.
“We’re just looking at the very beginning, but it’s not going to get better,” she said. “It’s just going to get worse, most likely.”
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy speaks during a news conference on Friday, March 15, 2024. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
NOTN- Governor Mike Dunleavy on Thursday released his proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget, a plan that would rely heavily on state savings to cover a substantial revenue gap.
The Office of Management and Budget projects the state will receive $15.3 billion in total revenue for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026, including $6.2 billion in unrestricted general funds available for lawmakers to appropriate, according to the statement release by Governor Dunleavy.
With declining revenue forecasts and rising costs attributed to inflation, Dunleavy’s proposal calls for withdrawing $1.5 billion from the Constitutional Budget Reserve, Alaska’s primary savings account, which currently holds about $3 billion.
Dunleavy said he plans to introduce a fiscal plan next session aimed at stabilizing state finances without raising taxes. He said the proposal will focus on expanding the private sector, controlling government growth and broadening the state’s economic base beyond oil.
Key elements of the governor’s FY 2027 budget include full statutory funding for K–12 public education, a full statutory Permanent Fund dividend of $3,650 per person and continued investment in public safety.
In an interview with KINY earlier this morning Juneau Senator Jessie Kiehl said, “The expectation is that it will be a budget that grapples with low oil prices. They’re closing below $64 a barrel, and that’s that’s really rough on the Treasury, and costs are going up for state services, just like they’re going up for Alaska. The governor has said that he’s submitting a fiscal plan, and that will be a very welcome change of pace, and if he is serious about that, it will give us a huge amount of work to do in this coming session, if we can get the state’s finances stabilized, not fat and happy, just stable, so we’re off the roller coaster. Alaska is poised for great things.”
Karmen Monigold, a member of Protect the Kobuk, a Northwest Arctic advocacy group opposed to the Ambler Access Road, poses for a portrait in Kotzebue, Alaska, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)
AP- Ice blocks drift past Tristen Pattee’s boat as he scans the banks of Northwest Alaska’s Kobuk River for caribou. His great uncle Ernest steadies a rifle on his lap. It’s the last day of September, and by every measure of history and memory, thousands should have crossed by now. But the tundra is empty, save for the mountains looming on the horizon — the Gates of the Arctic National Park.
Days after Pattee’s unsuccessful hunt, the Trump administration approved construction of the Ambler Access Road — a 211-mile (340-kilometer) route designed to reach massive copper deposits that would cut through that wilderness, crossing 11 major rivers and thousands of streams where salmon spawn and caribou migrate. The approval, which is facing lawsuits though proponents believe construction could start next year, came as record rainfall in Northwest Alaska flooded villages and ripped through fish spawning habitat — the latest climate-driven blow to Indigenous communities already watching caribou and salmon numbers plummet.
As the co-owner of a wilderness guiding company in Ambler, Pattee’s livelihood depends on keeping this landscape intact. An Inupiaq hunter, his ability to feed his family and continue the subsistence traditions of his ancestors depends on healthy caribou and fish populations.
Yet he supports building the road.
“Everything takes money nowadays,” said Pattee, who serves on Northwest Arctic Subsistence Regional Advisory Council, a federal advisory group. Jobs in local villages are scarce, and with gasoline at $17.50 a gallon, the ability to power all-terrain vehicles and boats needed to hunt is out of reach for many. Pattee estimates a single caribou hunting trip from Ambler costs $400. Mining jobs, he believes, would offer a lifeline, and the minerals could slow the climate shifts that are threatening his subsistence way of life.
It’s the irony of climate change in Northwest Alaska: the minerals needed to power the green energy transition sit beneath some of the continent’s last pristine wilderness — a landscape already on the frontlines of the climate crisis, where temperatures are rising four times faster than the rest of the planet.
“I see the climate changing. I’ve been seeing it for years now. It’s scary,” said Pattee. “Losing our culture, our tradition, is very concerning. So let’s do anything we can to help mitigate it.”
The decline before the road
Over the last two decades, the Western Arctic Caribou Herd has plummeted from nearly half a million to some 164,000 — a 66% decline, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Of those that remain, fewer now cross the Kobuk River during fall migration, where Pattee and other Inupiaq hunters would historically gather in late summer to stockpile meat for winter. While caribou populations naturally fluctuate, scientists say the increasingly delayed cold and snow that triggers the migration south has caused caribou to remain in the Brooks Range, where they are difficult for hunters to access.
The day after Pattee’s unsuccessful hunt, the first snow fell. On Oct. 6 — far later than historical norms — caribou began trickling across the Kobuk. Then the rains came, bringing heavy, late-season downpours that scientists say are becoming more common in the warming Arctic and devastating for salmon. Intense rainfall can damage and dislodge eggs, while rising water temperatures reduce oxygen levels fish need to journey upstream.
One recent study found dozens of clear streams in the Brooks Range have turned orange with toxic levels of metals — changes researchers believe is the result of permafrost thaw — which may help explain recent drops in salmon numbers. Chinook and chum salmon in particular are experiencing “sustained and dramatic declines” with periodic population crashes, which has led to complete closures of some fisheries, according to NOAA Fisheries.
Experts worry about what this year’s record storms will mean for future runs.
“Elders who’ve lived here their entire lives have never seen environmental conditions like this and they’ve never seen fish conditions this poor,” said Alex Whiting, Environmental Program Director for the Native Village of Kotzebue.
Adding pressure to a buckling landscape
The Ambler Road would add its own pressures. Thousands of culverts and nearly 50 bridges would disrupt water flow and fish passages, and more than 100 trucks would traverse the road daily over the decades-long production period. Federal biologists warn the region’s rocks contain naturally occurring asbestos and that heavy traffic would kick up dust that would settle on thousands of waterways as well as the vegetation caribou depend on. The road would also fragment the habitat of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd, potentially hindering migration patterns. The Bureau of Land Management designated some 1.2 million acres of nearby salmon spawning and caribou calving habitat as “critical environmental concern.”
Then there’s the mine. Vast amounts of water would be drawn from rivers and lakes, while groundwater levels and permafrost would be permanently disrupted. The operation would generate enormous quantities of waste rock and require a tailings facility to store toxic slurry, risking spills that could send heavy metals into waterways.
Given the record-breaking rainfall the region has seen in recent years, residents downstream worry about breaches. In Kotzebue, a hub of 3,000 at the mouth of the Kobuk where flooding prompted an emergency declaration this fall, many fear contamination could harm drinking sources and traditional Inupiaq foods like fish and bearded seals, which are already threatened by disappearing sea ice.
Poop “rolls downhill — and that’s where Kotzebue’s at,” said Karmen Monigold, an Inupiaq member of Protect the Kobuk, a grassroots effort working to stop the road, and co-chair of the Kotzebue Sound Subsistence Advisory Council.
Monigold learned to live off the land as a child from her grandparents. Determined to share her connection to nature, she taught her four sons and their cousins to hunt and fish. She’s watched climate change erode the subsistence lifestyle she fought to preserve and fears the road would accelerate that loss.
Like many opponents, she doubts promises that the road would remain private and notes other Alaska roads, such as the Dalton Highway, opened to the public despite similar assurances. An influx of outside hunters and fishers, they fear, would further stress fish and caribou populations. Even Pattee’s support for the road hinges on it being closed.
“We lose so much every generation,” Monigold said. “But right now we still have enough of a culture for it to be worth fighting for.”
In an emailed statement, Kaleb Froehlich, Managing Director of Ambler Metals, the company behind the mining project, said the operation would use proven safety controls for permafrost and will treat all water from the mining process to strict standards. The company also tracks precipitation to size facilities for heavier rainfall and has a binding agreement with NANA, an Alaska Native corporation, to prioritize recruitment from nearby communities.
Ambler Metals declined to comment on concerns specific to the road, including naturally occurring asbestos, traffic impacts, public access and habitat fragmentation, noting the company is not the road developer, though it has contributed to pre-development costs and would be its primary user. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the state-owned investment bank developing the road, did not respond to a request for comment.
The carbon footprint of decarbonizing
Critical minerals are becoming increasingly vital — growing demand for green energy technologies could scale production by nearly 500% by 2050, according to a 2020 World Bank report. The Arctic deposit would yield not just copper, but also zinc, lead, silver and gold. At an estimated 46.7 million tons of mineral reserves, it ranks among the largest undeveloped polymetallic deposits in North America.
But there’s no guarantee the minerals would fuel clean energy. President Donald Trump has spoken openly about his disdain for electric vehicles and wind power, and the majority of copper in the U.S. goes to construction projects, according to the Copper Development Association.
The Trump administration has framed the issue as one of national security and deemed reliance on “hostile foreign powers’ mineral production” an acute threat. In March, the White House issued an executive order instructing the Secretary of the Interior to prioritize mineral production and mining as the primary land use on all federal lands known to hold mineral deposits.
Yet even that argument doesn’t quite fit. While the U.S. is heavily reliant on China for some 20 different minerals, the Arctic deposit’s primary minerals — copper and zinc — are not among them, according to the 2025 USGS report. The U.S. sources 45% of its refined copper from Chile, Canada, Mexico and Peru, and 73% of its zinc from Canada and Mexico. The rest is mined domestically.
The real issue isn’t whether the minerals are needed — it’s who gets to decide, said Andrea Marston, an associate professor of geography at Rutgers University who studies mining and Indigenous rights in the Americas. Mining projects like Ambler are sometimes located on Indigenous lands, creating what she calls a false ethical dilemma: mine to save the climate, or protect the land and perpetuate warming. That framing, she argues, obscures other possibilities like investing in mass public transportation, recycling minerals that already exist and designing systems that consume less.
“You cannot justify steamrolling Indigenous lands with a kind of global story of climate change because that just ends up reiterating colonial plunder in a new way,” she said. “The starting point should be: it is their land to decide what to do with.”
A community divided
Ambler mayor Conrad Douglas recognizes the exorbitant cost of living in his village and the desperate need for jobs. But he also knows the Canadian and Australian mining companies that hold the rights to the Ambler deposits may source workers from elsewhere, and he fears what it would all do to the land.
His concerns are layered: fugitive dust, tailings runoff and a cruel cycle where increasingly heavy rains wipe out fish runs, forcing people to rely more on caribou just as the road threatens to further disrupt those herds. With gas prices already putting hunting out of reach for many families, the equation becomes impossible.
“I don’t really know how much the state of Alaska is willing to jeopardize our way of life, but the people do need jobs,” he said, dressed in a pro Ambler Road hoodie.
Douglas worked at Red Dog Mine in the early 1990s and has seen how it benefited neighboring villages with jobs and community support. But he worries the companies behind Ambler won’t take the same approach.
For Pattee, the jobs represent more than income — they would allow people to reconnect with their culture. Young Inupiaq hunters once took immense pride in providing for their families, he said.
“That was their proud moment. That was what they lived for,” he said. “Nowadays, without being able to afford hunting, a lot of that’s been taken away.”
As for impacts on fish and caribou, Pattee believes mining safeguards work. In addition to wilderness guiding, he works as an environmental technical supervisor at Red Dog Mine and has seen good practices firsthand.
Still, “there’s always a worry,” he said.
What would be left
Nick Jans, an author who moved to Ambler in 1979, has watched the landscape transform over 46 years. When he first arrived, permafrost banks held firm against the rivers and caribou poured through by the hundreds of thousands.
The road, he argued, would deliver the final blow to a landscape already stressed by climate change.
“This isn’t about my backyard — this is about your backyard. This is the world’s backyard,” he said, his voice catching. “We have to protect something that was this planet as it was before us. Otherwise, we’re gonna lose our way. And I would say we already have.”
The night after his unsuccessful hunt, Pattee and his family gathered around a table of bowhead whale, beluga, seal and moose — a rare meal all together as relatives had flown in from Anchorage. Like many in Ambler, Pattee’s family members have left over the years to find jobs. In a village this small, each departure is felt — the population has dwindled from 320 in 2010 to some 200 today.
“We’re losing our community. We’re literally losing it,” he said. “People want to be home but they just don’t have the opportunities to keep them there.”
Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, speaks Wednesday, April 23, 2025, on the floor of the Alaska Senate. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
In a Friday hearing, members of the Alaska Senate spoke critically about a proposed new ferry terminal in Juneau, questioning why the project would be worth its multimillion-dollar cost.
Earlier this year, state legislators planned to divert $62 million from a variety of transportation projects in order to pay for the state share of federal transportation grants worth between $500 million and $600 million.
Lawmakers included the diversion in their budget for the year, but Dunleavy vetoed the maneuver, saying that the “funding is either still obligated in the original project or has been fully expended and is unavailable for reappropriation.”
That left legislators’ spending plan partially unfunded.
One of lawmakers’ biggest targets this past spring was DOT’s plan to build a new ferry terminal in Juneau, roughly 30 miles north of the existing terminal in Auke Bay, in Juneau at a place called Cascade Point, which would shorten ferry runs to Haines and Skagway.
Legislators sought to divert $37 million from an account intended to fund that new terminal, but Dunleavy vetoed the transfer and the Department of Transportation subsequently signed a $28.5 million contract for work on the terminal.
In October, the state’s ferry advisory board concluded that the project likely did not make economic sense.
“Do you agree with that study?” asked Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, during Friday’s hearing of the Senate Transportation Committee.
“Can you please make the case to the Alaska people why you think investing this money … in the Cascade Point project makes fiscal sense for Alaskans?”
Anderson responded that “as a public agency, we’re more than economics. In this case, there’s this idea of saving people time with a much shorter run, saving money, the cost of operating that ship, we’re saving fuel. It’s less carbon emissions. I mean, there’s a lot of good benefits to shorter ferry runs.”
Lawmakers don’t have the votes to override the governor’s vetoes, which means that when they reconvene in January, they’ll have to come up with a new way to fund construction work this summer.
According to documents presented to the committee on Friday, the Alaska Department of Transportation has “deferred” about 25 projects 1-3 years “to remain within available match.”
Without new money, “fewer projects will move to contract award, limiting construction activity.”
Ryan Anderson, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, told the transportation committee that his agency is prioritizing “shovel ready” projects, those that are about to go to construction.
“As we go and prioritize projects through this year, we’ll continue that action, and we’ll be ready. That’s really how we’re looking at this program,” he said.
