Democratic U.S. House candidate Matt Schultz is seen in an undated photo published on his campaign website. (Screenshot)
An Anchorage pastor announced Monday that he is running for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat, challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Nick Begich.
The Rev. Matt Schultz, of Anchorage’s First Presbyterian Church, is a registered Democrat with an extensive history of support for progressive policies and ideals. On Saturday, he spoke at Anchorage’s No Kings day rally.
In an interview on Tuesday, Schultz said he was motivated to run by his belief “that every person has a responsibility to use the many gifts and opportunities we have as a way to be of service to the world.”
Schultz said that what tipped him over into running was his sense that daily life has become too difficult. “The policies that our current legislators have put in place have made life unaffordable, just on the basics like food and rent and on the larger but just as important things such as health care.”
Schultz was born and raised in rural New York state, which he described as “a place that had more cows than people.”
He moved to Alaska with his wife in 1997. They have three children, two of whom are grown and one of whom attends high school in Anchorage.
Schultz and his wife left the state about four years after arriving in order to attend graduate school and returned in 2013 permanently.
Schultz’s father was a Catholic priest, his mother, a Catholic nun.
“They got married and excommunicated in the same moment,” he said, describing his family history.
“So I sort of inherited the family business, in a way, but I chose a different path slightly,” he said.
In regular opinion columns and letters submitted to the Anchorage Daily News, Schultz has espoused a progressive Christian viewpoint, with support for LGBTQ Alaskans, higher minimum wages and improved government-backed healthcare.
Begich, elected in 2024, has been a reliable vote for President Donald Trump, including on Trump’s signature budget proposal, which reduced federal services and increased federal tax breaks, particularly for wealthy Americans.
The Congressional Budget Office expects the proposal to significantly increase the federal debt, something Begich doubts.
Schultz said he felt the budget “really just put the hammer on people who are working hard to get by,” and he hasn’t been happy with Begich’s decision to eschew town hall meetings to discuss his vote.
“I don’t know how it’s possible to be a representative that doesn’t show up for things like town halls and to listen to the people’s concerns, so I will definitely be doing that as much as possible,” Schultz said.
Officially, Schultz is the second Democrat in the race; Fairbanks Democrat John Williams signed up for the race in July but has not raised any money or conducted significant campaign events.
Williams is the only candidate to have officially registered with the Alaska Division of Elections.
Schultz registered with the Federal Elections Commission on Monday, which allows him to begin fundraising and advertising. Williams and Begich have already registered, and according to the latest available FEC data, Begich had approximately $1.6 million available in his campaign account, discounting about $376,000 in debt.
More candidates may enter the race; the deadline to do so is June 1. The top four vote-getters in the August primary election will advance to the general election in November.
The Alaska and American flags fly in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
If the federal government shutdown continues, more than 66,000 Alaskans will lose federal food aid within weeks, the state of Alaska is warning.
On Monday, the Division of Public Assistance within the Alaska Department of Health said that the federal government “has directed states to stop the issuance of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for the month of November due to insufficient federal funds. This means that Alaskans may not receive SNAP benefits for November, even if they are authorized to receive them.”
The division estimates that 66,471 Alaskans would be eligible for benefits under the program.
In its written statement, the division said that it tried to pay for the program with state money “and determined that a state subsidy was not mechanically possible under the federal payment system.”
Similar warning messages went out from other states across the country starting Friday. In Kentucky, where one in eight residents receives food aid, Gov. Andy Beshear said the pending cut makes this “a scary and stressful time.”
Altogether across the country, more than 42 million Americans rely on the food stamp program, which the federal government funds and individual states administer.
Sixty votes in the U.S. Senate are needed to advance a House-passed stopgap funding bill. That would require the support of some Senate Democrats, but they oppose its passage unless lawmakers also agree to extend subsidies for health insurance purchased through the federal marketplace.
Existing subsidies are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, sending prices soaring.
Thus far, Republicans have been unwilling to agree to the Democratic demand, and Senate Republicans also have been unwilling to change the Senate’s filibuster rule. Doing so would allow them to advance the stopgap funding bill with 50 votes instead of 60.
NOTN- The City and Borough of Juneau certified its municipal election Today, finalizing the results and officially welcoming Nathaniel “Nano” Brooks to the Assembly.
Mayor Beth Weldon said Brooks has already begun onboarding following his narrow victory in the District 2 race.
“Mr. Brooks will be on the assembly, we’ve already done our onboarding with him,” Said Weldon “Part of my week will be looking at committees and liaisons and putting people where I think they should go for this year. That will be exciting.”
The city’s reorganization meeting is scheduled for Oct. 27, when Assembly members will finalize committee appointments.
Weldon said the city’s election team had been busy preparing the results for certification.
The official results of this month’s Election are as follows;
The Assembly and School Board races saw the following candidates elected:
Areawide Assembly: Ella Adkison was elected to her first full three-year term.
District 1 Assemblymember: Greg Smith was elected to his final three-year term as an Assemblymember.
District 2 Assemblymember: Nathaniel “Nano” Brooks was elected to his first three-year term as an Assemblymember.
School Board members: Steve Whitney and Melissa Cullum were elected to three-year terms, while Jenny Thomas was elected to a two-year term to fill an unexpired seat.
The results of the ballot proposition are summarized below. Exact language for each proposition is available in the sample ballot (PDF).
Proposition 1 – Mill Rate Cap Amendment Proposition 1 was a citizen’s initiative petition to amend Section 9.7 of the CBJ Charter. It proposed capping the property tax rate at 9 mills, down from the previous rate cap 12 mills. Additional millage would be permissible to pay for general obligation debt. Any property tax rate above the new cap would require voter approval at a future election. The proposition passed with 5,163 YES votes and 5,006 NO votes.
Proposition 1 is scheduled to take effect on November 20, 2025, 30 days after enactment, however the impacts of the rate cap will not be reflected until the Fiscal Year 2027 municipal budget.
Proposition 2 – Sales Tax Exemptions Proposition 2 was a citizen’s initiative petition to amend the City and Borough of Juneau (CBJ) Code to create new sales tax exemptions for both essential food (as defined by the federal Food and Nutrition Act of 2008) and non-commercial essential utilities. The proposition passed with 7,099 YES votes and 3,100 NO votes.
Proposition 2 is scheduled to take effect on November 20, 2025, 30 days after enactment. The citizen’s initiative was modeled after the existing senior sales tax exemption and will require several steps by City, merchants and service providers, as well as members of the public to implement. The CBJ Finance Department will assist merchants with this change, however, seniors with sales tax exemption cards should continue to carry their cards until the transition is complete.
More information on this process will be provided over the next 30 days.
Proposition 3 – Seasonal Sales Tax Proposition 3 proposed amending the CBJ Sales Tax Code to implement a new permanent seasonal sales tax structure. The measure proposed the introduction of a 2% sales tax from October 1 through March 31 and a 6.5% sales tax from April 1 through September 30 of each year, while repealing both the current permanent 1% and temporary 3% sales taxes. The existing temporary 1% sales tax would have remained unchanged. The proposition failed with4,365 YES votes and 5,853 NO votes.
A more detailed report with election statistics will be provided at the October 27 Assembly Reorganizational Meeting, to be held at 6 p.m. in person at Centennial Hall Ballroom #3 and remotely via Zoom webinar.
The Alaska and American flags fly in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
NOTN- Juneau Sen. Jesse Kiehl says the ongoing federal government shutdown is harming public workers and citizens rather than politicians.
Speaking on KINY last week, Kiehl said that despite one party holding control of Congress and the White House, U.S. Senate filibuster rules make it difficult to reach a budget deal.
“Federal rules are a little bit different than the state; there’s the old saying in the U.S. Senate that there are only two rules, there’s unanimous consent and total exhaustion.” Kiehl said, “Breaking a filibuster means bringing in cots and sleeping there until somebody finally falls over. The U.S. Senate is not a bunch of spring chickens, so they don’t like to do that second part. So they’re trying to get to a deal, or rather, if they don’t get to a deal, we end up here.”
Kiehl, recalling Alaska’s own brief partial shutdown during his time in the Legislature, said the consequences of budget impasses fall hardest on workers and the public.
“The pain doesn’t end up with the folks who do the voting, we really have to keep an eye on who’s affected, and it’s the citizens.” Kiehl said, “It’s the people who try to go to work and do the job for the public every day, and that’s what we’re seeing. It’s a doggone shame.”
As of October 21, 2025, the government has been shut down for 21 days, with over 700,000 federal employees furloughed, on October 22, 2025 the shutdown will become the second longest, the longest funding lapse was 35 days in 2018 and 2019.
Republicans and Democrats seem no closer to an agreement on how to resolve the ongoing budget dispute.
Under the U.S. system, the different branches of government have to agree on spending plans before they become law.
“Everybody needs to focus back up and remember that services to Americans are what’s getting cut here.” Kiehl said, “This is destructive.”
AP- The remnant storms of Typhoon Halong tore into western Alaska with such ferocity that they pulled Steven Anaver’s home from its foundation and buoyed it across choppy water — with him inside.
Videos he shared Monday with The Associated Press convey the desperate scene as the waters rose inside his home and the flooding raged outside.
The storms’ blistering winds and record-high water levels laid waste to several small communities Oct. 12, displacing more than 2,000 people and requiring one of the most significant airlift operations in Alaska history.
At least one person is dead, and two others are missing.
The water started rising quickly Saturday night in Anaver’s village of Kwigillingok. It’s one of two Yup’ik communities that were hit hardest.
Anaver looked out through his window into pitch-black darkness. The power had long since been out.
The storm was the worst he’d seen. At around 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, the water level jumped, rising to his knees in about 10 minutes.
Shortly after, the home teetered, tilted and started floating.
Plastic bags, boxes of blankets, a leather boot and furniture cushions floated in videos Anaver took from inside. The walls swayed like a ship’s.
Outside, the dark waters lapped the house just a few feet from the window as the home drifted away. Anaver heard loud booms, and frigid wind rushed through a hole that opened in one wall.
“This was a big challenge for my anxiety,” he said. “I kept calling my family.”
More booms shook the home as the waves crashed it into other structures.
“Oh God,” he wrote in a Facebook post around 5:30 a.m.
Anaver tried to take pictures to orient where he was — the camera could see better than his eyes in the darkness — but it was futile until the moon came out later that morning.
He could see a house he recognized. He’d floated for roughly a mile.
A small hill with a board sticking out of it had stopped Anaver’s home just feet from the river, which had dragged other houses much farther away.
After 7 a.m., when the water had receded enough, two neighbors in waders came over and helped him out.
Three days later, Anaver posted a video on Facebook of the hours drifting in his own home.
“I was inches away from death,” he wrote. “I escaped.”
Members of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian group Aanchich’x Kwaan perform on Oct. 18, 2025, at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage. The dance and singing group has members of all age groups, from young children to elders. The group was among several that performed traditional dances at the convention. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage, while it featured the usual cultural celebrations, socializing and discussions of state and federal policies, had a strong focus this year on a particular subject: the ravages on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of ex-Typhoon Halong.
Natasha Singh poses for photos in the hallway of the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center, site of the Alaska Federation of Natives annual convention. Singh, who is president of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, had just delivered her keynote speech on the opening morning of the convention. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Speaker after speaker at the convention, the largest annual convention of any kind in Alaska and one of the largest Indigenous gatherings in the nation, referenced the storm. It has displaced more than 1,500 people, killed at least one person and dislodged houses from their foundations. Residents of stricken villages have been airlifted away, with hundreds getting temporary residency in Anchorage. The state’s largest city is about 490 miles east of the evacuees’ home villages, and vastly different in culture and character from the highly rural Indigenous communities.
“My heart with everyone impacted by the recent coastal storms,” Natasha Singh, the president of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and the keynote speaker on the first day of the convention, said at the start of her address.
“While the damage is so vast, the love for our people is even greater. And even as we feel the pain and the loss, I also feel a sense of inspiration to see so many people reach out to help,” she continued.
Volunteers work on Oct. 18, 2025, to sort donated items being collected in a room in the Dena’ina Civic and Coonvention Center, site of the Alaska Federation of Natives annual convention. Donations of diapers, clothing, hygiene products, bottled water, shelf-stable food and other items were being collected for Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta residents displaced by the remnants of Typhoon Halong. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
A special feature of the convention was a second-floor room at the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center that was set aside to collect donations headed to the storm victims. Over two days, as convention proceedings unfolded in the third-floor ballroom, the collection room became filled with boxes of diapers, toiletries, clothing items, shelf-stable food and other necessities that were sorted by volunteers.
On Saturday, the final day, delegates passed a resolution seeking an immediate national disaster declaration, and investment by the federal government in better infrastructure in rural Alaska to protect against future disasters.
The ravages of the remnants ofTyphoon Halong demand more than an emergency response, the resolution said. The disaster “has continued to expose vulnerabilities in infrastructure, housing, and emergency preparedness for rural Alaska/extreme remote America, and highlights the need for stronger tribal-state-federal collaboration,” it said.
Alaska Federation of Natives convention attendees from the Yukon-Kuskokwim region listen on Oct. 16, 2025, to the keynote address delivered by Natasha Singh, president of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The call for a national disaster declaration and the aid that would come with it was among a packet of resolutions passed on Saturday. Many of the resolutions concerned food security and efforts to ensure that Alaska Natives can safely practice their traditional fishing and hunting practices.
One highly anticipated convention speaker was former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, who is considered a possible candidate for governor or U.S. Senate.
But Peltola made no campaign announcement.
“I want to preface everything I’m saying with: This is going to be very anticlimactic for everybody, I think,” she said at the start of her speech. “No big announcements, no big declarations.”
Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, speaks at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention on Oct. 17, 2025, about subsistence food gathering. Peltola is Yup’ik and from Bethel. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Instead, she discussed subsistence – the traditional harvests of wild foods and arts materials – and the legal and environmental threats to its continued practice.
State legislators sit onstage at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention on Oct. 17, 2025, as House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, addresses the audience. Lawmakers pictured are, from the left, Rep. Neal Foster, D-Nome; Rep. Maxine Dibert, D-Fairbanks; Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage; Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage; Rep. Robyn Burke, D-Utqiagvik; Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak; Sen. Donny Olson, D-Golovin; and Rep. Nellie Jimmie, D-Toksook Bay. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
She spoke about the way subsistence ties Alaska Natives to their home regions.
“Those spots, the places that we hunt and fish, they’re like another personality to us,” Peltola said.
She referred to a close friend who recently died. When she was on her deathbed, her family gathered around, Peltola said. “And at one point, they just talked about places. They just said the names of the places where they pick berries, or get whitefish, gather greens. And it was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever experienced, just reciting names.”
Kendra Berlin mans a pro-voting table at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention on Oct. 16, 2025. Berlin, originally from Bethel but now living in Palmer, was distributing T-shirt and buttons promoting the Natives Vote cause. (Phot by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Hundreds gather at Overstreet park in Juneau (James Brooks, Alaska Beacon)
Alaskans came out to protest the Trump administration as part of the nationwide No Kings protest on Saturday, with speeches, songs, and increasingly creative flair — signs, slogans, and costumes, some as inflatable animals like eagles and polar bears.
In downtown Anchorage, protesters filled Town Square Park, and the crowd spilled over to line W 5th and W 6th avenues, where they waved signs and passing cars honked in support.
“It’s a matter of we are losing our rights,” said Keri Lord of Anchorage, dressed in a long cape and crown for the no kings theme. “And we are headed towards fascism, and it needs to stop now.”
Thousands gather at Town Square Park in downtown Anchorage for the second No Kings day protest to denounce the Trump administration and its policies on Oct. 18, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
There were speeches, chants, poetry and songs. The crowd also showed support for the evacuees of the devastating storm in western Alaska, and urged donations and continued aid for relief and recovery efforts. Non-profits and advocacy groups hosted tables along the Atwood Concert Hall with educational materials and hot coffee.
“It’s great to see so many people come out,” said Karan Gier, matching Lord in a cape and crown, holding a sign reading “No troops in our streets.“ And from all ages. That’s what’s especially wonderful. We’ve seen that all summer, because we’ve been to all of (the protests) all summer long. And it makes your heart feel good to see this. We’re not a silent majority. We are loud.”
At least 25 communities held events throughout the state for No Kings day, including Kotzebue, Nome, Fairbanks, Talkeetna, Healy, Wasilla, Anchorage, Girdwood, Soldotna, Kenai, Homer, Seward, Dillingham, Kodiak, Valdez, Haines, Gustavus, Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan and others.
Around 45 protesters rallied in Healy, pop. 723, in the Denali Borough of Interior Alaska for the second No Kings day protest on Oct. 18, 2025 (Photo by Michelle Femrite)
Alaskan’s protest signs shared on social media and in Anchorage used humor and satire to mock and condemn President Donald Trump, his cabinet, and recent moves to expand executive powers as authoritarian. Speakers denounced cuts to federal funding and social services such as Medicaid, disregard for the rule of law, and the ongoing government shutdown.
Many protest signs denounced the deployment of U.S. military troops in Democratic-led cities across the country, and the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement violently arresting immigrants and U.S. citizens.
“I love this country, and I think we should be better,” said Kathryn Schild, a life-long Anchorage resident. “I’m appalled at what we are doing to our friends and our neighbors and our loved ones.”
“And this is what we can do, right?” she said. “We have a voice, we can call, we can protest, we can stand up, and we can demand that our government work for us.”
AP- The special delivery arrived in a plastic storage box after a chartered flight in bouncy single-propeller plane. Veterinarian Susan Shaffer Sookram snipped the zip ties securing the lid and greeted the cargo: four dogs, one with a gray collar bearing its name, Happy.
“What a scary ride!” she said. “You made it!”
As officials in Alaska work around the clock on one of the most significant airlift operations in state history — evacuating more than 1,000 people from remote, flood-battered villages on the coast of the Bering Sea — another rescue operation is playing out: getting the dogs left behind to safety, in hopes of later reuniting them with their owners.
The pet shelters closest to the devastated villages are in Bethel, a regional hub around 90 miles (150 kilometers) away by boat or plane.
When Bethel Friends of Canines, a nonprofit that helps rehome animals, learned that 50 to 100 dogs might be abandoned in one of the villages, Kipnuk, it scrambled to charter a plane to evacuate them.
“It costs us $3,000 to do this so and we don’t know how many times we’re gonna have to do it,” organizer Jesslyn Elliott said by phone Wednesday. “We’ve never had a natural disaster to this, like, magnitude. So this is all very, very foreign and new to us. So we’re just kind of winging it.”
The first flight arrived in Bethel on Wednesday night, and more happened Thursday. Dozens of dogs have passed through her kennel since the floods began. The nonprofit had raised more than $22,000 after pleading on Facebook for donations.
The flooding, caused by remnants of Typhoon Halong, has damaged homes in 11 small rural communities, with no more than a few hundred residents, according to FEMA. Many homes cannot be repaired until next summer as winter temperatures and snow are forecast for this month.
Pets were not allowed on the military evacuation flights. State officials have said that the evacuation of people is the priority.
Bethel Friends of Canines received dogs throughout the week as people fleeing their homes arrived by boat and by plane. There are no roads connecting towns in the area.
Many of the pets owners want them back soon, but need time to prepare temporary lodgings in cities like Anchorage and Nome, which are more than 250 miles (400 kilometers) away.
Before the devastating floods, Bethel Friends of Canines typically held 15 to 20 dogs at any one time. Now as many as 15 dogs have arrived on a single flight. Elliott expects most of the additional dogs to stay in Bethel temporarily before being reunited with their owners or extended family that can foster them.
At least eight dogs had been reunited with owners in Anchorage as of Thursday morning, she said.
Homes in affected villages are so damaged that they many not be livable in the winter, emergency management officials said Wednesday, and forecasters said rain and snow could arrive this weekend.
With the human population in Kipnuk shrinking each day, the animal caretakers in Bethel realized they had to act fast, before everyone who knew the dogs was gone.
“There’s going to be nobody left there,” said Sookram, the veterinarian, in a phone interview. “We’re having to kind of accelerate how the animals are going to be leaving places only accessible by, at first, helicopter and now small planes,”
Some of the last people to stay behind and serve the community are teachers. Schools in flooded towns have served as emergency shelters and meeting places through the relief effort.
Back in Kipnuk, the dog with the gray collar, Happy, was found waiting on its owner’s clothes, refusing to move or eat, by teacher Jacqui Lang. She said in a text message that the dog has since been reunited with its family.
She’s one of two or three teachers who helped wrangle the pets to be loaded at the airstrip, according to Lower Kuskokwim School District Superintendent Andrew ‘Hannibal’ Anderson.
When Bethel Friends of Canines worker Matthew Morgan landed in Kipnuk on Wednesday, the teachers had fed the dogs, coaxed them into crates and labeled them with tags listing their owners.
“You’ve got some heroes out in Kipnuk. They’re like the last people left there,” Morgan said. Without them, “it would have been chasing dogs all night in the mud.”
NOTN- Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon says the city is preparing to welcome Nathaniel “Nano” Brooks to the Assembly following this month’s municipal election.
Brooks won the District 2 Assembly seat by a narrow margin and will officially take office once election results are certified later this month.
“October 27 is our reorganization meeting.” Weldon said, “But he’s officially part of the assembly when the election is certified. He’ll get his big notebook and start plowing through that and learn the fun things about the assembly that are hard to deal with.”
Weldon said she and other city officials met with Brooks Wednesday morning to begin his orientation and help him prepare for his new role.
She added that the biggest challenge for new members often comes from adapting to the city’s decision-making process.
“The biggest problem that people have coming on to any of our boards or commissions or assembly is all of our decisions are made in the public.” Said Weldon, “That’s different for lots of people, because it’s hard to talk about everything in front of the public when you first come on, and it’s what we do, we involve the public in all our decision making.”
Weldon said she’s looking forward to working with Brooks, who she described as excited about his new position.
Volumes of the Alaska Administrative Code are seen on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, at the Legislative Reference Library in the Alaska State Capitol at Juneau. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
In the next few years, Alaskans could see sweeping changes to everyday life under an ambitious and far-reaching program launched by Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Administrative Order 360, issued in August, calls on state agencies to reduce the number of state regulations by 15% before 2027 and 25% cumulatively before 2028.
Both deadlines would come after Dunleavy, who is term-limited, leaves office in December 2026.
If laws are the bones of a state, regulations are the ligaments and connective tissue that keep it moving. Alaska’s administrative code, a shelflong 10-volume set of thick books, dictates everything from how to conduct an election to the proper labeling of eggs and the correct way to install an underground fuel tank.
Forty-five different professions are regulated by the state: Pharmacists follow the rules in that code, as do nail technicians, concert promoters, barbers, midwives, and people who euthanize animals.
Elections officials operate under a system of regulations, as do local electric companies, water providers, and the people providing Internet service. Utilities, which have local monopolies on critical services, are tightly regulated, with even their profit margins controlled by the state.
Regulations are intended to protect the public and ensure safety, but some businesses see them as a problem, particularly if the cost of following them is high, or if they go beyond what the business owner thinks is warranted.
“There are often numerous, unnecessary requirements that simply impose an unnecessary burden on businesses, the public, and the agencies themselves,” says a regulatory reduction guide distributed by the Dunleavy administration to state agencies as part of the administrative project.
Development permitting regulations are a top priority
The governor’s order specifies that the departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Conservation and Fish and Game focus “on permitting process reform,” eliminating regulations that lay out steps to take before a development project like a new mine, road or neighborhood can be built.
Attorney General-designee Stephen Cox began leading the Alaska Department of Law not long after Dunleavy issued AO 360, and his agency is taking a lead role in its implementation.
“One of the things that the governor is trying to do is make Alaska all the more attractive for investment,” he said.
Sometimes, Cox said, regulations go farther than what was intended by law. Rather than serving as connective tissue, they can act “almost like a spider web” as additional forms and requirements are added over time, with none taken away.
“You might start out with a single strand, but then there becomes this whole web that you can walk right into. You can feel it everywhere. … it’s just sort of expanding and expanding, and it hardly ever shrinks, until the rain comes, and that’s what AO 360 will be akin to,” he said.
Department of Law officials believe the state has a large number of outdated regulations that could be easily removed.
In other cases, regulations have adopted parts of federal law by reference, but agencies haven’t checked to see whether those federal laws have been repealed or changed in the meantime.
A cursory review shows some areas of the code haven’t kept up with technological development. “Telegraph” appears five times in the code, “fax” 16 times, “telex” four times.
For many departments, the guide suggests that reducing training requirements or eliminating parts of mandatory forms could earn credit toward the governor’s goal, even if the main regulation stays in place.
“Consider, for instance, a requirement that an applicant for a professional license complete 1,000 hours of training before he or she can be certified. Some training is necessary, so the requirement should not be eliminated completely, but 1,000 hours may be excessive. Requiring 500 hours of training, for instance, may be sufficient,” the guide states.
Fairbanks writer Dermot Cole, a frequent critic of the Dunleavy administration, noted online that doctors are required by regulation to take 25 credit-hours of continuing-education classes each year. Under the guide, the state is encouraging Alaska’s state medical board to reduce that requirement, he argues.
The guide states that when eliminating requirements, “agencies should be mindful of the important role of regulations in promoting public health, safety, and welfare, and developing our natural resources, and should not eliminate any requirements that are critical to protecting the public and the environment.”
Deadlines approach for early action
Already, state agencies have flooded Alaska’s public notice system with requests for Alaskans submit suggestions for regulations to eliminate. The first deadlines to do so are this week.
According to a draft schedule, agencies have until Jan. 5 to draft “a proposed plan setting forth regulations identified for reform based upon stakeholder meetings.”
Final plans should be posted for review no later than Feb. 1.
Further squeezing agencies is a requirement that they submit guidance documents — materials that tell Alaskans how to follow regulations — to the Department of Law for review. By Feb. 1, the department will make a determination whether those documents should themselves become regulations.
If they do, that would mean the agencies would have to make further cuts in order to fit their guidance documents within the number of regulations they’re allowed.
The state’s baseline number of regulations — a figure that will dictate how many regulations must be cut under the governor’s plan — was supposed to be published by Oct. 13, according to the draft schedule. It has not yet been finalized.
Seven agencies have completed or substantially completed their baseline count information, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Law. The remaining agencies have asked for an extension.
The Alaska Public Interest Research Group, a consumer watchdog, has been following the governor’s project with some alarm. It’s particularly concerned with upcoming changes to utility regulations.
“We support thoughtful, periodic review of regulations to make sure they’re effective and up to date. But this process isn’t that. By setting an arbitrary target for cuts and moving at breakneck speed, the state is creating a chaotic process that favors well-organized industry interests, leaves the public at a disadvantage, and places unnecessary strain on state agencies already stretched thin,” said AKPIRG regulatory analyst Brian Kassof.
“Regulations exist to protect the public interest and provide stability and certainty for communities and businesses. This rush to eliminate 15% of regulations across our state agencies does not leave adequate time for meaningful public engagement and risks creating unintended consequences that will be much harder to fix later.”
Alaska’s program follows others in Idaho and Virginia
Dunleavy’s program is modeled after a similar one that began in Virginia in 2022, Cox said. That one was itself modeled after a different but similar effort in Idaho that started in 2019.
Both of those programs had the support of prominent national conservative groups, including the Federalist Society and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has offered example programs to states for them to use.
Think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation have called Virginia’s program a “role model for other states,” and the Hoover Institution praised both Virginia’s system and a newly launched one in Texas.
In July, after three years of work, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin held a ceremony to celebrate the fact that his state had beaten its 25% regulation-reduction goal.
That event showed the similarities and differences between that state’s program and the one in the works for Alaska, which has fewer state agencies and regulations.
Youngkin, for example, praised the elimination of tens of thousands of regulations related to home construction, something he claimed had reduced the cost of new homes in the state.
Here in Alaska, the state doesn’t regulate home construction. In Alaska’s administrative code, the word “house” appears only 316 times, and is more likely to apply to housing assistance or an ice fishing house than a residential structure.
Virginia’s program significantly reduced the rules governing how stormwater runoff is regulated. Andrew Wheeler, former EPA director for President Donald Trump, launched Virgnia’s program for Youngkin and said that before he started work, Virginia’s stormwater regulations formed a stack 23 inches high. Afterward, the stack was five inches high.
In Alaska’s administrative code, the word “stormwater” appears just seven times.
The federal government has taken steps toward regulatory reform under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations, but during the first Trump administration, the president tried regulatory budgeting and ordered that two federal regulations be repealed for every new one. That was new.
“They adopted something called regulatory budgeting, and so they would look for ways to reduce the number,” Cox said.
Something similar will be in place in Alaska. If an agency wants to enact a new regulation, it needs to find another to remove, while also pursuing additional removals to meet the 25% goal.
Cox said AO 360 was issued with the federal context and other states’ context in mind.
“It’s with that goal of really unleashing the Alaska economy and inviting new investment into Alaska, that is motivating the governor in terms of why this is appropriate,” he said.
