Members of the Alaska House minority talk strategy during a break in the Wednesday, March 18, 2026, session of the Alaska House of Representatives. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
Members of the Alaska House minority talk strategy during a break in the Wednesday, March 18, 2026, session of the Alaska House of Representatives. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska legislators have sidetracked a bill originally intended for the legislative fast track.
In a pair of votes Wednesday, the Alaska House and Senate voted to send House Bill 289, the state’s supplemental budget bill, to a conference committee empowered to iron out differences between two different versions respectively enacted by the House and Senate.
Lawmakers took that unusual action after the House failed to approve a Senate-passed plan to pay for the bill with more than $373 million from the state’s principal savings account, the Constitutional Budget Reserve.
The committee is scheduled to hold its first meeting at 3:45 p.m. Thursday.
HB 289 is intended to fund expenses in the current state fiscal year that were incurred after lawmakers adjourned last year’s legislative session.
That includes money needed to respond to last summer’s wildfires and ex-Typhoon Halong, which devastated Western Alaska in the fall.
One key item in the bill — $70.2 million intended to unlock federal construction grants — is time sensitive. For months, the state’s construction industry has been lobbying for fast action on that money, saying that without surety on federal grants, they cannot make hiring and purchasing decisions for this summer’s construction season.
In February, the House passed a version of HB 289 with more than $500 million in expenses and proposed to pay for it by spending from the reserve.
It takes 30 votes in the House and 15 votes in the Senate to unlock the reserve. This month, in order to meet the threshold in the Senate, lawmakers there cut the bill to slightly over $373 million.
For more than a week, that caucus has been united in opposition to spending from savings, saying that a forecast boon to state finances — caused by higher oil prices amid the Iran war — should be enough to pay for the extra spending.
Members of the House majority, meanwhile, have been just as adamant in their position that it is unwise to rely on war-driven oil prices.
Sens. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel; Bert Stedman, R-Sitka; and Mike Cronk, R-Tok, were appointed to represent the Senate on the committee. Reps. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage; Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage; and Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks; will represent the House.
Cronk and Stapp are members of their respective minority caucuses; the other four lawmakers are representing their respective majority caucuses.
Additional meetings are expected after Thursday’s initial organizational hearing.
Senator Jesse Kiehl presenting SB 247 to the Senate Community and Regional Affairs Committee on Tuesday March 17, Photo courtesy of Gavel Alaska
Lawmakers are considering legislation that would expand criminal penalties for child sexual abuse material to include images generated using artificial intelligence and other digital tools.
Senate Bill 247, Sponsored by Juneau Sen. Jesse Kiehl, would create new crimes for the possession and distribution of “generated” child sexual abuse material, also known as CSAM, including images that appear to depict minors but may not involve real children.
Under the bill, distributing such material would be a felony, with harsher penalties for repeat offenders. Possession of generated CSAM would also be a felony offense.
Distribution under this bill is relatively broad and includes sharing or posting such content online.
United Nations, just this January released a warning on escalating AI threats to children.
The staggering amount of harmful AI-generated online content has prompted an urgent call from across the UN system for a raft of measures to protect children from abuse, exploitation and mental trauma.
This is a new form of sexual exploitation, the rapid progression of AI means lawmakers are struggling to craft legislation to prevent such harm from happening.
“Artificial intelligence is leading to the ability to generate images, generate videos, generate vast amounts of content, and that ability is growing fast, unfortunately, along with the ability to modify or create your own cute cat videos, some people use these technologies to terrible effect.” Said Kiehl, ” Senate Bill 247 addresses computer generated or otherwise generated Child Sexual Abuse materials. It amends Alaska law to create parity between generated Child Sexual Abuse materials and non generated Child Sexual Abuse materials, what we think of as photos or videos that have not been modified of real children. We know that artificial intelligence is, when it comes to images, a highly sophisticated collage machine, and that those images are made ultimately from things that are real, those are the data sources of millions, often billions, of real images on which these large language models, these artificial intelligences, are trained. The bill sets the punishments for generated Child Sexual Abuse materials on par with, and equal to non-generated CSAM that avoids overburdening bogging down law enforcement resources, court system resources, with the difficulty of proving that an amalgamated image has a real child under the age of 18 in it.”
The proposal also updates existing laws to include manipulated or altered images of real minors, even if the material was digitally created or modified.
In addition to criminal penalties, the bill would require the permanent revocation of teaching certificates for individuals convicted of certain sex offenses involving minors, including those tied to generated materials. It would also prohibit people convicted of those crimes from obtaining school bus driver licenses.
“The real prevalence of child sexual abuse is not known because so many victims do not disclose or report their abuse. However, adult representative or retrospective studies by the CDC has shown that one in four women and one in six men were sexually abused before the age of 18, and we know Alaska has one of the highest rates per capita of child sexual abuse in the nation.” Said Trevor Storrs, the President and CEO of the Alaska Children’s Trust, “Ai generated CSAM represents one of the most urgent and fast moving threats facing children today. In 2023 the National Center for Missing Exploited Children, received 4700 reports of AI related CSAM, by 2024 that number had grown to 67,000 and in the first half of 2025 alone, they received more than 400,000 such reports, an average of over 2000 every single day. At the same time, extortion, where offenders use real or AI generated images to blackmail children, continues to surge.”
Lawmakers say the bill is part of a broader effort to modernize Alaska law while technology continues to evolve, it’s one of several bills currently making their way through the legislature meant to strengthen protections for children.
SB 247 is set to be heard again in the legislature on Thursday.
Alaska U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan (Alaska Beacon file photos)
Alaska’s Republican U.S. senators are pushing the Trump administration to waive a recently hiked visa fee for all public school employees.
The Trump administration raised the fee for highly skilled workers visas, known as the H-1B visa program, from $5,000 to $100,000 per visa in September. That has consequences for Alaska school districts, which have grown to rely on international hiring to fill teaching and staff positions.
“As soon as this proclamation was released last year, I have been sounding the alarm with the administration about the importance of the H-1B visa program to Alaska’s school districts,” U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a prepared statement announcing the bill.
Murkowski introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate on Mar. 12, saying it would help alleviate financial strain for Alaska’s school districts. U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan signed on as a cosponsor of the bill on Tuesday.
The H-1B visa program provides non-immigrant visas for U.S. employers to recruit highly skilled workers, with at least a bachelor’s degree, in fields such as healthcare, technology or education. The visa is valid for up to six years.
“Our public school classrooms have been facing a staffing crisis for years, but teachers in Alaska on H-B visas have been instrumental in bridging that shortage and serving our students with talent and care,” Murkowski wrote. “This legislation offers a commonsense exemption that will ensure Alaska’s schoolchildren have access to more high-quality educators while keeping class sizes reasonable.”
The Alaska House of Representatives introduced a resolution this month urging the visa waiver for teachers.
There are close to 600 international teachers working in Alaska and 341 of them use H-1B visas, according to data provided by the Alaska Council of School Administrators, which assists districts in recruitment and hiring.
“In some rural districts, visa teachers make up 50% to nearly 80% of the teaching staff,” said Lisa Parady, the council’s director, in a statement with the bill’s announcement. “School districts already invest $6,000 to $12,000 per teacher to recruit and sponsor educators through the H-1B visa process. Adding a $100,000 federal visa fee has made it financially impossible for many districts to continue hiring the teachers their students depend on.”
Alaska districts are also in the process of hiring teachers for next year, and officials say the fee imposes an impossible financial barrier.
Cyndy Mika, superintendent of the Kodiak Island Borough School District, said in a written statement with the bill’s announcement that nearly 20% of teachers district wide — and 75% of village teachers — are international hires through visa programs.
“These educators are not replacing American teachers—we simply do not have applicants for these positions,” she said. “Without access to international educators, districts like Kodiak will struggle to fill classrooms and provide consistent learning environments for students.”
The situation is exacerbated in Alaska’s rural districts by recent additional restrictions on the J-1 visa program, which requires visa-holding teachers to be placed in areas with access to health care services, transportation and other public services.
Tammy Dodd, superintendent of the Bering Strait School District, said in a statement the new J-1 visa restrictions put rural districts at a unique disadvantage.
“So the H-1B visa is the only choice,” she said. “The Bering Strait School District employs 86 international teachers, which is roughly 40% of certified staffing. With the new fee in place, the district would be unable to replace those positions with international hires.”
Murkowski sent a letter of concern to the former U.S. Sec. Kristi Noem with the Department Homeland Security, which administers the visa program. Noem responded in a letter on Dec. 15 shared by the senator’s office. Noem wrote that some exemptions are possible.
“Exceptions to the $100,000 payment are extremely rare and are granted only in extraordinarily compelling circumstances. Petitioning employers may seek an exception by sending their request,” Noem wrote.
“Evidence should support the alien worker’s presence in the United States as an H-1B worker is in the national interest, no American worker is available for fill the role, the alien worker does not pose a threat to security or welfare of the United States, and requiring the petitioning employer to pay the $100,000 payment would significantly undermine the interests of the United States,” she wrote.
Jennifer Schmitz, director of the Alaska Educator Retention and Recruitment Center, a division of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, said by email Monday that some districts have sought individual exemptions from DHS for teachers with pending H-1B visa applications, but have received no response and no timeline from the department.
Economist Dan Stickel talks to the Alaska House Finance Committee on Monday, March 16, 2026. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
Economist Dan Stickel talks to the Alaska House Finance Committee on Monday, March 16, 2026. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has left oil markets more uncertain than they were during the Great Recession, a state expert told the Alaska Legislature on Monday.
In a pair of hearings, Alaska Department of Revenue economist Dan Stickel told state legislators that the volatility of global oil markets is the second-highest on record, leaving future forecasts particularly unreliable.
“The level of uncertainty around future prices in the oil markets now is higher than during the peaks of the Great Recession in 2008-2009 and it’s higher than the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it’s higher than any of the COVID spikes other than the initial April 2020 spike,” he said during a Monday morning hearing of the Senate Finance Committee.
“The message here is to plan for the possibility that revenue doesn’t come in exactly at what we forecast for the next couple of years,” Stickel said.
Oil is the second-largest source of general-purpose revenue for the Alaska state budget, and Stickel’s testimony came days after the department released a new Alaska revenue forecast showing $545 million more in current-year revenue than projected in the fall. Most of that higher prediction is due to the price of oil.
That forecast has snarled relations in the Alaska House of Representatives, which has repeatedly postponed discussion of a bill that would fund a variety of amendments to the fiscal year 2026 budget passed by lawmakers and Gov. Mike Dunleavy last spring.
On Monday, after more than two hours of acrimonious debate, House legislators again declined to take up the bill.
Soon after the House adjourned its floor session, Stickel testified in front of the House Finance Committee, and told lawmakers that “the level of certainty that we will hit our exact forecast is low.”
As he spoke, on the other end of the Capitol’s fifth floor, the Senate Finance Committee was simultaneously hearing from Office of Management and Budget director Lacey Sanders, who said the governor’s office was requesting another $18 million in spending for the current fiscal year.
Altogether, the governor has requested almost $427 million in additions to the budget. Add in additional spending proposed by lawmakers, and there’s only about a $30 million difference between the new revenue forecast and the additions proposed by the governor and legislators.
At the latest forecast prices, said Rep. Calvin Schrage, I-Anchorage, a $2 change in the average price of a barrel of North Slope oil is worth $30 million.
He asked Stickel what the odds were that the forecast misses low by more than $2.
“Roughly a slightly less than 50% chance that we come in more than $2 below the forecast,” Stickel said, then alluded to the fact that there’s a similar chance of coming in above the forecast.
“The level of certainty that we will hit our exact forecast is low in either direction,” he said.
Currently, members of the House majority are advocating that legislators unlock the state’s principal savings account to provide surety for some of those budget additions.
Doing so would avoid problems if oil prices turn out to be lower than forecast.
But spending from the Constitutional Budget Reserve, the state’s principal savings account, requires 30 votes in the House and 15 votes in the Senate.
The House’s multipartisan coalition majority has 21 members, which means they need support from the all-Republican House minority caucus.
Members of that group have been arguing against unlocking the budget reserve right now, saying that the new forecast and the current balance of the state’s general-purpose accounts demonstrate it isn’t needed.
In addition, as currently written, the supplemental budget bill in the House would allow spending from savings regardless of the price of oil. That could allow the majority to dictate extra spending even if prices stay high.
The Senate has already approved spending from the Constitutional Budget Reserve, and on Monday morning, Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka and co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said a draw from the reserve would act as a “safety net.”
Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, said senators don’t intend to spend dollars from savings unless it is needed.
“If they are not needed, they will stay in the CBR,” he said, adding that without permission to spend from savings, there’s a chance that lawmakers would need to return in August to fix budget problems in a special session.
A stream reflects the clouds on June 20, 2011, in Kootznoowoo Wilderness, Admiralty Island National Monument, Tongass National Forest, Alaska. (Forest Service photo by Don MacDougall)
A federal judge in Alaska has rejected a lawsuit that sought to reinstate a management plan that would allow heavier logging in the world’s largest temperate old-growth rainforest.
The result leaves an Obama-era management plan in place, but it could be short-lived: The administration of President Donald Trump is already at work on a new plan that could allow more logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.
In an order published Friday, Judge Sharon Gleason dismissed the lawsuit filed by Viking Lumber, Alcan Timber and the Alaska Forest Association.
The three groups sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture — the parent organization of the U.S. Forest Service — last year, alleging in part that the federal Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990 required the Forest Service to offer enough timber sales to meet market demand.
Gleason ruled otherwise, finding that TTRA does not impose “a mandatory duty” on the Forest Service to ensure that market demand is met by Tongass timber sales.
“Whether the harvest levels are designed to actually meet market demand is a discretionary agency action, not a mandatory requirement imposed by the TTRA on the Forest Service,” she wrote.
Gleason also declined to take up plaintiffs’ argument about whether the Forest Service violated the Administrative Procedures Act, and she ruled that a 2021 announcement about Tongass strategy did not amount to formal rulemaking under law. She did not analyze whether it would have met legal standards if it had been a formal rulemaking process.
Plaintiffs were represented by Pacific Legal Foundation, which on Friday said that the Forest Service’s approach has been devastating to plaintiffs.
Kyle Griesinger, a spokesperson for the foundation, said that even with a new management plan in the works, the case isn’t moot because the old plan remains in effect until superceded.
“And, moreover, the Forest Service has not lived up to the 2016 plan so any new plan they may not live up to is no guarantee for our clients,” he said.
Marlee Goska, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, agreed that last week’s ruling still has merit.
Goska was one of several attorneys who represented tribal, tourism, fishing and environmental groups that intervened on the side of the Department of Agriculture.
“I don’t think we have enough information yet to say the Forest Service is going to implement what the plaintiffs want. And certainly we’ll fight tooth and nail to stop that from happening,” she said of the upcoming plan change.
Goska added that last week’s ruling is important because it shows that the Forest Service does not have to meet market demand under existing law, and it shows that federal law doesn’t draw a distinction between old-growth harvests and new-growth ones.
“To the extent this administration and the Forest Service might be thinking about saying the TTRA mandates large old-growth timber sales to meet market demand, the court has already said that is incorrect,” she said.
Gleason published a final judgment on Friday. Plaintiffs have 30 days to file an appeal.
The Alaska State Capitol is seen on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
By: Corinne Smith and James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
The Alaska State Capitol is seen on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
A potential $500 million windfall is giving the Alaska House of Representatives a headache.
On Friday, the Alaska Department of Revenue released a forecast predicting that the state of Alaska will collect hundreds of millions of dollars more oil revenue by June 30 than previously expected.
That forecast landed in the middle of an ongoing debate over whether or not to spend from savings to cover almost $530 million in extra expenses, largely added by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, to the state budget since last spring.
The Senate approved a proposal to pay for roughly three-quarters of those expenses and it is now in the state House, awaiting a vote that could come as soon as Monday.
Tensions rose on Friday, with no agreement among House lawmakers on how to pay for the proposal.
The House is led by a 21-person multipartisan coalition whose members have been urging fast action on the issue. They say it is particularly important to fund $70 million for the state’s transportation projects to unlock more than $630 million in additional federal funding.
Without sure money, majority lawmakers say projects can’t go out to bid and construction firms can’t make purchasing and hiring decisions.
The majority wants to use the state’s Constitutional Budget Reserve, a savings account, to provide guaranteed funding.
The majority can pass a bill on its own, but it can’t spend from savings on its own. It takes 30 members of the House and 15 from the Senate to approve spending from the Constitutional Budget Reserve, the state’s principal savings account.
The Senate has already given that approval, but in the House, at least nine members of the 19-person, all-Republican House minority would have to support the majority, and so far, they’re not willing to do that.
Part of that reluctance is because as currently written, the supplemental budget bill allows lawmakers to spend up to $373.6 million from the reserve regardless of whether or not the war-caused bonus becomes real.
If oil prices stay high and the reserve money isn’t needed, the majority could spend it on other things without further input from the minority. That’s because it takes only 21 votes to advance a budget bill.
The money would return to the reserve only if it was unspent at the end of the fiscal year.
If lawmakers don’t spend from savings and the Iran war ends unexpectedly quickly, causing oil prices to fall, the minority could vote to spend from savings later to fill the gap.
The result is an ironic set of circumstances — Trump has said that the war will be short, but minority House Republicans’ action is effectively a bet on a long war.
Minority members say they’re being fiscally responsible. So do members of the majority, who add that there’s an opportunity cost for any delay — Alaska construction companies can’t make plans for the summer until they know what projects they’ll need to build.
Majority members also expressed frustration that the supplemental budget was largely requested by the governor, who they say has been absent in negotiations.
In addition, legislators and Gov. Dunleavy could also find themselves with a problem if oil prices fall after legislators have adjourned for the summer.
Legislators typically write budgets based on forecasts from the Department of Revenue, but this year’s forecast is especially uncertain, the department said.
Rep. Calvin Schrage, D-Anchorage, co-chair of the House Finance Committee and a member of the majority, said he’s skeptical of banking on the forecast.
“I have a lot of concern over budgeting based on that forecast, because that’s all it is. It’s a forecast. It’s not realized money, it’s not money in hand,” he said Friday.
“Even with this optimistic forecast, you are just barely, maybe able to balance the budget — if everything goes perfect. We still don’t have additional supplementals,” he said, referring to more budget amendments that could be requested by the governor.
Schrage said lawmakers will be scrutinizing the forecast in the coming days and weeks, and he said there’s still the possibility the Legislature may need to draw from savings.
But minority Republicans said they considered drawing from savings fiscally irresponsible.
“Taking a draw from our savings account to put into the general fund to fund things that were, by all accounts and purposes, able to be funded without it would have been irresponsible,” said Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, on Friday.
House Minority Leader DeLena Johnson, R-Anchorage, said she’s confident in the forecast projections. “There’s some actuals there too. So I’m very comfortable with actuals, and I also know, if there’s changes, we can come in and we can come in and make them, and make a different vote. I’m not as worried about that.”
Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, expressed frustration at the delay.
“This is pure politics. We should have had the supplemental budget funded. A long time ago,” he said. “The House Majority coalition prioritized the funding of the entire package that was proposed by the governor. Every single item came from the governor. And so here we are, you know, in a really precarious state, because we’re at the point where every week that goes by gets us a week closer to that federal match not being achieved for the summer construction season.”
Edgmon and other majority legislators have voiced frustration about “moving goal posts” on the budget bill. While there are more than $530 million in proposed additions, the bill in front of House lawmakers contains only three-quarters of that amount because majority members wanted to attract members of the minority for the savings vote.
The remainder will still have to be addressed later, regardless of what happens in the upcoming vote.
Edgmon said it’s not clear to him what the Republican minority wants in exchange for a budget reserve vote.
“We don’t know what the ask is,” he said. “But it’s all about leverage, and unfortunately, it’s falling on the shoulders of a lot of smaller contractors around the state.”
As of Friday afternoon, it appeared as if the budget bill was on course to pass, but without approval to spend from savings.
If that occurs, the state of Alaska will be in the awkward position of hoping for a war long and difficult enough to keep oil prices high for months.
Rep. Nick Begich III, R-Alaska, shakes hands with state Rep. Ky Holland, I-Anchorage, as he leaves a joint session of the Alaska Legislature on Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
Rep. Nick Begich III, R-Alaska, shakes hands with state Rep. Ky Holland, I-Anchorage, as he leaves a joint session of the Alaska Legislature on Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
In a speech to the Alaska Legislature this week, Alaska Rep. Nick Begich III urged state lawmakers to boost the development of a proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline.
“The federal path is largely cleared, but investors also need state level clarity, fiscal predictability and simplicity,” Begich said. “Scrutinize it carefully, model it thoroughly. But my request to you is not to become a roadblock.”
But legislators who are dealing with the pipeline on a daily basis say they don’t have answers to basic questions, including how much the pipeline will cost and whether the gas it carries will be affordable to Alaskans.
“I have not seen any figures,” said Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage and chair of the Senate Resources Committee.
Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said legislators are not going to be a roadblock.
“We’re not going to throw sand in the works. Everybody wants a pipeline. We all hope that it comes about, but it’s got to be done properly and make sure that we know what’s going on.”
Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, said he has heard “from very credible sources” that the price of gas through the pipeline could be $50 per million cubic feet by 2046.
The current cost of gas from Cook Inlet for Southcentral Alaska is about $10 per MCF.
“Just imagine if you have utilities locked into 30-year contracts for gas at $50 an MCF. That would be catastrophic,” Wielechowski said. “That’s the sort of thing that we’re trying to protect Alaskan consumers all up and down the Railbelt from — an absolute catastrophe to our economic system.”
As currently proposed, the pipeline project consists of two phases. The first phase includes an 807-mile pipeline from the North Slope to the west side of Cook Inlet, with a tie-in to existing natural gas infrastructure around Anchorage.
The second phase would extend the pipeline to the Kenai Peninsula, where an export terminal would be built. The second phase would also include a processing plant on the North Slope.
Since the acquisition, Glenfarne has signed a number of nonbinding agreements with potential gas purchasers and gas sellers, but it has not disclosed estimates for the project’s cost, and it hasn’t disclosed what it expects the cost of gas to be.
Last year, company officials said they expected to make an investment decision by the end of 2025. In a subsequent filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, they said they would make the decision in February. A new timeline hasn’t been made public.
The lack of data is particularly problematic because legislators are considering whether to offer a property tax break to pipeline developers.
Those taxes are significant. Because Alaska does not have a statewide income tax or sales tax, its state budget suffers when people move into the state. More people means more demand for things like schools, parks and roads, but no increased revenue to pay for those things.
“That bill should be next week,” Dunleavy said during a Thursday news conference with U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, confirming the 0.2% rate will be part of the new legislation.
“Last couple weeks, we’ve been working with municipalities, getting their input as to what this should look like before (we) put the bill out,” he said. “So look forward to probably next week on that PILT bill, so that we can look at the economics of this line and also ways to ensure that municipalities benefit from this directly.”
This week, Begich expressed some support for a lower property tax rate, saying it could encourage people to invest in the pipeline.
“The classic 2% tax burden that would apply, say, to a $50 billion asset, would be a billion dollars in cash flow early in the project’s life cycle,” Begich said. “If that cash flow coming out of the project lowers the rate of return for investors, they’re not going to show up and invest. And so we need to make sure that our tax policy is A, doing what’s right for Alaskans. B, is not impeding the ability for the project to move forward. And I think we can do both of those things with some creative thinking and conversations with the industry.”
While a lower tax rate would benefit pipeline developers, it has the potential to harm residents who live near the pipeline.
If pipeline construction and operation mean more people moving to Alaska and municipalities are unable to raise revenue to meet the resulting demand for services, local governments could be forced to raise taxes or cut basic services in order to pay for the pipeline subsidy.
Last week, the Senate Resources Committee introduced Senate Bill 275, which imposes some transparency requirements on the pipeline project, eliminates a tax exemption relevant to the project, and imposes a new surcharge on gas processing plants.
That bill was introduced just days before Begich urged lawmakers not to be a “roadblock.”
Giessel, who chairs the resources committee, said she didn’t think Begich’s comments were directed at her or her committee’s bill.
“We’re not being a roadblock. We’re doing exactly what we’re supposed to do according to our constitution,” she said.
Asked whether he was thinking of Giessel’s bill during his speech, Begich said, “It was not my direct intention. No, I think it’s always worth having the conversation about the tax structure, about the incentive structure, though that’s an ongoing discussion that happens at the state legislature in Alaska. I think it’s important that when we have those conversations, they’re done in a way that is going to encourage, rather than discourage, industry from coming in and saying, ‘Yes, this is a good place for us to invest in.’”
Speaking to reporters after his speech, Begich said the state would benefit by getting more information from Glenfarne.
“I welcome more information,” Begich said. “I recognize that they’ve got certain restraints on what they can share. But look, I’d like to see more information shared. I’d like to see more of the economics of the project shared so we can understand what the full potential is and what’s on the table. I believe that’s going to come with time, but more information is better.”
"I voted" stickers are seen on display in the headquarters offices of the Alaska Division of Elections in Juneau on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
“I voted” stickers are seen on display in the headquarters offices of the Alaska Division of Elections in Juneau on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
NOTN- Alaska lawmakers considered a wide-ranging elections bill today that supporters say would expand voter access and strengthening election security.
The House Finance Committee scheduled hearings on Monday as well as this morning on Senate Bill 64, a measure covering a broad range of election policies, including voter registration, campaign rules and election administration.
The bill would create a ballot curing process which would allow absentee voters to fix mistakes like missing signatures.
According to testimony submitted to lawmakers, more than 1,300 ballots were rejected in 2024, many due to correctable issues like improper witness signatures.
The proposed bill would also require the state to create an online ballot-tracking system so voters can see when their ballot is sent, received and counted. The bill includes prepaid postage for absentee ballots to improve access for voters, especially for voters in rural communities.
The bill also calls for a rural community liaison within the Division of Elections to work with tribes and municipalities to improve early and absentee voting access in remote areas.
Supporters, including the League of Women Voters of Alaska, Alaska Voter Hub and the Alaska Federation of Natives say the reforms are necessary because of Alaska’s geography and the challenges rural voters face with mail service, staffing shortages and limited polling locations.
The Alaska State Capitol is seen on Monday, March 9, 2026. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
The Alaska State Capitol is seen on Monday, March 9, 2026. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
The Alaska Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to spend more than $300 million from savings and reverse some of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s most recent budget vetoes.
In a pair of 20-0 votes, the Senate approved a bill that would spend $373.5 million from the Constitutional Budget Reserve to pay for a variety of expenses and fill a deficit in the current budget year.
“This is money to fund the budget that was passed last year for things that the governor already spent on,” said Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage.
The bill now goes to the House, which failed last month to approve the needed spending from the budget reserve.
Among the expenses in the new supplemental budget bill is $70.2 million needed to unlock federal transportation grants. Dunleavy vetoed that funding last year amid a dispute with the Legislature about the proper source of the money.
Also in the bill is $98.7 million for the state’s wildfire response fund and up to $75 million for the disaster relief fund. That latter figure is dependent upon negotiations with the federal government about who will pay for the response after ex-Typhoon Halong devastated southwest Alaska last year.
The largest single item in the bill is $129.6 million needed to refill the state’s higher education investment fund, which was used to cover expenses due to a separate veto-involved dispute between the Legislature and governor.
That fund covers scholarships paid to Alaska high school students who meet academic standards and attend in-state schools.
The Senate-passed bill is significantly smaller than a $531 million version that had been previously considered. It shrank at the urging of the Senate’s six-person, all-Republican minority caucus.
It takes three-quarters of the House and three-quarters of the Senate — 30 Representatives and 15 senators, respectively — to spend from the budget reserve.
That’s a high hurdle, particularly because the Senate’s bipartisan majority caucus has just 14 members and the House’s multipartisan majority has just 21 members.
In both cases, compromises with the all-Republican House and Senate majorities are needed to spend from the reserve.
On Monday, the Senate pulled the supplemental budget bill from its schedule with no advance notice. Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, said at the time that the Senate Majority had unexpectedly lost a minority vote it needed to spend from the reserve.
That spurred hours of closed-doors negotiations between the Senate minority and members of the majority.
Since the United States and Israel started bombing Iran on Feb. 28, the price of oil — and, in turn, Alaska’s potential oil revenue — has risen, giving legislators another way to erase a looming deficit.
“We went over and talked with (the Senate Finance Committee) co-chairs and just said, ‘Hey, obviously, the price of oil is changing,’” said Senate Minority Leader Mike Cronk, R-Tok.
At the minority’s urging, the co-chairs removed almost $150 million from the bill — extra spending for state prisons, money for Medicaid, and millions in backup “headroom” for unforeseen expenses, among other items.
Cronk said the items removed during the compromise discussions could come back later, in the state’s regular budget bill, and the goal was to create “a real supplemental fast track” bill.
According to figures provided by staff for Hoffman, if Alaska North Slope oil prices average roughly $75 per barrel between now and June 30, the end of the state’s fiscal year, the state will earn enough oil revenue to pay for the removed items without spending from savings.
Since the start of the legislative session, construction companies have been lobbying for quick passage of a supplemental budget bill because they fear losing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of federally funded construction projects scheduled to take place as soon as this summer.
The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities has disputed the need for early funding, and on Wednesday, Sen. George Rauscher, R-Sutton, attempted to strike that item from the supplemental budget.
He withdrew his proposed amendment after encountering opposition, saying he was satisfied with the smaller bill on the floor.
“We’ve come down a long way from $500 million,” he said.
After the Senate voted on Wednesday morning, members of the House majority attempted to call a vote to confirm the Senate’s changes.
Members of the House minority objected, and the vote is now scheduled later, at 2:30 p.m. Thursday.
House Minority Leader DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer, said members of the minority wanted to wait until Friday, when a new state revenue forecast is expected.
“We’re talking about a $300 million draw. We may not need to take that full amount out of savings when we have money coming in,” she said, referring to the way the price of oil has surged during the Iran war.
Asked whether the new, lower draw from the reserve is more acceptable to members of the minority, Johnson said she wasn’t sure yet.
“There’s probably a number that’s better than others, but I mean, as low as possible is our number,” she said.
Wooden gavel with books in background. Law and justice concept
By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
Wooden gavel with books in background.
The state of Alaska filed civil lawsuits Tuesday against six crowdfunding websites, accusing them of illegally soliciting donations for thousands of Alaska charities without consent.
In complaints filed at Anchorage Superior Court, the consumer protection unit of the Alaska Department of Law said GoFundMe, PayPal, Charity Navigator, Pledgling Technologies, JustGiving and Network For Good each violated the Alaska Charitable Solicitations Act thousands of times.
That act, in place since 1993, requires state registration for anyone who seeks donations on behalf of a charity.
The suits ask a judge to order the sites shut down the pages devoted to Alaska nonprofits and immediately disburse any donations to those nonprofits. It also asks for “separate civil penalties … of not less than $1,000 and not more than $25,000 per violation.”
According to the complaints, the six crowdfunding sites scraped IRS data to obtain the information of thousands of Alaska nonprofits, then set up donation pages for each of those nonprofits without their consent.
That scraping was part of a nationwide campaign that encompassed almost a million and a half federally registered organizations.
In some cases, the sites charged fees or encouraged “tips” to themselves during the donation process. In many cases, they poured donations into a third-party account and only released donations to charities who stepped forward to claim them, according to the complaints.
Attorney General-designee Stephen Cox said the state became aware of the issue after California reporters and state officials began investigating why GoFundMe created donation pages for 1.4 million nonprofits without their consent or knowledge.
GoFundMe later took down many of those pages, but other crowdfunding websites did not. On Tuesday morning, donation pages were still visible on Charity Navigator, one of the defendants named in the new Alaska lawsuits.
Earlier this week, almost two dozen state attorney generals sent a letter to GoFundMe, demanding answers to questions about its policies.
Alaska did not sign that letter, in part because officials here believed the response was too weak.
In a prepared statement, Cox said, “Alaska law is clear: if you’re going to raise money in a charity’s name, you must first get the charity’s consent. These lawsuits are about protecting donors, protecting nonprofits, and preserving the public trust that makes charitable giving possible.”
Laurie Wolf is President and CEO of the Foraker Group, which advises Alaska nonprofits and provides them with administrative support.
By phone on Tuesday, Wolf said the issue is a matter of consent: “They are impersonating 1.2 million nonprofits across this country, they’re impersonating them without their consent or even their knowledge.”
She said the issue became particularly important last fall, when people across the United States and the world became aware of the devastation caused by ex-Typhoon Halong in Western Alaska.
Many people, not knowing local Alaska charities, simply donated via links they found on internet searches. Some of those donations may have never reached their intended recipients.
If a crowdfunding website operates independently of the charity it intends to benefit, it might interfere with the charity’s own fundraising, she explained.
Someone might never be recognized for their gift and become angry, hurting the charity’s long-term relationship with their community.
“They take away the ability for the organization to make choices for itself about how it wants to build trust and relationships with its donors, and how it wants to put its brand and its mission out in the public sphere. They’ve taken away all of our choices about that,” she said.
In addition, donations may be subject to fees or never reach a charity at all, particularly if the charity is unaware that a crowdfunding website is holding money for it to collect.
The Foraker Group went so far as to conduct an experiment and had an employee donate to the group through several of the defendants’ platforms. In multiple cases, it took weeks before the donation reached its intended recipient, and in some cases, the donor’s identity was concealed, making it impossible for the charity to properly thank them.
GoFundMe was the only defendant to respond to emailed inquiries before the Beacon’s reporting deadline on Tuesday.
“GoFundMe’s mission is to help people help each other by making it easier for donors to discover and support the causes they care about. We are committed to helping nonprofits reach new supporters by connecting them with the millions of people on our platform who want to make a difference. Nonprofit Pages were created using publicly available information to help people support nonprofit organizations, with donations going to the intended nonprofit,” said Jeff Platt, communications manager for GoFundMe.
“After hearing feedback from nonprofit leaders in October, we acted quickly to make Nonprofit Pages fully opt-in, removed and de-indexed unclaimed pages, and turned off search engine optimization by default. The immediate changes we made directly addressed the concerns of the nonprofit community, and reflect our continued commitment to transparency, accountability, and partnership with the nonprofit sector,” he said.
That bill passed the Alaska Legislature amid a surge of concern about telemarketers soliciting donations by phone.
Then-Rep. Ron Larson, a Democrat from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, sponsored the act and told fellow lawmakers at the time that “lookalike organizations” were “ripping off” legitimate charities.
“Alaskans are generous people. But generosity depends on trust,” Cox said in his prepared statements. “GoFundMe and similar platforms used nonprofits’ good names to solicit donations without coordinating with the organizations actually doing the charitable work. That means some Alaskans may have donated thinking they were supporting a specific charity, when the charity never authorized the page and may never have received the donation — or may have received less than donors intended because of fees.”
