Fresh produce is seen at the Alaska Commercial Company grocery store in Bethel on Oct 15, 2025. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Alaskans who qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program received half of their benefits nearly a week late as a result of the federal government shutdown this month. Their full benefits were two weeks late, even though the state had emergency funds to prevent that.
Officials say the state never used the $5 million per week it set aside to keep people from waiting for food benefits because the state’s system had to be reconfigured to use state money rather than its usual federal funding source. SNAP is a federal food assistance program that is run by the state.
Division Director Deb Etheridge said the state is now prepared to react quickly if a similar situation arises in the future.
“We went through all the steps we needed to create an opportunity for a state-only benefit to be issued through our EBT contractor,” she said. “So in the event that anything like this happens again, we can move swiftly to issue that state-only benefit.”
Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed an emergency order declaration on Nov. 3, following a request by state legislators and similar action by other states.
Etheridge said information technology and system operations teams had to scramble to come up with solutions, but by the time they found a way to get money to Alaskans, the federal government had begun to partially fulfill its obligations.
She said the state was closing in on a solution when the federal government released 50% of the money for benefits on Nov. 4. She said that money was processed and ready for Alaskans to spend by Nov. 6.
Etheridge said the eligibility technicians that process benefits were not excessively burdened by the shutdown.
“Eligibility workers were doing business as usual, processing cases and managing, obviously, increased phone calls — people wanted to know where their benefits were,” she said. “The pressure came on our system operations and our IT.”
The shutdown delayed service in a state division with a history of slowdowns in recent years. The DPA has battled long backlogs in processing food benefit applications as a result of staff shortages and technology issuessince 2022. The division made progress against its backlog before slipping again in 2023. Paperwork slowdowns kept thousands waiting again earlier this year.
Etheridge says the division is currently working to make sure people displaced by the October storms in Western Alaska continue to receive benefits, even if they have lost access to critical paperwork.
Donlin mine camp, June 23, 2025. (photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Alaska Supreme Court has upheld state regulators’ decision to grant permits for a large gold mine planned for Southwest Alaska, bringing the proposed Donlin project a step closer to construction.
In a unanimous ruling published Friday, the court’s five justices said the Alaska Department of Natural Resources did not need to consider the environmental impact of the entire proposed Donlin Mine when it approved water use permits and a right-of-way permit needed for a natural gas pipeline intended to power the mine.
Their ruling has implications for many major development projects on private land and likely applies to projects on federal land as well, such as the large oil projects on Alaska’s North Slope.
“This decision is a major win for Alaska,” said Attorney General-designee Stephen Cox in a written statement. “The Court rightly recognized that the State’s permitting process met constitutional standards and that Article VIII (of the Alaska Constitution) does not extend to lands owned by Alaska Native Corporations or other private entities. This ruling not only affirms the integrity of DNR’s work but also protects the rights of Alaska Native Corporations and provides certainty for future development.”
The natural gas pipeline will stretch across state land, but the mine itself will be dug on land whose subsurface rights are owned by Calista Corporation, a regional Alaska Native corporation.
Writing on behalf of the court, Justice Dario Borghesan said the distinction is important.
“Because these are private resources, rather than state resources, the Department was not required to consider the cumulative impacts of their development when deciding whether to allow the use of state waters and access over state lands to develop the mine,” he wrote.
The ruling says that to approve the gas pipeline, regulators needed to consider only the impact of the pipeline, not of the mine it allows.
Until Friday, a 2013 decision by the Alaska Supreme Court known as REDOIL had required regulators to “take into account all aspects of a project” and consider the “cumulative impacts” when issuing permits for work on state land.
Friday’s decision somewhat limits that precedent, particularly for Alaska’s North Slope oil and gas industry, where most new drilling is taking place on federal land, not state land.
“This decision, I believe, makes clear that the REDOIL requirement to assess cumulative impacts only applies to projects that are on state lands,” said Jon Katchen, an attorney familiar with the new decision and author of a friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court.
Friday’s decision covered two lawsuits filed by the Orutsararmiut Native Council and other Alaska Native tribes opposed to the mine’s development.
They appealed the case to the Alaska Supreme Court after an Anchorage Superior Court judge also ruled in favor of the defendants. The high court heard arguments one year ago.
“While this ruling is unfortunate, our work challenging the Donlin gold mine continues,” said Gage Hoffman, Orutsararmiut Traditional Native Council President, in an emailed statement.
ONC and other plaintiffs are being represented by Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, and a spokeswoman for that organization said it has another case on appeal at the Alaska Supreme Court as well as federal litigation.
“We will be pushing to ensure that the supplemental environmental study that the court ordered from our federal victory adequately analyses the risks posed by the mine,” Hoffman said. “Our people deserve to know about these dangers; our ways of life are dependent on healthy lands and waters, and it is our responsibility to ensure they are protected for future generations.”
Friday’s ruling covered separate lawsuits filed over different sets of permits.
One lawsuit involved a permit challenged repeatedly since a preliminary decision in 2019, granting the use of state land needed to build a gas pipeline from Cook Inlet to the mine site.
Referring to legislative history and the text of the state’s Right of Way Leasing Act, Borghesan concluded, “none (of this) can be reasonably read to require the Department to consider the downstream effects of industrial activities by users of gas transported by the pipeline.”
The other suit addressed 12 water use permits issued in 2013 and 2016 by DNR to Donlin.
Plaintiffs argued that the Alaska Constitution, as interpreted by REDOIL, required DNR to consider the impact of the whole project.
Not so, Borgesan wrote.
“In our view, such a rule would extend article VIII (of the Alaska Constitution) far beyond its command to ascertain whether the development of state-owned resources is in the public’s interest.”
He also added that imposing such a restriction would be particularly problematic in the case of Donlin, because it involves land “chosen by ANCSA corporations as compensation for the loss of Alaska Natives’ aboriginal title to their ancestral territories. … These lands and minerals are reserved for their benefit, not for the benefit of Alaskans generally.”
Plaintiffs had argued that DNR failed to consider what will happen after the mine closes, when the mining pit will be filled by rainwater and seepage.
“Pumping will be required in perpetuity to ensure the lake’s water levels do not overtop its banks,” Borghesan wrote, adding that water treatment will also be required forever.
“This is because the water will have high levels of heavy metals due to contact with mining waste, and will have to be treated in perpetuity to protect downstream lands, waters, fish and wildlife, and people.”
Despite that conclusion, he said the justices “are persuaded that the Department was not required to consider the environmental impacts of the pit lake” because that lake will be regulated by state and federal pollution permits and rules, not just the water-use permits.
Friday’s decision emphasized that the justices are not intending to give an open hand to development.
“We hold only that the Department was not required, when deciding whether to issue water appropriation and pipeline right-of-way permits for use in mining privately owned minerals on private lands, to condition those permits on an analysis of the cumulative impacts of the mining itself,” the decision states.
Third in a three-story series on mining in Alaska published in a partnership between Inside Climate News and Northern Journal. Read parts one and two.
By: Max Graham, Northern Journal
The Johnson Tract is a private parcel with a worker camp and airstrip, surrounded by the vast Lake Clark National Park. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
COOK INLET, Alaska—High in a mountain valley on the far west side of this tidal inlet sits an unusual plot of land.
It’s a private parcel, with a gravel airstrip and four or five buildings that make up a small worker camp. But there are no towns in sight. Known as the Johnson Tract, the property is fully surrounded by the vast Lake Clark National Park—millions of wild acres marked by the broad white peaks of a volcano, sprawling glaciers and a muddy ocean coastline patrolled by brown bears.
Beneath the Johnson Tract lies a potential fortune. For decades, geologists have eyed gold, copper and zinc deposits thought to be worth billions of dollars. But they’ve never been tapped.
Now, amid surging gold prices and rising demand for metals like copper, the prospect is generating new excitement—and concern.
A prominent Alaska mining company is leasing the Johnson Tract from its Indigenous owners, and the property, some 125 miles southwest of Anchorage, has emerged as one of the most promising mining prospects in Southcentral Alaska.
But conservationists, commercial salmon fishermen and local lodge owners fear a mine, encircled by the federal protected area, could disrupt harvests and harm wildlife, including an endangered population of beluga whales.
Getting the Johnson Tract’s minerals to buyers will require trucking ore through a now-roadless corner of the national park to a future port.
Critics point out that the bay where the mining company, Contango Ore, Inc., wants to build a shipping terminal is an important winter habitat for the endangered belugas. Concern for the whales, among other objections, led mine opponents to sue federal regulators earlier this year over a permit that Contango received to build a short access road and expand an airstrip at the site.
Mount Iliamna, a volcano in Lake Clark National Park, rises above Tuxedni Bay and a commercial fish camp on Chisik Island. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
Still, the project is advancing.
The land is owned by Anchorage-based Cook Inlet Region, Inc., or CIRI, one of 12 Indigenous-owned regional corporations created by Congress as part of a wider land claims settlement with Alaska’s Native people in 1971.
Contango, based in Fairbanks, started leasing the land from CIRI last year. With gold prices surpassing a record high of $4,000 per troy ounce this year, the mining company is already planning new roads and a tunnel to allow underground drilling on the Johnson Tract.
If a mine gets built, both Contango and CIRI’s nearly 10,000 Indigenous shareholders are poised to profit.
“The stars might be aligned right now,” said Margie Brown, a former CIRI president who also worked for the corporation’s lands department in the 1970s, when the company acquired the prospect.
The conflict reflects a deeper tension between two competing visions for Alaska—one of environmental preservation, the other of industrial development. Both visions extend back to a time when Congress set aside large tracts of the state’s wilderness for protection but also carved out areas for resource extraction, often intended to benefit Alaska’s Indigenous-owned corporations. Rooted in a series of landmark bills in the 1970s and 1980s, the Johnson Tract saga echoes some of the state’s other, higher-profile environmental battles, including over a mining road and oil development in the Arctic.
As Contango forges ahead, CIRI is asserting its right to profit from lands long intended for development, while opponents say that mining imperils a still-wild slice of Alaska.
Commercial fisherman Dustin Solberg, left, walks across the bow of his skiff at the mouth of Tuxedni Bay. Solberg fishes with his son, Leif. (Photos by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
Among critics of the mining project is Dustin Solberg, a commercial fisherman and environmental advocate who spends summers with his family setting nets for salmon along the beaches of Tuxedni Bay, about 10 miles northeast of the Johnson Tract. Contango could one day load ore onto ships from the same shore where Solberg and other fishermen haul fish out of the bay.
Standing on a quiet Tuxedni beach one day this summer with dramatic cliffs looming overhead, Solberg imagined mining trucks rumbling down a road nearby.
“I think it would irreversibly change this place,” he said.
A fishing tender anchored in Tuxedni Channel, with Lake Clark National Park in the background. The tender buys salmon from the bay’s fishermen and transports it across the inlet to a processing plant in the town of Kenai. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
A pivotal deal
The Johnson Tract fight is rooted in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
Intended to resolve disputes over Indigenous land claims in Alaska, the federal legislation in 1971 established 12 for-profit Alaska Native corporations, each owned by Indigenous shareholders with ties to a region in the state. More than 200 other Indigenous companies tied to Native villages also formed.
The act promised to compensate the corporations with nearly a billion dollars and millions of acres of land, to be chosen by the companies’ elected leaders.
Those leaders quickly moved to obtain traditional hunting and fishing grounds and areas with cultural value, but they also sought land thought to be rich in minerals and other resources that they could convert into profits for shareholders.
In the Arctic, Native corporations acquired land with oil deposits. In Southeast Alaska, they logged vast stands of cedar and spruce.
But in CIRI’s region, around Anchorage and neighboring Cook Inlet, the pickings were sparse. The southcentral region is the state’s most populous, and by the time of the settlement, military bases and wildlife refuges had been set aside by the federal government, prime real estate was in the hands of private developers and other parcels had been snatched up by the state.
“You just had so much pressure for lands within the Cook Inlet region,” said Brown, who now serves on CIRI’s board.
The corporation’s leaders argued that they were largely left with glaciers and mountain ridges — dim prospects for shareholders.
CIRI’s headquarters in Midtown Anchorage. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
Two years after Congress approved the settlement, CIRI sued the U.S. interior secretary, arguing that his agency had not made adequate property available for CIRI to develop. Tense negotiations ensued, producing a sprawling agreement between CIRI and the state and federal governments: the Cook Inlet Land Exchange.
The deal called for CIRI to give up half the property around Cook Inlet that the corporation was entitled to under the original settlement, Brown said. Some of that foregone land would be folded into Lake Clark National Park and Preserve when Congress created it a few years later.
In return, CIRI would be able to acquire land elsewhere in Alaska, and even outside the state.
The Johnson River flows about a dozen miles from the Johnson Tract through Lake Clark National Park into Cook Inlet. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
The deal also allowed CIRI to pick up some key assets around Cook Inlet, including the Johnson Tract, which the corporation chose specifically for its mineral potential. CIRI’s early leaders viewed the land swap as a hard-fought compromise, and Brown called the Johnson Tract “key to the bargain.”
“The ability to use the land in the way Congress intended is something that needs to be preserved,” she said. “It’s unfortunate that as we move further and further from congressional intent, it’s harder and harder for people to remember that.”
The Johnson Tract is really two adjacent parcels, totaling about 33 square miles. CIRI—now a huge business, with nearly $1 billion in assets—owns the minerals beneath both parcels, and the surface of the south tract, where the main deposit sits. The federal government retained surface ownership of the north tract.
Citing a provision in the land exchange, the Department of Interior earlier this year granted CIRI the rights to transport ore through the park, with certain restrictions to limit environmental impacts. CIRI and Contango have not formally proposed building a haul road and port, which would require additional permits.
An “Awesome” Deposit
Soon after CIRI acquired the Johnson Tract, the corporation began scouring it for more minerals, seeking enough to justify building a mine.
In the early 1980s, CIRI partnered with Anaconda Minerals, a subsidiary of the global oil giant ARCO, to evaluate the prospect.
Anaconda found promising amounts of gold, zinc and copper and at one point—given the area’s prolific amount of snow—envisioned an underground tunnel or aerial tram to move ore the dozen miles from a mine to a port on the coast. But Anaconda went out of business. And aside from another unsuccessful effort to develop the Johnson Tract in the 1990s, the land sat largely dormant until 2019.
That year, CIRI signed a lease with a Vancouver-based mineral exploration company, which quickly handed over the operations to a spinoff firm, HighGold Mining Inc. HighGold spent tens of millions of dollars on exploration and drilled more than 150 core samples before Contango bought the company last year in a deal worth some $35 million.
The Johnson Tract appealed to Contango’s chief executive, Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, because it seemed to be a good fit for the company’s unconventional development model, which involves shipping raw ore to a processing plant off site, rather than crushing and processing ore next to the deposit, as most mines do.
The approach avoids some of the more expensive and hard-to-permit components of a typical mine, like a mill and a big waste pond. In theory, it keeps construction costs low and makes permitting easier, Van Nieuwenhuyse said. But shipping unprocessed ore also risks higher transportation costs, so Johnson Tract’s close proximity to the ocean and shipping routes made it attractive.
“It’s an awesome deposit,” Van Nieuwenhuyse said, citing the prospect’s high ratio of valuable minerals to rock and its thickness, which he expects will make the mining process more efficient.
Van Nieuwenhuyse is a veteran of Alaska’s mining industry, having worked over the past four decades on some of the state’s most prominent early-stage projects.
He played major roles in advancing Western Alaska’s Donlin project — the state’s biggest proposed gold mine — and high-profile prospects in Northwest Alaska at the end of the controversial proposed Ambler Road. He also led development of the Rock Creek gold mine near Nome, which closed in 2008 soon after opening amid a slew of challenges.
At Contango, where Van Nieuwenhuyse was named chief executive in 2020, he partnered with the multinational Kinross Gold Corp. to spearhead the construction of Alaska’s first large mine in more than a decade, a project in the Interior called Manh Choh.
Unlike that open-pit mine, Johnson Tract would be an underground operation. Several years of exploratory drilling, permitting and engineering are expected before a final decision on building a mine, Van Nieuwenhuyse said.
A drilling pad at the Johnson Tract project. (Photo from Contango Ore)
The mine, according to Contango’s preliminary plans, would operate for seven years and would be small compared to other major Alaska mines. Contango would share royalties on mineral sales with CIRI, which has an option to buy as much as a 25 percent stake in the mine.
CIRI declined interview requests about the Johnson Tract, and the corporation’s executives have made few public statements about it.
The project “presents an opportunity to responsibly develop mineral resources to benefit our shareholders while respecting the environment and preserving the land,” CIRI said in a brief update last year. “The Johnson Tract project reflects decades of hard work to build a foundation of self-determination and financial stability.”
“We’re Here Because it’s Beautiful”
Dustin Solberg, the fisherman and mine opponent, was motoring to a net he’d set on the west side of Tuxedni Channel one afternoon last summer when he spotted a brown bear on a rocky beach ahead.
“I think it smells the fish, Dad,” 12-year-old son and deckhand Leif Solberg called out.
Far more worrisome to the elder Solberg is the future of the beach where the bear was roving—near a site that Contango is studying as a port.
Solberg, his family and others who fish in the channel each summer have growing concerns about Contango’s vision. They fear that a new road and industrial dock, and the traffic and noise from trucks and ships, would mar the wild character of the bay and the park around it.
Dustin and Leif Solberg haul salmon out of Tuxedni Channel. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
As Solberg looked across the channel, it was remarkably quiet, aside from a few fishing skiffs and an occasional float plane that landed at a bear-viewing lodge on Chisik Island. Other than the lodge and a few fishing cabins, Chisik is a federally designated wilderness area, home to a prolific seabird colony.
A dozen or so crews fish commercially for salmon in the bay. Two or three times a week, from June through August, they set, pick and pull nets along pebbly beaches on either side of Tuxedni Channel, with fishing periods that can last 12 hours or more.
It’s hard labor, Solberg said, but the season moves at a slower pace than Alaska’s bigger-volume salmon fisheries, like Bristol Bay, where boats sometimes work 24-hour shifts.
Dustin and Leif Solberg work their net behind freshly caught salmon in Tuxedni Channel. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
“If you wanted to make money, you would fish somewhere else,” said Ann Harding, Solberg’s wife. “We’re here because it’s beautiful.”
The area has “phenomenal” mountains and a striking density of birds and bears, added Harding, a seabird biologist who sometimes fishes alongside Solberg.
Ann Harding handles a freshly caught salmon as Dustin Solberg pulls another out of his net. (Max Graham/Northern Journal)
The family uses a cabin a mile or two down the shoreline from where the bear had been walking. It’s a small plywood structure beneath an A-frame roof, surrounded by an electric fence to keep away curious ursine visitors. The cabin is about a hundred feet back from the water and set fully within Lake Clark National Park.
Solberg and Harding bought the structure several years ago. They don’t have title to the land beneath it or a formal permit from the park service. But the cabin existed before the park was established, and past owners had an informal arrangement with federal officials to keep using it, Solberg said.
A cabin used by fisherman Dustin Solberg and his family stands in Lake Clark National Park, near the shore of Tuxedni Channel. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
The cabin now sits in an easement that the Department of Interior earlier this year granted CIRI for a mining port. Solberg doesn’t think his small business will amount to much of an obstacle.
“This is just a little shack that doesn’t really compete with the value of an operation like that,” he said, referring to the mining plans. “So, I don’t expect this to get in the way of anything.”
A National Park Service Map of the Johnson Tract, as well as easements where an access road and port serving a mine could one day be built.
CIRI and Contango have not made a final decision about where to put the port, and a CIRI environmental document said last year that there is “considerable uncertainty” about future construction.
Van Nieuwenhuyse, the Contango mining executive, said his company recognizes the rights of the setnetters, and he believes a mine can co-exist with the fishery.
“I would ask that everybody recognize CIRI’s rights as well,” he added.
Where Belugas “Hang Out”
As it gathers pace, Contango is facing opposition not just from the commercial fishermen but also from conservation groups and some tribal governments in the region.
A national group, the Center for Biological Diversity, along with the Homer-based nonprofit Cook Inletkeeper and the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council, a tribal government, are suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for issuing a key permit to Contango.
Several tribal leaders also have raised concerns about the project and have asked the Trump administration to suspend the permit.
A core concern among those opponents is that a mining operation could threaten Cook Inlet’s beluga whales, which are treasured by many Anchorage residents and local wildlife viewers.
The inlet’s belugas—which are genetically distinct from other beluga populations—once numbered around 1,300 animals, but their numbers sharply declined in the 1990s. They were listed as endangered in 2008 and still have not significantly recovered. The population now stands at some 330 whales.
Tuxedni Bay, ringed by the mountains of Lake Clark National Park, is an important winter habitat for an endangered population of beluga whales, according to recent federal research. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
During the summer, the belugas are commonly spotted feasting on fish at the mouths of salmon-bearing streams near Anchorage. Where they go in winter has been a mystery.
But last year federal scientists announced a big discovery in a study that analyzed underwater sound recordings.
The researchers, affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, identified Tuxedni Bay as the only known foraging ground for the whales between late fall and late spring. They warned that human-caused noise is a “key threat” to the belugas, which use sound to navigate and communicate, and that industrial activity could affect the quality of the whales’ habitat.
NOAA Fisheries, which led the study, declined interview requests. One of its scientists, in a press release announcing the study, said that “maintaining the status quo” may be all that’s needed to help the beluga population recover.
As Contango studies sites for a port, it’s now funding a new beluga survey by biologists working for the state of Alaska, which has often been more friendly to the mining industry than the federal government.
The survey is focused on the narrow channel where Contango is considering shipping ore, while the NOAA-led study looked more broadly at the 10-mile-long Tuxedni Bay.
“We want to know where the belugas like to hang out,” Van Nieuwenhuyse said.
One of the loudest voices advocating for the belugas and against development at the Johnston Tract is Cooper Freeman, a Homer resident and the Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The center is a 35-year-old nonprofit that aims to protect wildlife and ecosystems across the country, and it’s a participant in nearly a dozen active lawsuits in Alaska’s federal court.
In an interview, Freeman acknowledged CIRI’s right to the minerals at the Johnson Tract. But he noted that federal environmental laws still apply and argued that CIRI does not have an “absolute right” to build a mine.
In his view, the area is too ecologically rich—with its important beluga habitat and high density of brown bears, seabirds and shorebirds—to risk.
“It’s just an incredibly, biologically, intensively rich and completely intact area—one of the only remaining places like it in all of Cook Inlet,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any amount of money that’s worth destroying this place.”
Chisik Island is a federally designated wilderness area, aside from a few commercial fish camps and a bear-viewing lodge. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
There are no towns within 40 miles of the Johnson Tract—just roadless mountains, glaciers, forests and streams.
Aside from seasonal fishermen, CIRI and Contango’s neighbors include Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, a bear-viewing and sport-fishing business that’s near the mouth of the Johnson River, a dozen or so miles downstream of the mineral deposit.
Longtime lodge owners David Coray and Joanne Edney have kept loose tabs on the prospect for decades and have grown more concerned as Contango’s project advances.
In a recent interview, Coray and Edney said they’re worried that a mine could pollute the Johnson River and disrupt bear habitat.
“We understand their interest, and we understand their rights,” Edney said of CIRI and Contango. But a mining operation could come into “direct conflict” with her family’s business, she said.
CIRI declined to respond to questions about opposition to the project, and about how it’s gauging the views of its shareholders, some of whom have spoken out against it.
Van Nieuwenhuyse said Contango is committed to protecting wildlife.
“We’ll develop this deposit with minimal impacts to the environment, which we recognize as pristine,” Van Nieuwenhuyse said. “We’re all from Alaska. We enjoy the outdoors. That’s why we all became geologists.”
For Solberg, the fisherman, the convergence of competing interests in the area is “endlessly fascinating—and really complicated and really unfortunate.”
In a conversation after the fishing season, Solberg acknowledged a tension between CIRI’s rights to the Johnson Tract’s minerals and the spectre of a mine transforming the landscape and bay that his family has come to know and love.
Solberg said he feels “really torn” about the issue and that he respects CIRI’s land claims. But as one of the few Alaskans who spends long stretches of time in Tuxedni Bay, he feels obligated to speak in defense of its wildness and beauty.
“I just want decisionmakers to have their eyes wide open,” he said. “And to realize what’s at stake.”
This story was supported by a grant from the Alaska Center for Excellence in Journalism.
Northern Journal contributor Max Graham can be reached at max@northernjournal.com. He’s interested in any and all mining related stories, as well as introductory meetings with people in and around the industry.
This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe at this link.
Research biologists pause among the wetlands of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain, with the Brooks Range in the background. (Photo by Lisa Hupp/USFWS)
AP- Alaska Native tribes and conservation groups sued the federal government Wednesday, seeking in at least three separate lawsuits to overturn a land exchange aimed at allowing a road to be built through a national wildlife refuge.
Legal challenges to the land exchange agreement reached last month between Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and an Alaska Native village corporation include claims that it was not properly analyzed, that it poses risks to sensitive habitats and that it could threaten migratory birds that some Alaska Natives rely on for food.
King Cove, a community of about 870 people near the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, has for years pushed to have a road built through the refuge for access to an all-weather airport at Cold Bay, about 18 miles (29 kilometers) away.
Alaska’s governor and congressional delegation have supported the cause, calling it a life and safety issue that would allow for emergency medical evacuations. The delegation has said King Cove’s airstrip can frequently be closed for bad weather, and that high seas can make travel by water between King Cove and Cold Bay challenging.
Terms of the agreement include conveyance by the government of about 490 acres (199 hectares) to King Cove Corp. for a potential road corridor, while the corporation would convey about 1,739 acres (703.7 hectares) to the refuge and relinquish selection rights to additional land. A decision document, signed by Burgum, says the proposed road would be about 19 miles, much of which would be within the refuge. It says it would be up to the corporation to obtain the necessary permits and funding for a road.
Elizabeth Peace, an Interior Department spokesperson, said by email Wednesday that the department doesn’t comment on litigation.
One of the lawsuits was filed by the Native Village of Hooper Bay, Native Village of Paimiut, Chevak Native Village and the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group. The tribal governments are hundreds of miles north of King Cove but have expressed concern that a road could impact migratory birds they rely on that stop along the way at the refuge.
Angutekaraq Estelle Thomson, traditional council president of the Native Village of Paimiut, in a statement called the refuge’s eelgrass wetlands “a lifeline for emperor geese, black brant and other birds that feed our families and connect us to Indigenous relatives across the Pacific.”
“We are joining this lawsuit because defending Izembek is inseparable from defending our subsistence rights, our food security and our ability to remain Yup’ik on our own lands,” she said.
Lawsuits also were filed by a coalition of conservation groups, represented by Trustees for Alaska, and by Defenders of Wildlife.
A single caribou walks across the treeless tundra in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2019. (Photo by Alexis Bonogofsky/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
As Kristen Moreland waited for the livestream to buffer, her thoughts drifted to the years she’d devoted to defending Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the northeastern sweep of Alaska where the mountains give way to the coastal plain. On screen, the chatter of aides stilled as men in dark suits gathered behind a lectern. Then Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced plans to open the area, roughly the size of South Carolina, to drilling.
It marked another round in the decades-long tug-of-war over developing one of the country’s largest remaining protected areas — an effort that came to a head during President Donald Trump’s first term, and ground to a halt when President Joe Biden took office. Burgum also restored seven oil and gas leases that a state-funded corporation bid on during the final days of the first Trump administration, and that his successor later revoked.
Moreland, a Gwich’in leader and executive director of the tribal committee dedicated to protecting the Nation’s sacred coastal plain, sat stunned as the YouTube stream continued. The place she grew up — where generations have lived on the tundra alongside the caribou, weaving their history into the land — had been reduced to a line item on someone’s balance sheet. When Burgum said opening the refuge would benefit northern communities, “it felt like a slap in the face,” she said.
“They’ve never reached out to us to listen to how this would affect our livelihood,” she said. Moreland fears development will drive the herd that the Gwich’in rely on out of range and contaminate rivers in a region where hunting and fishing are a matter of survival. For her, it felt like erasure. “It’s another disrespectful action from decision-makers,” she said. “It ignores our voice as Gwich’in and violates our rights as Indigenous people.”
As the fight over development in the Arctic continues, federal officials are racing to fulfill Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda. Though the government is shut down and many employees are not getting paid, officials continue approving permits for extractive industries. In a wood-paneled Beltway office, Burgum framed his “sweeping package of actions” as a declaration that “Alaska is open for business.”
To that end, the administration also signed permits for the controversial 211-mile Ambler Road to mineral deposits, including one owned by Trilogy Metals — which the Trump administration now holds a 10 percent stake in — and authorized a land exchange that will allow for construction of a road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, at the tip of the Alaskan Peninsula. “I told the president it’s like Christmas every morning,” Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy said. “I wake up, I go to look at what’s under the proverbial Christmas tree to see what’s happening.”
Last week’s announcement may not end up being the gift the governor is hoping for.
The fight over drilling in the refuge began almost as soon as President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the site, once called Arctic National Wildlife Range, in 1960. The most recent volley began in 2017, when Trump signed a tax bill requiring two oil and gas lease sales there within seven years. When the first sale was held in 2021, the state corporation Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, was the only major bidder. It hoped to keep drilling prospects in the region alive, despite weak industry interest. The sale ultimately generated less than $12 million — a fraction of the nearly $2 billion projected by the Tax Act for the last decade.
The Biden administration later found the leasing program’s environmental review inadequate. It conducted a new analysis, then canceled the leases in 2023, citing “fundamental legal deficiencies” and its failure to “properly quantify” greenhouse gas emissions. The second mandated sale, in early 2025, received no bidders. Compounding the challenge, major banks and insurers have refused to finance or underwrite projects in the refuge, citing environmental risks. Oil majors have also steered clear: In 2022, Chevron and the company that took over BP’s leases on private land within the refuge paid $10 million to walk away from them. That same year, Exxon Mobil told shareholders it has “no plans for exploration or development” there.
Still, this spring Trump issued an executive order calling for the reinstatement of AIDEA’s leases, and a federal court ruled that their cancellation was handled improperly. The state-funded investment firm remains the sole holder of leases in the refuge.
The problem is AIDEA doesn’t have the capital or technical expertise to build out these areas on its own. It has authorized spending nearly $54 million to develop them and move permitting for Ambler Road forward. That includes hiring consultants for seismic testing to map oil and gas deposits. But first it must get permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to harass polar bears, something that has sparked viral protests in the past. AIDEA authorized another $50 million for Ambler following Burgum’s announcement.
Ultimately, the state corporation is spending public money on infrastructure that private firms would normally fund, while sidestepping oversight, said Suzanne Bostrom, a senior staff attorney at Trustees for Alaska. The watchdog legal organization accused AIDEA of having redirected money toward refuge leases and Ambler from accounts within its Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund, and later its Revolving Fund, to avoid the need for legislative approval. Randy Ruaro, AIDEA’s executive director, wrote in an email that it was not legally required to seek authorization.
All of that aside, AIDEA’s track record is pretty grim. Financial records suggest the corporation lost at least $38 million on its last oil and gas venture, the Mustang field on the North Slope west of the refuge. After oil prices fell in 2020, the corporation foreclosed on the project. The state provided another $22 million in a 2023 bailout before AIDEA sold the field for an undisclosed sum. Bostrom says AIDEA has “no actual plan for seeing a return” on its spending in the refuge. In fact, the people of Alaska often lose money in its deals; one analysis found that almost half of the agency’s investments have been written off as worthless. The economists who crunched those numbers found the state would have come out about $11 billion ahead if that money had been put to work elsewhere.
In an email, Ruaro called the analysis a “hit piece” and said the corporation has recorded its best financial performance in six decades over the past two years. He said that analysis “failed to account for the billions of dollars generated in economic benefits” by the Red Dog Mine, which produces lead and zinc in northwest Alaska. The corporation poured $160 million — about one-third of the project’s startup costs — into infrastructure to support the operation. At the same time, AIDEA’s own consultants concluded that the mine would be built regardless, and the investment was unnecessary. “AIDEA loves to point to the Red Dog mine as a shining example of their success,” Bostrom said, but even taking those claims at face-value “doesn’t erase that AIDEA still has no viable financial plan in place to cover the cost of building the Ambler Road.”
Ultimately, any plans for the refuge and Ambler Road — which the Bureau of Land Management has said would harm Indigenous and low-income communities — raise questions about who benefits from such development. AIDEA has, for example, proposed financing the private Ambler road through Gates of the Arctic National Park with bonds repaid by tolls, a plan critics call unrealistic, given the cost could hit $2 billion. “It’s hugely problematic for the state to issue bonds with no viable plan for repayment,” Bostrom said. “That’s not a good investment decision.”
But Ruaro wrote that is only one of several options, and that he is “confident the mines … have billions of dollars in minerals needed by the nation.” He also said AIDEA now estimates the cost at $500 to $850 million, and said the road can be built in phases.
Even with prudent financial strategies, the economics of extraction remain precarious — especially as domestic oil prices dropped below $60 a barrel this summer. Given the average breakeven price of $62, new Arctic production may not be profitable — though it would extend the life of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline that carries crude from the North Slope. The U.S. is already the world’s top producer, and more output won’t necessarily lower consumer fuel prices, says Boston University’s Robert K. Kaufmann, because OPEC and other nations still influence global markets. (As to the “energy emergency” that Trump declared, Kaufmann said, “I want what he’s smoking.”) Instead, the leases will bring more production online when “any rational scientist is calling for reducing carbon emissions.
Despite the risks, some communities in the region support new oil and gas projects. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge sits within North Slope Borough, which is larger than 39 states. Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat — a nonprofit funded by the regional Alaska Native Corporation — notes that 95 percent of the borough’s tax revenue comes from the industry, funding things like schools and clinics. Fossil fuel royalties directly benefit Indigenous communities like Kaktovik, funding essential services. “When Uncle Doug [Burgum] calls, I answer,” Josiah Patkotak, the borough’s mayor, said in a statement praising the Interior secretary’s announcement.
It can be difficult to disentangle genuine local support from efforts quietly backed — or directly compensated — by the industry itself. During a legislative hearing earlier this year, state Representative Ashley Carrick said one person who testified as a community advocate was paid by AIDEA, something Ruaro confirmed to her that it routinely does. This can create the impression these projects are widely embraced.
“There’s this wide consensus that [Iñupiat] people all want the oil and gas projects. It’s not true,” said Nauri Simmonds, executive director of Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic. Many of those adversely impacted by drilling stay silent for fear of losing work or social standing, she said — and some who have spoken out have faced threats and violence.
Simmonds says what might be lost by developing the refuge can’t be counted in dollars. AIDEA now holds leases in a part of the refuge where the Porcupine caribou herd gathers to bear its young. The Gwich’in name for the region, where cool coastal winds protect the newborns from insects and heat, translates to “the sacred place where life begins.” Beyond its shelter, calves are 19 percent more likely to die. Scientists and Indigenous peoples fear the clamor of development will drive the herd away, severing a bond that has sustained people and animals alike for millenia. Even as climate change reshapes one of the country’s last undisturbed ecosystems, it is political forces that now endanger it most.
“One of the most wounding pieces is that this wouldn’t be something that the companies would have gone after on their own,” Simmonds said. “It is the enticements from Alaska, from the corporations, from the political landscape, that creates the appeal.”
President Donald Trump signs the funding bill to reopen the government, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The signing ceremony came just hours after the House passed the measure on a mostly party-line vote of 222-209. The Senate had already passed the measure Monday.
The shutdown magnified partisan divisions in Washington as Trump took unprecedented unilateral actions — including canceling projects and trying to fire federal workers — to pressure Democrats into relenting on their demands.
Democrats wanted to extend an enhanced tax credit expiring at the end of the year that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces. They refused to go along with a short-term spending bill that did not include that priority. But Republicans said that was a separate policy fight to be held at another time.
Here’s the latest:
Trump’s new ambassador visits head of Greece’s Orthodox Church
Kimberly Guilfoyle, the first female U.S. ambassador to Greece and a close ally of President Trump, visited the head of Greece’s Orthodox Church on Thursday, telling him he was the first person she called after being nominated to her new post.
Guilfoyle’s visit to Archbishop Ieronymos II came just over a week after she took up her new position in Athens. A former California prosecutor and Fox News host who was once engaged to Donald Trump Jr, the 56-year-old presented her diplomatic credentials to Greece’s president on Nov. 4.
“It’s wonderful to be here and I’m just very grateful that President Trump has blessed me with the opportunity to serve the United States here in Greece, for the relationship that we have and for that growing and blossoming going forward,” Guilfoyle said during the meeting with the 87-year-old archbishop.
Ieronymos extended his thanks “to the president for the opportunity that he gave us today. May God bless these relations.”
Medicare telehealth waivers that allow millions of older adults to get virtual health care without leaving home were restored through Jan. 30 in the government funding bill, after lapsing during the 43-day shutdown.
Patients and caregivers reacted with relief — but called for more action.
“We are pleased that Congress has worked together to temporarily restore the telehealth funding, but we hope they can make this a permanent part of the healthcare system,” said Martha Swick, a full-time caregiver for her husband Bill, who uses the program for speech therapy to treat his degenerative brain disease.
The deal also restored funding through Jan. 30 for a Medicare program that allows some patients to receive hospital-level acute in-person care at home.
Essential federal workers expected to get backpay soon, White House official says
Federal workers deemed essential, including Capitol Police officers, TSA workers and air traffic controllers, had been forced to work without pay during the shutdown.
But Kevin Hassett, chair of the National Economic Council at the White House, said their checks should soon be on the way.
“I think that the payments will come probably come in the next week,” Hassett said. “Maybe even before.”
Health care debate ahead
It’s unclear whether the parties will find any common ground on health care before the December vote in the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he will not commit to bringing it up in his chamber.
Some Republicans have said they’re open to extending the COVID-19 pandemic-era tax credits as premiums will soar for millions of people, but they also want new limits on who can receive the subsidies. Some argue the tax dollars for the plans should be routed through individuals rather than go directly to insurance companies.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Monday that she was supportive of extending the tax credits with changes, such as new income caps. Some Democrats have signaled they could be open to that idea.
A bitter end after a long stalemate
The frustration and pressures generated by the shutdown was reflected when lawmakers debated the spending measure on the House floor.
Republicans said Democrats sought to use the pain generated by the shutdown to prevail in a policy dispute.
“They knew it would cause pain and they did it anyway,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said.
Democrats said Republicans raced to pass tax breaks earlier this year that they say mostly will benefit the wealthy. But the bill before the House on Wednesday “leaves families twisting in the wind with zero guarantee there will ever, ever be a vote to extend tax credits to help everyday people pay for their health care,” said Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts.
Federal workers deeply felt the impacts of the shutdown
The shutdown created a cascade of troubles for many Americans. Throughout the shutdown, at least 670,000 federal employees were furloughed, while about 730,000 others were working without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The plight of the federal workers was among several pressure points, along with flight disruptions and cuts to food aid, that in the end ratcheted up the pressure on lawmakers to come to an agreement to fund the government.
Throughout the six-week shutdown, officials in President Trump’s administration repeatedly used the federal workers as leverage to try to push Democrats to relent on their health care demands. The Republican president signaled that workers going unpaid wouldn’t get back pay. He threatened and then followed through on firings in a federal workforce already reeling from layoffs earlier this year. A court then blocked the shutdown firings, adding to the uncertainty.
Federal workers question whether the longest government shutdown was worth their sacrifice
Jessica Sweet spent the federal government shutdown cutting back. To make ends meet, the Social Security claims specialist drank only one coffee a day, skipped meals, cut down on groceries and deferred paying some household bills. She racked up spending on her credit card buying gas to get to work.
With the longest shutdown ever coming to a close, Sweet and hundreds of thousands of other federal workers who missed paychecks will soon get some relief. But many are left feeling that their livelihoods served as political pawns in the fight between recalcitrant lawmakers in Washington and are asking themselves whether the battle was worth their sacrifices.
“It’s very frustrating to go through something like this,” said Sweet, who is a union steward of AFGE Local 3343 in New York. “It shakes the foundation of trust that we all place in our agencies and in the federal government to do the right thing.”
The Office of Personnel Management posted on X that federal workers are expected to be back to the grind on Thursday, with Trump signing a measure ending the record 43-day shutdown.
“Federal agencies in the Washington, DC area are open. Employees are expected to begin the workday on time. Normal operating procedures are in effect,” the OPM posting says.
Low clouds hang over Cook Inlet north of Anchor Point on Oct. 23, 2025. The Trump administration is planning an oil and gas lease sale in federal territory of the inlet. It is set to be the first of at six Cook Inlet lease sales that Congress has mandated by held between now and 2032. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Trump administration on Monday outlined its plans to auction 1 million acres of federal offshore territory in what it has called the “Big Beautiful Cook Inlet Oil and Gas Lease Sale.”
The lease sale, to be held early next year under terms detailed in a notice published Monday in the Federal Register, is to be the first of at least six mandated for Cook Inlet through 2032 under the sweeping budget bill that Congress passed this summer. The bill also mandated 30 lease sales through 2040 in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
“President Trump’s signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act marked the beginning of a new chapter for oil and gas development in the Gulf of America and Alaska’s Cook Inlet,” Matt Giacona, acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said in a news release issued Friday. “BOEM is now moving forward with a predictable, congressionally mandated leasing schedule that will support offshore oil and gas development for decades to come.”
In the statement, the agency, which is the Department of the Interior division that oversees offshore oil and gas drilling in federal waters, touted the 12.5% royalty offered in the lease sale as an incentive to bidders. The agency statement noted that 12.5% is the lowest royalty rate allowed for offshore oil and gas production in federal territory.
Lease sale bids are to be opened on March 4.
Cook Inlet lease sales held in recent years, whether in federal or state territory, have drawn little industry interest. That is despite the use of some incentives, such as royalty-free terms.
There are only eight active leases in federal waters of Cook Inlet, all held by Hilcorp, the inlet’s dominant operator. One of those leases was acquired in a sale held at the end of 2022 under a requirement inserted into the Inflation Reduction Act; Hilcorp’s bid was the only one in that lease sale.
Hilcorp also was the sole bidder in a 2017 federal Cook Inlet lease sale, when it acquired 14 leases. Last year, it relinquished seven of those leases.
A map shows the planning area for the federal Cook Inlet oil and gas lease sale scheduled for early 2026. The lease sale is the first of six mandated under the budget bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in July. (Map provided by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management)
There is no pending exploration plan for Hilcorp’s eight federal Cook Inlet leases, according to the BOEM website.
Muted industry interest in past sales
Annual areawide Cook Inlet lease sales held by the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas, for both offshore and onshore state territory, have also produced few bids in recent years.
The 2025 state sale drew five bids, according to results released by the division in June. The 2024 sale drew three bids. The 2023 state sale drew six bids. Each sale offered more than 700 tracts spread over about 3 million acres, and in two of those lease sales, Hilcorp was the sole bidder.
The agency’s Federal Register notice kicked off a 60-day comment period — but only for Alaska’s governor and for local governments. It is unclear whether tribal governments or any other organizations are included among those invited to comment; a question posed to the Department of the Interior press office was not answered by Monday afternoon.
An automatic emailed message from BOEM spokesperson Jennifer Russo said she could not respond to questions on Monday because of the federal government shutdown.
One environmental group that opposes the lease sale plans to submit public comments nonetheless.
“They’re not asking for comments from the public. But we are still planning to make sure that the people who live in Cook Inlet and Alaska and around the country, their voices will be heard,” said Cooper Freeman, Alaska director of the Center for Biological Diversity.
There appears to be no prohibition on public comments, Freeman noted.
Even though recent Cook Inlet lease sales have drawn little industry interest, he said the center has worries about future leasing.
“We hope that there’s no bids, but we’re taking it very seriously,” he said. “All it takes is one drill rig, one pipeline to burst, and it would be over for the inlet.”
The upcoming Cook Inlet lease sale process is separate from a court-mandated review of the 2022 lease sale.
A lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations resulted in a federal court ruling last year that found the presale analysis to be flawed. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ordered BOEM to conduct further analysis of leasing impacts to endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and other natural resources.
BOEM, in a Federal Register notice published in September, said it plans to complete the supplemental impact statement by the end of the year.
The agency said that it will not release the draft study for public comment and will hold no public hearings on the draft, a departure from procedures followed in past environmental studies.
The lack of public comment opportunities or planned public hearings has angered some Cook Inlet area organizations.
Cook Inletkeeper, an environmental group, has launched a petition drive calling for the normal public process to be reinstated.
The Alaska and American flags fly in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
AP- The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history appears to be nearing an end, but not without leaving a mark on an already-struggling economy.
About 1.25 million federal workers haven’t been paid since Oct. 1. Thousands of flights have been canceled, a trend that is expected to continue this week even as Congress moves toward reopening the government. Government contract awards have slowed and some food aid recipients have seen their benefits interrupted.
Most of the lost economic activity will be recovered when the government reopens, as federal workers will receive back pay. But some canceled flights won’t be retaken, missed restaurant meals won’t be made up, and some postponed purchases will end up not happening at all.
“Short-lived shutdowns are usually invisible in the data, but this one will leave a lasting mark,” Gregory Daco, chief economist at accounting giant EY said, “both because of its record length and the growing disruptions to welfare programs and travel.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a six-week shutdown will reduce growth in this year’s fourth quarter by about 1.5 percentage points. That would cut growth by half from the third quarter. The reopening should boost first-quarter growth next year by 2.2 percentage points, the CBO projected, but about $11 billion in economic activity will be permanently lost.
The previous longest government shutdown, in 2018-2019, lasted 35 days but only partially shut the government because many agencies had been fully funded. It only nicked the economy by about 0.02% of GDP, the CBO said then.
The current shutdown is adding to the economy’s existing challenges, which include sluggish hiring, stubbornly elevated inflation, and President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have caused uncertainty for many businesses. Still, few economists foresee a recession.
About 650,000 federal workers didn’t work during the shutdown, which will likely boost the unemployment rate by about 0.4 percentage points in October, or to 4.7% from 4.3% in August, when the last report was released. Those workers would all then be counted as employed once the government reopens.
Here are the ways the government closure is weighing on the economy:
Missed paychecks
All told, federal workers will have missed about $16 billion in wages by mid-November, the CBO estimates. That has meant less spending at stores, restaurants, and likely reduced holiday travel. Large purchases will probably be postponed, slowing the broader economy.
Trump had threatened during the shutdown to not provide back pay but the deal struck in Congress would replace those lost wages once the government reopens.
The shutdown has added to the Washington, D.C. area’s economic woes, where the unemployment rate was already 6% before the shutdown, after Trump’s cuts to the federal workforce this spring caused job losses. While the Washington, D.C. area — including the nearby suburbs in Virginia and Maryland — has the highest concentration of federal workers, most live and work outside of the nation’s capital.
Federal workers make up about 5.5% of Maryland’s workforce, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. But they also comprise 2.9% of New Mexico’s workers, 2.6% of Oklahoma’s, and 3.8% of Alaska’s.
Then there are the federal contractors. Bernard Yaros, an economist at Oxford Economics, estimates they could total as many as 5.2 million, and they are not guaranteed back pay once the shutdown ends.
Flight disruptions
Airlines scrapped more than 2,000 flights by Monday evening after canceling 5,500 since Friday on orders from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is seeking to reduce the burden on overworked air traffic controllers, who have now missed two paychecks.
Even before the flight cancellations, Tourism Economics, an economic consulting firm, estimated that the shutdown would reduce travel spending by $63 million a day, which means a six-week standoff would cost the travel industry $2.6 billion.
The canceled flights also mean less business for hotels, restaurants, and taxi drivers. And federal employees have already pulled the plug on upcoming trips, according to Tourism Economics, which may not be able to be rescheduled even when the government does reopen.
Consumer sentiment
The shutdown has worsened Americans’ outlook on the broader economy. Declining consumer sentiment can over time reduce spending and slow growth, though in recent years Americans have kept shopping even when their outlooks turned grim.
Consumer sentiment dropped to a three-year low and close to the lowest point ever recorded in a survey by the University of Michigan, reported Friday, with pessimism over personal finances and anticipated business conditions weighing on Americans.
The November survey showed the index of consumer sentiment at 50.4, down a startling 6.2% from last month and a plunge of nearly 30% from a year ago.
Federal spending
While the shutdown hasn’t cut off all federal government spending, it has reduced purchases of equipment and has cut off the issuance of new contracts.
Yaros estimates that about $800 million in new contracts were at risk of not being awarded each day of the shutdown.
“The federal award spigot has all but turned off at the Department of Defense, NASA, and the Department of Homeland Security,” Yaros wrote.
SNAP benefits
The shutdown delayed the payment of $8 billion in monthly SNAP food aid to 42 million recipients in November, creating a significant financial disruption for many households that likely reduced spending. Some states have managed to pay full benefits for this month, though the Trump administration is still fighting over the issue in court.
The deal currently under consideration in Congress to reopen the government includes full funding of SNAP benefits.
Interest rate cuts
The government shutdown cut off the flow of economic data on unemployment, inflation, and retail spending that the Federal Reserve depends on to monitor the economy’s health. Even as the government reopens, some of that data will still be delayed. As a result, the Fed may not deliver a third interest rate cut at its December meeting, which was widely expected before the shutdown.
“What do you do if you’re driving in the fog? You slow down,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference late last month.
Powell said the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee is deeply divided over whether to reduce its key rate, partly because the economy’s health is unusually cloudy right now. The government has missed two monthly jobs reports and the October inflation data, scheduled to be published Thursday, will likely never be issued.
Powell said a rate cut in December was not a “foregone conclusion” and added that the lack of data could contribute to a decision by the Fed to skip a rate cut at its next meeting December 9-10. Fewer rate cuts could discourage borrowing and spending and weigh on the economy in the coming months.
AP-The Senate passed legislation Monday to reopen the government, bringing the longest shutdown in history closer to an end as a small group of Democrats ratified a deal with Republicans despite searing criticism from within their party.
The 41-day shutdown could last a few more days as members of the House, which has been on recess since mid-September, return to Washington to vote on the legislation. President Donald Trump has signaled support for the bill, saying Monday that “we’re going to be opening up our country very quickly.”
The final Senate vote, 60-40, broke a grueling stalemate that lasted more than six weeks as Democrats demanded that Republicans negotiate with them to extend health care tax credits that expire Jan. 1. The Republicans never did, and five moderate Democrats eventually switched their votes as federal food aid was delayed, airport delays worsened and hundreds of thousands of federal workers continued to go unpaid.
House Speaker Mike Johnson urged lawmakers to start returning to Washington “right now” given shutdown-related travel delays, but an official notice issued after the Senate vote said the earliest the House will vote is Wednesday afternoon.
“It appears our long national nightmare is finally coming to an end,” said Johnson, who has kept the House out of session since mid-September, when the House passed a bill to continue government funding.
How the stalemate ended
After weeks of negotiations, A group of three former governors — New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine — agreed to vote to advance three bipartisan annual spending bills and extend the rest of government funding until late January. Republicans promised to hold a vote to extend the health care subsidies by mid-December, but there was no guarantee of success.
Shaheen said Monday that “this was the option on the table” after Republicans had refused to budge.
“We had reached a point where I think a number of us believed that the shutdown had been very effective in raising the concern about health care,” she said, and the promise for a future vote “gives us an opportunity to continue to address that going forward.”
The legislation includes a reversal of the mass firings of federal workers by the Trump administration since the shutdown began on Oct. 1. It also protects federal workers against further layoffs through January and guarantees they are paid once the shutdown is over.
In addition to Shaheen, King and Hassan, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, home to tens of thousands of federal workers, also voted Sunday in favor of moving forward on the agreement. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen also voted yes. All other Democrats, including Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, voted against it.
The moderates had expected a larger number of Democrats to vote with them as 10 to 12 Democratic senators had been part of the negotiations. But in the end, only five switched their votes — the exact number that Republicans needed. King, Cortez Masto and Fetterman had already been voting to open the government since Oct. 1.
Many Democrats call the vote a “mistake”
Schumer, who received blowback from his party in March when he voted to keep the government open, said he could not “in good faith” support it after meeting with his caucus for more than two hours on Sunday.
“We will not give up the fight,” Schumer said, adding that Democrats have now “sounded the alarm” on health care.
Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats, said giving up the fight was a “horrific mistake.” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., agreed, saying that voters who overwhelmingly supported Democrats in last week’s elections were urging them to “hold firm.”
House Democrats swiftly criticized the Senate.
Texas Rep. Greg Casar, the chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said a deal that doesn’t reduce health care costs is a “betrayal” of millions of Americans who are counting on Democrats to fight.
Others gave Schumer a nod of support. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries had criticized Schumer in March after his vote to keep the government open. But he praised the Senate Democratic leader on Monday and expressed support for his leadership throughout the shutdown.
“The American people know we are on the right side of this fight,” Jeffries said Monday, pointing to Tuesday’s election results.
Health care debate ahead
It’s unclear whether the two parties would be able to find any common ground on the health care subsidies before a promised December vote in the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he will not commit to bringing it up in his chamber.
On Monday, Johnson said House Republicans have always been open to voting to reform what he called the “unaffordable care act” but again did not say if they would vote on the subsidies.
Some Republicans have said they are open to extending the COVID-19-era tax credits as premiums could skyrocket for millions of people, but they also want new limits on who can receive the subsidies. Some argue that the tax dollars for the plans should be routed through individuals.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins said Monday that she’s supportive of extending the tax credits with changes, like new income caps. Some Democrats have signaled they could be open to that idea.
“We do need to act by the end of the year, and that is exactly what the majority leader has promised,” Collins said.
Other Republicans, including Trump, have used the debate to renew their yearslong criticism of the law and called for it to be scrapped or overhauled.
In a possible preview, the Senate voted 47-53 along party lines Monday not to extend the subsidies for a year. Majority Republicans allowed the vote as part of a separate deal with Democrats to speed up votes and send the legislation to the House.
Alaska Airlines planes are shown parked at gates with Mount Rainier in the background on March 1, 2021, at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
AP- The flight cancellations at airports across the U.S. are expected to persist even after the government shutdown ends.
The Federal Aviation Administration has reduced flights as some air traffic controllers — unpaid for weeks — have stopped showing up for work.
The Senate took a first step toward ending the shutdown Sunday, but final passage could still be several days away. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy made clear last week that flight cuts will remain in place until the FAA sees safety metrics improve.
Over the weekend, airlines canceled thousands of flights to comply with the order to eliminate 4% of flights. The cancellations are scheduled to rise to 6% of all flights at 40 of the nation’s busiest airports on Tuesday. By the end of the week, flight cancellations are scheduled to reach 10% of all flights at those airports.
Already, travelers are growing frustrated.
“All of this has real negative consequences for millions of Americans, and it’s 100% unnecessary and avoidable,” said Todd Walker, whose flight from San Francisco to Washington state was canceled over the weekend, causing him to miss his mom’s 80th birthday party.
As of Monday morning, airlines had already canceled 1,600 flights for Monday and nearly 1,000 for Tuesday. International flights have not been affected.
Beyond the mandated cuts, flight delays have been rippling through airports nationwide at times ever since the shutdown began. That’s because the FAA slows air traffic anytime it’s short on controllers at one of its facilities to ensure flights remain safe.
Tuesday will be the second missed payday for air traffic controllers and other FAA employees. It’s unclear how quickly they might be paid once the shutdown ends. The head of the controllers union, Nick Daniels, plans a news conference Monday morning to address the shutdown’s toll.
“More controllers aren’t coming to work day by day, the further they go without a paycheck,” Duffy said.
The government has struggled for years with a shortage of air traffic controllers, and Duffy said the shutdown has worsened the problem, prompting some controllers to retire early or quit. Before the shutdown, Duffy had been working to address the shortage by hiring more controllers, speeding up training and offering bonuses to retain experienced controllers.
Duffy warned over the weekend that if the shutdown drags on, the situation could deteriorate further as the U.S. heads into the busy holiday travel season. He said air travel may “be reduced to a trickle” by the week of Thanksgiving.
