What a glorious weekend it was in Southcentral Alaska.  The weather was exceptional, the outdoor recreation opportunities were plentiful, the roads were filled with cars, trucks (some towing snowmachines or boats behind them), motorcycles and RVs, and stores across the area seemed busier than they were a week or two ago. As Alaskans begin to awaken from our winter slumber – with the COVID-19 pandemic lengthening it by a few weeks – we’re going to be accessing this beautiful state we live in for our summer activities.  It is important to remember that the majority of Alaskans’ jobs are directly…

As the world begins to recuperate from its COVID-19-caused two-month economic slumber, here in Alaska, Sunday the 10th – aside from being Mother’s Day – is also our 8th annual Alaska Mining Day. Alaska has always been a mining state – heck, the first non-Native settlers came because gold was discovered here.  From the first noted finds by Russia in the 1830s to the “Juneau Gold Rush” of 1876, the “Kenai Peninsula” Rush of 1888 and the famous “Klondike Gold Rush” that began in 1896, many of Alaska’s communities have been built around mining. Mining is a crucial economic driver…

In a scathing article published earlier this week, Alaska Journal of Commerce Managing Editor Andrew Jensen wrote about cleaning up a homeless camp behind his midtown Anchorage complex.  Jensen highlighted how Anchorage’s growing homeless population has overtaken areas of Anchorage. They’ve brought to those areas overt lawlessness, flagrant vandalism, blatant drug use and extensive pollution. Anyone who has seen the homeless situation explode over the past few years knows the areas they tend to congregate in; areas where they can conceal themselves among the trees and shrubs of Anchorage’s numerous parks, wetlands and greenbelts.  Two of the most prevalent areas…

ConcocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) is a significant undertaking.  Development will run $5-6 billion and employ 2,000 or so workers. Once on-line, the estimated 9 billion barrels of oil will bring 300 full-time workers to the field, generate more than $10 billion in federal, state and North Slope Borough revenue and increase throughput of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). The original proposal to develop Willow was modified by ConocoPhillips, after extensive dialogue with North Slope communities, subsistence hunters and others.  This necessitated a supplemental draft environmental impact statement (SDEIS) be run through the NEPA process….

The past two months have proven to be difficult for much of the world.  Between a global pandemic and the resulting inactivity to business and personal life, most of us have seen a decrease in our daily movements.  The internet is full of memes and snippets of prose reminding people to increase movement to ward off the “COVID 15”, the weight gain that many have experienced, similar to the “Freshman 15” of the first year of college. As much as many of us have seen activities decline, that hasn’t been the case for America’s energy workers, health care providers and…

Let’s be clear:  This isn’t a call to boycott many of America’s leading financial institutions. But it is a call to consider that the bank you have your money in today might be the one keeping Alaska’s energy future from its potential tomorrow. Backed by millions of dollars in Outside funding, the Gwich’in Steering Committee has spent the past decade traveling the world to spread its anti-development message against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Notwithstanding the fact that ANWR’s 1002 (Coastal Plain) area is purposely set aside as a development corridor, the GSC and others preach that development…

Power The Future highlighted Cook Inletkeeper last year, illuminating that nine of the Homer, Alaska-based radical environmental organization’s top ten donors were foundations headquartered in the Lower 48.  Doing the bidding of those foundations (and their donors like Tom Steyer and other anti-development ideologues) is what keeps Inletkeeper solvent, rather than in-state donors responding to their actual impact on the Alaskan environmental landscape. Based on our continued pressure of pointing out the hypocrisy of Inletkeeper, where they say one thing and then do another, our Alaska State Director, Rick Whitbeck, was banned from their Facebook page. While they have no…

One of the most over-hyped days on the calendar is being ‘celebrated’ today.  Its mission is “to build the world’s largest environmental movement to drive transformative change for people and planet,” but the Earth Day Network is wasting its time talking to Alaskans.  We celebrate our God-given beauty and abundance daily.  Simultaneously, men and women across “The Great Land” develop Alaska’s resources in a responsible, environmentally-safe manner. Ask yourself: Why would any company believe it could enter our magnificent state and willfully do harm to our people, or lands, our culture, and be given the social compact to work as…

A comment on Alaska State Director, Rick Whitbeck’s, personal Facebook page from yesterday’s “Just Transition? Just Stop!” blog post is worth sharing and discussing today. The comment read, “This would be more compelling if you were offering a leadership vision and a path towards thinking as ‘us.’  As written, this is divisive and counterproductive.” We couldn’t disagree more, for the simple reason that Alaska has a way forward, and it looks much like the past sixty years of statehood. Our state will always be resource-extraction-driven. Alaska is blessed with natural abundance, including the two largest national forests, the highest peak…