People gather near the post office during a protest, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
AP- The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active duty soldiers to be ready in case of a possible deployment to Minnesota, where federal authorities have been conducting a massive immigration enforcement operation, two defense officials said Sunday.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans, said two infantry battalions of the Army’s 11th Airborne Division have been given prepare-to-deploy orders. The unit is based in Alaska and specializes in operating in arctic conditions.
One defense official said the troops are standing by to deploy to Minnesota should President Donald Trump invoke the Insurrection Act, a rarely used 19th century law that would allow him to employ active duty troops as law enforcement.
The move comes just days after Trump threatened to do just that to quell protests against his administration’s immigration crackdown.
In an emailed statement, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell did not deny the orders were issued and said the military “is always prepared to execute the orders of the Commander-in-Chief if called upon.”
ABC News was the first to report the development.
On Thursday, Trump said in a social media post that he would invoke the 1807 law “if the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job.”
He appeared to walk back the threat a day later, telling reporters at the White House that there wasn’t a reason to use it “right now.”
“If I needed it, I’d use it,” Trump said. “It’s very powerful.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act throughout both of his terms. In 2020 he threatened to use it to quell protests after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, and in recent months he threatened to use it for immigration protests.
The law was most recently invoked by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 to end unrest in Los Angeles after the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat and frequent target of Trump, has urged the president to refrain from sending in more troops.
“I’m making a direct appeal to the President: Let’s turn the temperature down. Stop this campaign of retribution. This is not who we are,” Walz said last week on social media.
From left, Greenland Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, begin a meeting on Capitol Hill as officials from Denmark and Greenland meet with lawmakers from the Arctic Caucus, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Ap- A top Danish official said Wednesday that a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains with President Donald Trump after holding highly anticipated White House talks with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“The group, in our view, should focus on how to address the American security concerns, while at the same time respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters after joining Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, for the talks. He added that it remains “clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.”
Trump is trying to make the case that NATO should help the U.S. acquire the world’s largest island and says anything less than it being under American control is unacceptable.
Denmark, meanwhile, announced plans to boost the country’s military presence in the Arctic and North Atlantic as Trump tries to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover of the vast territory by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their designs on Greenland, which holds vast untapped reserves of critical minerals.
The president, who did not take part in Wednesday’s meeting, told reporters he remained committed to acquiring the territory.
“We need Greenland for national security,” Trump said. “We’ll see how it all works out. I think something will work out.”
Landry, following Trump’s latest comments, posted on X that Trump was “absolutely right” about acquiring Greenland and the territory “is a critical component of our nation’s national security portfolio.”
Before the meeting, Trump took to social media to make the case that “NATO should be leading the way” for the U.S. to acquire the territory. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has sought to keep an arms-length away from the dispute between the most important power and the other members of the 32-country alliance unnerved by the aggressive tack Trump has taken toward Denmark.
Both Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt offered measured hope that the talks were beginning a conversation that would lead to Trump dropping his demand and create a path for tighter cooperation with the U.S.
“We have shown where our limits are and from there, I think that it will be very good to look forward,” Motzfeldt said.
Denmark bolstering presence in Arctic
In Copenhagen, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced a stepped-up military presence in the Arctic “in close cooperation with our allies,” a necessity in a security environment in which “no one can predict what will happen tomorrow.”
Several of the country’s allies, including Germany, France, Norway and Sweden, announced they were arriving in Greenland along with Danish personnel to take part in joint exercises or map out further military cooperation in the Arctic.
NATO is also looking at how members can collectively bolster the alliance’s presence in the Arctic, said a NATO official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Greenlanders want the US to back off
Greenland is strategically important because, as climate change causes the ice to melt, it opens up the possibility of shorter trade routes to Asia. That also could make it easier to extract and transport untapped deposits of critical minerals which are needed for computers and phones.
Trump says Greenland is also “vital” to the United States’ Golden Dome missile defense program. He also has said Russia and China pose a threat in the region.
But experts and Greenlanders question that claim, and it has become a hot topic on the snow-covered main street in Greenland’s capital, where international journalists and camera crews have descended as Trump continues his takeover talk.
In interviews, Greenlanders said the outcome of the Washington talks didn’t exactly evince confidence that Trump can be persuaded.
“Trump is unpredictable,” said Geng Lastein, who immigrated to Greenland 18 years ago from the Philippines.
Maya Martinsen, 21, said she doesn’t buy Trump’s arguments that Greenland needs to be controlled by the U.S. for the sake maintaining a security edge in Arctic over China and Russia. Instead, Martinsen said, Trump is after the plentiful “oils and minerals that we have that are untouched.”
Greenland “has beautiful nature and lovely people,” Martinsen added. “It’s just home to me. I think the Americans just see some kind of business trade.”
Denmark has said the U.S., which already has a military presence, can boost its bases on Greenland. The U.S. is party to a 1951 treaty that gives it broad rights to set up military bases there with the consent of Denmark and Greenland.
Bipartisan concern from U.S. senators
Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt also met with a bipartisan group senators from the Arctic Caucus. The senators said they were concerned Trump’s push to acquire Greenland could upend NATO and play into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has introduced legislation to try to block any U.S. action in Greenland, said it was “stunning” to her that they were even discussing the matter. “We are operating in times where we are having conversations about things that we never even thought possible,” Murkowski said.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said it is “nonsense” to say that the U.S. needs to control Greenland to protect national security. The officials were “very open to additional national security assets in Greenland in order to meet whatever risks there are.”
A bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers plans to show their solidarity by traveling to Copenhagen this week.
Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska, speaks during the commissioning ceremony for the Coast Guard icebreaker Storis on Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025, in Juneau, Alaska. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 230-196 on Thursday to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years and reverse massive cost increases that went into effect with the new year.
The reversal must still be approved by the U.S. Senate and President Donald Trump before becoming effective.
Alaska’s lone member of the House, Republican Rep. Nick Begich III, voted against the extension, as did 195 other Republicans.
Seventeen Republicans voted for the extension of subsidies that were enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, joining all of the chamber’s Democrats.
The House’s Republican leaders opposed the extension, but a handful of Republicans signed a petition in December to force a vote.
Begich did not sign that petition, and on Wednesday, he joined other Republicans in an unsuccessful procedural vote intended to block Thursday’s decision.
In a written statement explaining his vote on Thursday, Begich said extending subsidies would not fix the problems he sees with the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. “The health insurance system created by Democrats under Obamacare has proven completely unaffordable for the American healthcare customer,” the statement said. “An extension of Obamacare COVID subsidies does not fix what is broken.”
He said he would like to see reforms to the Affordable Care Act, without which he said the extension “has no credible pathway forward in the Senate.”
In December, Begich voted in favor of a Republican-proposed alternative to the extension. That alternative, which focuses on drug costs, would not stop or reverse the new cost increases and has thus far been rejected by the Senate.
The Congressional Budget Office reported that the alternative would reduce health insurance premiums for insured Americans but would also reduce the number of Americans who are insured.
“I remain committed to working on reforms that lower costs, expand access, and improve outcomes for all Americans,” Begich said in his statement. “Temporary extensions without meaningful reform are not the solution. Real reform that puts patients first is.”
In December, Alaska’s two U.S. Senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan — both Republicans — joined Senate Democrats in an unsuccessful attempt to advance a condition-free extension similar to the one passed by the House on Thursday.
That was a change in position for Sullivan, who had previously opposed extensions that were not coupled with changes to the Affordable Care Act.
Begich and Sullivan are each up for election this fall. Sullivan does not have a Democratic Party-backed opponent yet, but former U.S. House Rep. Mary Peltola is widely expected to enter the race this month.
Begich is being opposed by Anchorage pastor Matt Schultz. Alaska Democratic Party Chair Eric Croft said by email that Thursday’s vote will be a campaign issue in the fall.
“After allowing lifesaving ACA tax credits to expire on December 31, Nick Begich doubled down on his betrayal of Alaska families and blocked the extension of these credits,” he wrote. “We cannot afford these health care price hikes, and we won’t forget about Nick Begich’s betrayal this November.”
The tundra surrounding Bethel, Alaska turns red and gold in the fall. October 10, 2023. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
A national support line for Native survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault has begun work to launch an Alaska-specific service.
Strong Hearts Native Helpline is a Native-led nonprofit that offers 24-hour, seven-day-a-week support for anonymous and confidential calls from people who have experienced domestic violence or sexual assault.
The line is staffed by Native advocates, but Strong Hearts Deputy Executive Officer Rachel Carr-Shunk said there are not yet any Alaska Native people answering phone calls.
That is set to change soon.
“Even though we’re a Native organization and all of our advocates are American Indian, we do recognize that there is a difference for our Alaska Native relatives who experience violence in that context, whether they live in a rural village or they just live in Alaska, which is a different experience,” she said.
Carr-Shunk expects the organization to launch the Alaska-specific line within the next calendar year, after building partnerships in the state.
“When Alaska Native survivors reach out, we want them to trust that they’re going to have someone who understands their experience as an Alaska Native person, or who understands that identity,” she said.
To that end, the organization has hired Anchorage-based Minnie Sneddy, who is originally from Hooper Bay. Sneddy is tasked with explaining Alaska’s regional differences and specific needs to the organization, as well as helping create a database of Alaska resources.
Sneddy has years of experience in behavioral health work and said that her career and life experience have shown her the lack of resources for people who face domestic violence and sexual assault — and how many of those people need mental health support.
“The years I lived in Hooper Bay, and here in Anchorage and Alaska, there’s so many (people) that need help and want help, but they feel like if they do come forward and get help, they get in trouble — not only with their families, but with OCS, Office of Children’s Services,” she said. “I feel like Strong Hearts Native Helpline can help at least allow a person to be heard, because the majority of time, people want to be heard. Everyone just wants to feel seen and be heard.”
Sneddy said she is reaching out to resources that already exist in the state, and Strong Hearts is working with the Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center to build out its state-specific service.
“We don’t have a voice, really, in the villages,” Sneddy said, adding that when abuse happens: “There’s no help for an individual. And if a woman decides to do something about it, she’s seen as a bad person.”
The Strong Hearts Native Helpline is available now for Alaskans, even though there are not yet Alaska Native advocates on the other end of the line. A full list of Alaska shelters and victim’s services providers can be found in the state directory at law.alaska.gov.
Kim Kovol has accepted a job with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced last week. Her last day working for the state was on Friday, and Tracy Dompeling, the department’s deputy commissioner, assumed the role of acting commissioner, the statement said.
The department’s primary divisions are the Division of Juvenile Justice, the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, the Alaska Pioneer Homes and the Office of Children’s Services.
Kovol was the first commissioner of the Department of Family and Community Services, which was created in 2022. Up to then, its functions were part of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. Through an executive order, Dunleavy split that department into two: the Department of Health and the Department of Family and Community Services.
In his statement, Dunleavy said Kovol was a “strong and dedicated leader” for the redesigned department. “As the first Commissioner of DFCS, she built a foundation focused on service, accountability, and support for Alaska’s most vulnerable populations. I thank her for her service and wish her every success in this next role,” he said.
Kovol said she was honored to have served in that role. “I am incredibly grateful to the staff, partners, and communities who have supported our work. Together, we have made meaningful progress for Alaska families, youth, and elders, and I will always be proud of what we have accomplished,” she said in the statement.
Kim Kovol, the first commissioner of the Alaska Department of Family and Community Services. The department was created in 2022 when the Department of Health and Social Services was divided into two entities: the Department of Health and the Department of Family and Community Services. Kovol’s last day working for the state was Jan. 2. She has taken a job with the U.S. Department of Health and Social Services. (Photo provided by the Alaska Department of Family and Community Services)
Kovol is the second Alaska department head to leave state service to join the Trump administration. Almost a year ago, Emma Pokon left her position as commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation to become the Pacific Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Dunleavy in May chose Randy Bates to be the department’s new commissioner. Bates was formerly director of DEC’s Division of Water.
With Kovol’s departure, there are now five state departments with leaders who currently lack legislative approval.
In addition to Bates, Dunleavy has named commissioner-designees for the Department of Law and the Department of Natural Resources. Dunleavy in August named Stephen Cox, a former U.S. attorney in Texas, as Alaska’s attorney general, replacing Treg Taylor, a Republican who is running for governor.
Dunleavy also named John Crowther, a DNR veteran, as his choice to be permanent commissioner. Crowther became acting commissioner after John Boyle resigned from the position in October.
Bates, Cox and Crowther are subject to legislative confirmation after lawmakers convene later this month for their 2026 session.
The state Department of Revenue is currently being led by an acting commissioner, Janelle Earls, who assumed the job in August after Adam Crum left the commissioner post. Crum is another Republican candidate for governor.
Dunleavy has not yet named his choices for the commissioner posts at the Department of Revenue or the Department of Family and Community Services, said Jeff Turner, the governor’s spokesperson. Earls and Dompeling are currently acting commissioners and it is not clear whether the governor will name commissioner-designees for those positions, he said.
Dunleavy is in the last year of his second term. He is term limited and may not run for reelection.
Strips of sockeye salmon harvested from the Kuskokwim River are seen on July 19, 2017. Sockeye salmon, also known as red salmon, is among the species harvested for subsistence. (Photo provided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering whether to change Alaska’s unique system of hunting and fishing, which gives rural residents priority on federal land in Alaska.
According to a notice published Dec. 15 in the Federal Register, the Interior Department is conducting “a targeted review” of the program mandated by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
While no specific changes were identified in the notice, it prompted the Alaska Federation of Natives to react with concern.
In a message to members, it called the new proposal “a serious threat and a major step backward” in fish and game management within Alaska, according to a report Tuesday by the Anchorage Daily News.
Federal law requires rural residents to receive a priority when subsistence hunting and fishing, but because Alaska’s constitution prohibits the state from operating a system that gives one resident priority over another, the federal government uses one set of rules for hunting and fishing on federally controlled waters and lands, and the state uses another set for state-controlled water and land.
That has frequently led to conflicts between the state and federal government over management, and several lawsuits over the issue are currently in progress in federal court.
The Daily News reported that the suggestion to revise the two-tiered program came from Safari Club International, a large sport-hunting organization that has frequently sided with the state in lawsuits against the federal government.
Information posted online by the Interior Department indicates that the agency may consider:
Changing the makeup of the board that regulates subsistence hunting and fishing on federal land;
Reconsidering the rules that determine what parts of the state are “rural” and thus eligible for preferential treatment;
And the role of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in the program.
“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.
The sun at midnight in early July reflects on the Chukchi Sea and slabs of sea ice near the coastline of Utgiagvik. Credit: Lisa Hupp/USFWS.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its annual Arctic Report Card on Tuesday, which documents the way rising temperatures, diminished ice, thawing permafrost, melting glaciers and vegetation shifts are transforming the region and affecting its people. The agency has released the report for 20 years as a way to track changes in the Arctic.
“The Arctic continues to warm faster than the global average, with the 10 years that comprise the last decade marking the 10 warmest years on record,” Steve Thur, NOAA’s acting administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research and the agency’s acting chief scientist, said at a news conference Tuesday.
The report card is a peer-reviewed collaboration of more than 100 scientists from 13 countries, with numerous coauthors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It was officially released at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in New Orleans, where Thur and other officials held the news conference.
The report is the first under the second Trump administration, at a time when the federal government’s commitment to documenting Arctic climate change has diminished: The president has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and federal departments are cancelling climate change-related research and projects, as well as scrubbing climate information from public view.
Under directives from the Trump administration, NOAA no longer provides information that the National Snow and Ice Data Center once used to monitor sea ice and snow cover, for example. The Colorado-based center now relies on satellite information from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for its sea ice reports, and it has reduced its analysis.
A national dataset about the melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet has also been lost to the Trump administration’s cutbacks, said Rick Thoman of the UAF’s Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness, one of the report’s main editors. The ice sheet is still being monitored by European satellites, but the data is not equivalent, he said.
Government entities like NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which regularly provides scientific information that goes into the Arctic Report Card, have endured deep budget cuts and staff firings.
On Tuesday, Russel Vought, President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget Director, said the administration plans to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a Colorado research facility that has operated since 1960. The facility “is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” Vought said in a post on the social media site X.
And this year, unlike the other years since 2006 when NOAA published the first Arctic Report Card, the agency declined to issue a news release about it.
Thur, asked if NOAA will continue to publish report cards in the future, said the agency will continue the work that goes into the annual documents.
“What I would say in response to that question, is that we’re here today and that we have released the 2025 version,” he said. NOAA has continued its long-term environmental observations in the Arctic, both with satellite observations, he said. “So I think one of the things that the community can rely upon is that our efforts to continue to observe the planet will remain present,” he said.
The Mendenhall River is seen at flood levels, just a few hours after the record-breaking peak of 16.65 feet, from the Brotherhood Bridge in Juneau on Aug.13, 2025. The flood, caused by an outburst of meltwater from Mendenhall Glacier, was mentioned in the 2025 Arctic Report Card as one of the impacts of glacial melt. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Thur also demurred when asked whether NOAA still stands by the statements about fossil fuels made by the agency’s prior administrator, Rick Spinrad. When last year’s report was issued at the end of the Biden administration, Spinrad said the changes in the Arctic were directly related to fossil-fuel emissions. Thur did not mention fossil fuels.
“What I would say in response to that question is that we recognize that the planet is changing dramatically,” he said during the news conference. “Our role within NOAA is to try to predict what’s going to occur in the future by documenting what’s occurring today,” he said. “There is a human role, as our administrator currently, Dr. Neil Jacobs, said during his congressional confirmation hearing, for humans in influencing those changes.”
Matthew Druckenmiller of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, another lead editor of the report, made no such equivocations.
“Let us start by first acknowledging that the warming of our planet driven by human greenhouse gas emissions into our atmosphere is amplified in the Arctic,” he said near the start of the news conference. “The Arctic continues to warm much faster than the globe overall, amplified by the loss of reflective sea ice and snow, causing more of the sun’s heat to penetrate into land and ocean.”
Druckenmiller also said the Trump administration did not interfere with drafting of the report.
“I can say that in producing the Arctic report card in 2025, we did not receive any political interference with our results,” he said.
Lower sea ice, more precipitation, more melt and thaw
Some of the main messages in this report concern superlatives, while others describe a continuation of long-term changes.
It was the Arctic’s hottest year in a record dating back to 1900, the report said. The past year’s winter sea ice maximum was the lowest in the satellite record, which dates back to the late 1970s, and sea ice is much thinner and younger than it was in the past, the report said.
The region set a record for precipitation for the 12 months that ended in September, despite an unusually dry summer in parts of northern Canada and Eurasia. Warmer air holds more moisture, and a long-term trend of higher precipitation continues, the report said.
Across the Arctic, June snow cover extent has declined by 50% over the past six decades, since the 1960s. “Even though you’re starting out in season with more snow, it’s melting faster,” Thoman said.
For rain, there is another pattern: more heavy rain events. Those included last January’s powerful, northward pushing “atmospheric river” that stretched from the Aleutian Islands through mainland Alaska, bringing midwinter rain and flood conditions to Anchorage and elsewhere.
Alaska figures prominently in this year’s report card, as it has in past years’ reports.
Patrick Sullivan stands by an acid seep on July 15,2023. Sullivan is part of a team of scientists who tested water quality in Kobuk Valley National Park’s Salmon River and its tributaries, where permafrost thaw has caused acid rock drainage. The process is releasing metals that have turned the waters a rusty color. A chapter in the 2025 Arctic Report Card described “rusting rivers” phenomenon. (Photo by Roman Dial/Alaska Pacific University)
One chapter is devoted to changing conditions in the Northern Bering Sea and the Chukchi Sea, where a warming-related process termed “borealization” is ongoing. That refers to the transition from an Arctic ecosystem to a more southern ecosystem.
In both seas, the report said, boreal species ranging from commercially important fish like Alaska pollock and Pacific cod to tiny organisms that make up the base of the food web, have been pushing out the more cold-adapted Arctic species like Arctic cod, saffron cod and snow crab. There are impacts to people and marine mammals, the report noted.
“Warming temperatures, declining sea ice, and shifting productivity in the Chukchi and northern Bering Seas drive ecosystem changes with significant implications for fisheries, food security, and Indigenous subsistence,” the report said.
In both seas, about a third of the boreal species groups examined over time increased, while about a third of the Arctic species groups decreased. Some of those boreal species populations spiked in recent years. That long-term trend is evident despite a lot of year-to-year variation and anomalously cold conditions in the Chukchi over the past year.
A chapter about mountain glaciers, a major contributor to global sea level rise, highlights this summer’s glacial outburst flood in Juneau, a phenomenon that has become an annual occurrence in Alaska’s capital city. Glacial outburst floods are increasing in frequency and severity in certain parts of the Arctic and subarctic, said Gabriel Wolken of UAF at the news conference.
Glacial melt is also tied to another extreme event that happened this summer in Southeast Alaska: the collapse of a mountainside along narrow Tracy Arm, which generated a local tsunami that rose nearly 1,600 feet up the opposite side.
“Glacier retreat combined with slope instability can lead to landslides,” Wolken said, adding that those slides can lead to far-reaching tsunamis. “The August 10th, 2025 landslide in Southeast Alaska’s Tracey Arm illustrates the sheer power of these hazards,” he said.
A chapter in the report is devoted to “rusting rivers,” a permafrost-related phenomenon documented throughout the Arctic but especially in Northwestern Alaska. The name comes from the conversion of clear streams to rust-colored waterways, the product of iron and other chemicals that leech out from rocks because of permafrost thaw. There are more than 200 such rusting watersheds in Alaska, said Abagael Pruitt, a University of California, Davis scientist studying the subject.
Another chapter in the report describes the Indigenous science monitoring being done at the community level. That includes work by the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, a tribal government that has established its own lab to screen traditional foods for mercury contents.
While much of the report was devoted to impacts within the Arctic and to people living in the region, its coauthors pointed out that rapid climate change in the far north affects latitudes far to the south. Sea level rise, disrupted weather patterns and shocks to commercial fisheries that are important global food sources are among the far-ranging effects of melt, thaw and other changes, they said.
Wolken, at the news conference, put it this way:
“From the deep oceans to the highest peaks, the Arctic cryosphere is undergoing rapid, interconnected and unprecedented change, and those changes matter far beyond the Arctic.”
