By BROOKE CUSACK
This spring, Gov. Mike Dunleavy hosted the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference: a three-day showcase of how the 49th State is leading on the technologies and developments of tomorrow.
Sen. Dan Sullivan headlined; industry leaders attended, and the panel topics spanned micronuclear energy, to geothermal potential, to rare earth mineral mining, and to the promise of Alaska’s LNG.
It was a glimpse of a vision of economic prosperity and private sector innovation that conservative young Alaskans like myself hope to see.
Those of us looking at the future of America know that unleashing American energy is key to much-needed energy independence, national security, and addressing our environmental, economic, and climate challenges. Alaska — not Saudi Arabia, not Venezuela, not Russia — should be the ones providing the world with energy sources of the future, for we know how to develop resources responsibly and have high standards for doing so.
However, there’s a couple critical obstacles to fully unlocking American resource development.
Domestically, the Biden Administration has pursued an agenda that kneecaps energy at every turn. From continuously blocking access to important development projects, like the Ambler Access Project, to appointing judges and government bureaucrats that hinder our ability to develop and innovate, it’s clear they are shutting down projects based on ideology, not rationality. (And on top of that, these bureaucrats clearly don’t understand what drives rural economies!)
Internationally, the trade policy landscape is far outdated. The world is in a new paradigm, where we are needing not only low-cost, but clean, high-quality production. However, the old paradigm allows foreign adversaries like China to flood the market with goods that have virtually no modern labor and environmental standards. This leads to a world that is overall far more polluted, and undercuts US production, which is far cleaner.
In fact, Alaska is particularly implicated by this gap. To put into perspective just how clean we are, Gov. Dunleavy launched an annual Alaska Standard report, which delineated our best practices and compared our overall production to the other major players in global markets.
It shows we are far more advanced than others — whether due to our strong guardrails to prevent flaring or our strict environmental standards that ensure generations of Alaskans will continue to enjoy the pristine environments we all know and love. Alaska’s sustainability is in a league of its own — no matter whether compared with Canada, Russia, Norway, or Texas!
To account for our high standards and reward our clean production, we need to address the unfair competition and level the playing field in trade. That means enacting real policy prescriptions like a foreign pollution fee aimed at places like China, Venezuela, and Russia.
This tool targets imports produced under drastically different environmental standards as our own. A foreign pollution fee would incent other countries to meet them or pay a price if they want products to enter the US market.
When you look at the numbers, the need for this is great. Russia, Iran, and China — the world’s leading natural gas producers after the U.S., respectively — pollute up to twice as much when extracting their yields. The U.S. produces oil four times cleaner than our Canadian neighbors. And for critical earth metal mining, which is key to next-gen energy production, American producers can process these same minerals with half the pollution that China emits.
Especially in the context of increasingly tight international energy markets, we need to do all we can to boost domestic production.
As a young Republican, I am thankful that, despite their differences, Gov. Dunleavy, Sen. Dan Sullivan, and Sen. Murkowski are unified in bolstering Alaskan energy and resource development while responsibly addressing environmental issues.
We need to fight back on the domestic front to unlock energy here, while also bringing the world to meet the standards we’re pioneering so American businesses and consumers are rewarded for them.
Brooke Cusack is a resident of Anchorage and the former Chair of the Alaska College Republicans. She is active in the State Republican Party.
How? As you pointed out, Biden and company oppose us at every turn.
I want to sprout wings and fly to Deadhorse.
Reality must be dealt with.
More tariffs – no matter how well-intentioned – lead to more inflation. There are other ways to persuade the world’s polluters that cleaning up their environment is in their self-interest without us having to pay for all of it. Cleaning up the environment – good. Climate hysteria – bad. American energy independence – great. And it’s not the orange man’s fault.
Do you have ideas on how to get the rest of the world to NOT pollute? Say how?
Could it be, Sally, that getting the rest of the world to not pollute is not America’s job, never will be?
I am looking for ideas to get the local homeless to stop polluting on my own street!
The official methods aren’t working.
The homeless, more often than not, ARE the pollution.
Author needs to do some more research on Lisa Murkowski’s votes in the last 6 years on energy development – we’re not as unified as the article says.
Correct! We are not. Murkowski’s record shows that discrepency.
Good column, well said. However Alaska and the U.S. lacks leaders. The Alaska Legislature is a joke and our leaders in Washington are worse. Love him or hate him but Trump was the best leader for Alaska. What did we get ZERO. Sullivan sat on his hands , Murkowski threw knives now we have a worthless Senate, a divided house and a sock puppet in the White House. All they worry about is getting re-elected. I came to Alaska 45 years ago, we had some great leaders, today none. Good Luck Brooke
Lost us at “… enacting real policy prescriptions like a foreign pollution fee aimed at places like China, Venezuela, and Russia.”
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“Level” the playing field in trade? Seriously, Brooke? Our tax money paid for you to learn this in college? You don’t tilt the damned playing field massively in your favor, how can you –not– lose to competitors, to enemies, whose mission in life is tilting the field in their favor?
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Yes, Brooke, incomprehensible as it seems, you don’t have to search far for proof that the Biden regime, aided by useful idiots in the Republican Party, is helping America’s competitors and enemies tilt “the playing field in trade” very much in their favor.
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And your best effort, Brooke, is a “foreign pollution fee” which does damned bloody all except stiff America’s non Ruling Class, non College Elite, with yet another round of inflationary price increases?
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Where’s your “foreign pollution fee” meant to go anyway? Student loan repayments, housing for illegal aliens, bombs for Burisma?
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If this is the best College Republicans can offer, America may be in deeper trouble than we thought.
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But it’s not your best, is it, Brooke? Figure out how to make ethos, pathos, logos work for you, you could be Alaska’s Candace Owens.
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God knows “we” need one.
Morrigan,
We in this Nation value clean air and clean water, worker safety, good wages and pubic health. All of these things add to the cost of production, whether it’s extraction of minerals or manufacturing. A ‘pollution’ tariff if you want to call it that would only reflect the difference in the cost of production between our societal values and another Country that pollutes with out conscience. It could be a leveling of the field for our producers against those like China that use slave labor and pollute.
BTW, China’s pollution is readily measurable in Alaska, comes in on the prevailing wind currents. But hey you saved a buck fifty on that item… Life is good , right?
When Alaskan kids read (when pigs fly) Alaska freedom if gen Z gets employed, stays employed, learns fast, and follows their great great grandparents generation faithfulness to God. If God gives America that grace to control our own lands. There is a possibility Alaska may never control these lands if He gives us over to our enemies like I was wondering if allowing the southern border being invaded by the hundreds of thousands people of all different nations whose nations can be enemies of the United States.
When Alaskan kids read (when pigs fly) Alaska freedom if gen Z gets employed, stays employed, learns fast, and follows their great great grandparents generation faithfulness to God. If God gives America that grace to control our own lands. There is a possibility Alaska may never control these lands if He gives us over to our enemies like I was wondering if allowing the southern border being invaded by the hundreds of thousands people of all different nations whose nations can be enemies of the United States. Is He giving us over to our enemies (slowly waiting for repentance as He waited for Judah and Samaria) because of this nation is no longer under God?
Lisa is always standing in the way…. she will never fall. Sammy “the bankman” fried will catch her
A more concise summary: We resent the efforts to restrain hydrocarbon development in Alaska and will do all that we can politically to produce ever more oil and gas. Yes, our production is very clean – just look at how comparatively neat and tidy the North Slope oilfields are compared to those in other countries, but we’ll conveniently overlook the fact that the real pollution is the massive amounts of CO2 produced when our oil and gas products are burned as fuel.
Such rubbish, being written by a young woman who really knows nothing about the energy industry, energy technologies, or climate science. She repeats Conservative Alaskan dogma as a result of being raised in a staunchly Republican pro-oil environment, and has never bothered to think for or educate herself on the subject. Had she done so, she would understand the damage that oil and gas are doing to the planet, and join the rest of her young global cohort in promoting greener, less-polluting, climate-friendly energy sources.
Apparently MRAK lets anyone in the door that will help to fill their white space.
If you have actual scientific proof of what you are spouting about man “causing” climate change, you need to put it out there. Otherwise you are just spouting like the rest of those who think they have the power to control the climate. By the way, there is NO SCIENTIFIC proof of what you say. You nor any human has that power no matter how arrogant!
Oh Sally, oh Sally. How you deceive yourself. There is no longer any question in the scientific community about hydrocarbon-induced global warming. You just find it to be inconvenient, and so you deny it – just like Trump did with the election.
But, just like Trump in his denial, you will someday come to accept the cold hard facts when they are staring you in the face, and threatening you. How gullible you are, and what a state of self-delusion you apparently live in. I guess you think that if you are loud and strident enough in your protestations, they will magically become true. Sadly, not.
“No longer any question in the scientific community”
And with that incredible (and incredulous) claim, you have just proven yourself to be ignorant of both the subject at hand, and of the scientific method and science itself.
Yes, and there was “no longer any question” regarding ANY non-establishment treatment or fact surrounding Covid. Well, no longer any question among those doctors who were and are beholden to the ruling class power establishment and their Big Pharma bedfellows, and who shill for them shamelessly.
Honestly, Jefferson, I doubt that you’re any more qualified to opine on the subject of climate science than I am. In fact, when it comes to energy systems, I’d bet that my quals far exceed yours. Putting all that aside, the positions I’ve formed on the matter are based upon the opinions of the vast majority of educated, accomplished, respected, and qualified scientists (and their data) worldwide, who believe this to be true. Of course, there is also a wide assortment of quacks around whom you form your opinions simply because they promote a point of view that isn’t as inconvenient for you as is the truth.
I generally trust the system because I believe that most people are well-intentioned, rational, and have interests that are aligned with my own (i.e. survival). You, on the other hand, are nothing more than a bitter and cynical individual, who disparages everyone and everything with which you don’t agree. I honestly wonder how you can get through life with such an attitude, and I fervently wish for your eventual enlightenment.
“I generally trust the system”
And that right there exemplifies the differences between you and me, Whidbey.
You are an ignorant and gullible fool who blindly trusts and follows those ‘in authority’, even when, and especially when, they have proven themselves countless times to be self-serving and corrupt sociopaths, who are demonstrably NOT well intentioned, whose interests are NOT aligned with yours (or with mine), and who are rational only to the extent that being so further serves their own corrupt and self-serving interests.
I, on the other hand, ALWAYS question authority, and have found that doing so more often leads to realizing that the authority in question does NOT deserve my loyalty or my obedience.
You are a conformist, I am not. We therefore live in two different worlds: mine reflective of reality, yours reflective of predatory lies and propaganda.
On a further note, Whidbey, I will respond to this statement of yours, “I believe that most people are well-intentioned, rational, and have interests that are aligned with my own (i.e. survival)”, by saying that I will agree with it, to the extent that you are referring to the average, random, ordinary, on-the-street person.
However, you are apparently blind and ignorant to the glaring fact that this statement is NOT generally true of those in power. Positions of power attracts sociopaths, those both without a conscience and who have the burning desire to exercise control (power) over others — in other words, those who are evil. Any cursory knowledge of history, much less current events, will clearly demonstrate this, as many sociologists have concluded as well.
It is both sad and alarming that there are adults, voting adults, out and about in our society who demonstrate the extreme level of gullibility, and societal and historical ignorance, that you display. It is a testament to the power of the pro-establishment propaganda propagated by the ruling class, which nevertheless some of us can see through quite readily, even if you, like the radical leftist catfish that you are, buy it hook, line and sinker.
The same scientific community who can’t tell the difference between boys and girls?
Anytime some moron starts talked about “settled science” (yes, there are some immutable things) I reflect on some of the classics of “settled science”
-blacks are inferior simply due to pigment.
-the earth is flat
-the four minute mile will never be broken.
-man will never master flight.
-the universe circled the earth.
-AIDS is an automatic death sentence.
-Wrigley Field will never have lights.
And so, so, so many others.
Anytime anyone says “settled science” they are proclaiming to the world just how immature, moronic, and closed minded they are.
And how little time should be wasted on their opinions.
Truly. You post here often, almost always about things you have no clue about.
Plants love carbon. Try again.
The plant life that we depend on desperately needs that CO2 Whidbey, and we are no where near the maximum atmospheric CO2 concentrations that have existed at other times in the earth’s history. In fact, we are near the top end of a historic low in CO2 concentrations. Certainly by no means threatened by them in the way it is portrayed and you have bought into. We cannot safely transition to renewables in the fashion and on the timetable that you desire, unless of course murderous public policy is to be celebrated and defended at all costs.
As a young Republican, I am thankful that, despite their differences, Gov. Dunleavy, Sen. Dan Sullivan, and Sen. Murkowski are unified in bolstering Alaskan energy and resource development while responsibly addressing environmental issues.”
These writings are nothing more than globalist/WEF facilitation of carbon fascism. More about that linked below – please learn.
Governor Dunleavy sold us out to the UN last legislative session. After all the hobnobbing Sullivan did with Rahm, AK LNG is dead. Murkowski is co sponsor of the PROVE IT act, which gets the US everything needed to impose a carbon tax which will cause massive inflation due to trade wars. This is a tax on our productivity in order to affix tariffs on theirs. We do NOT need to cause inflation and tariff wars to bolster Alaska. If our senators fought hard against eco-terrorist NGOs like EarthJustice and TPG Anew and their carbon tax and sequestration processes and stopped fostering the progressive carbon fascism policies on us Alaska would flourish. She also has gifted, or grifted more accurately, the state with inflation our grandchildren will be paying for generations to come through the IIAJ. We are awash in a millennia of energy, coal, gas, oil. If we got government boots off of our neck we could have all the TRUE sustainability we’d need.
Tell Alaskans again how great republicans are?
Listen and listen good, this is so true – 10,000% correct. And it’s not just happening here in Alaska; politicians from many states have sold us down the river in exactly the same way, from South Dakota to Texas. Alaska could be the richest state in the union with relative ease. As @bravenewak said, if the government would simply get its boot off of our necks. Instead, they impose an income tax via the PFD, carbon taxes in place of raw development, and UN sustainable development goals. What does the UN know about the needs of Alaskans? And so, with the very weakest of Executives in office, we continue to decline. The best of our people will move on to other fluid economies, and our children will look towards states with better opportunities. Thus, the decline will persist, all because we have a legislature that prefers socialism over capitalism, and an executive who’s okay with merely appearing conservative, not actually being conservative.
News flash for Brooke, fossil fuel extraction is not sustainable, hydro, solar and wind energy is sustainable.
Oh “Frank”…
Nothing is sustainable. Wind doesn’t blow, clouds cover the sky, water can run dry.
Smart people (conservatives) recognize humans are the most ingenious, adaptable, and resourceful things on the planet.
Progressives want to go back to the dark ages.
They may be sustainable, when the windmill aren’t broken or the solar panels frozen, and the lines from the hydro projects are intact. When these maladies occur, we need petroleum as the sustainables cannot sustain enough energy to keep us alive. Just about everything you’re touching right now is petroleum based.
No, they are not, Frank.
Solar and wind “power”, in particular, are heavily subsidized by fossil fuel inputs for the mining of their components, their installation, their operation, their maintenance and their decommissioning. Without oil and gas, solar panels and wind turbines as we know them today would not exist.
But do continue to peddle your so-called “Green” death-cult propaganda.
Solar and wind are neither sustainable nor functional
Some years ago there was an attempt to do video conferencing here in SE with a system powered by (ready?) solar panels.
Better, at least part of it was based in Ketchikan. The one place that makes Juneau seem sunny.
Don’t know what became of it, but I know it crashed as much as it worked. Ready now? Due to lack of sunshine.
News flash;
Dino bone soup is not what we are pulling out of the ground.
We have the full gambit of diverse — and erroneous — opinions here. Quite a mess about trying to find agreement among “Alaskans” … some of whom maybe moved here from the Pac NW fairly recently. The article is full of rubbish, starting with the apparently inarguable comment regarding “climate challenges”. That shows that young “conservatives” have drunk the Kool Aide of liberal lies. Dunleavy’s energy conf was nothing more than a way to condition “conservatives” in moving Left. There is never a happy medium with the Left, only efforts to slowly get us to accept their lies. This author is filled with youthful naivte. It’s not her fault, it is simply a matter of her stage in life. Unless she gets out of “mainstream” GOP-think, she will become part of the problem.
If you have actual scientific proof of what you are spouting about man “causing” climate change, you need to put it out there. Otherwise you are just spouting like the rest of those who think they have the power to control the climate. By the way, there is NO SCIENTIFIC proof of what you say. You nor any human has that power no matter how arrogant!
Dear Sally, there is no point in me, or anyone else providing you with proof, because just as Trump refused to accept proof of his election loss, you will reject any proof placed in front of you.
And here’s a few more claims to which you probably subscribe:
– Trump won.
– Trump is a great businessman.
– Covid vaccines cause clots.
– Other vaccines cause autism.
– Masks don’t help.
– More guns make us all safer.
– Fewer guns won’t reduce gun deaths.
– Teachers are pedophiles.
– Sandy Hook was a government plot.
– Government is the root of all evil.
– God is real, omnipresent, and omnipotent.
– Two cells constitute a human.
– Humans have souls.
– The Bible is the unerring word of God.
– American Christianity is the only true religion.
– An Alaskan birthright includes large PFDs and the right to never pay taxes.
– UFOs (UAPs) are real.
– The World is, after all, flat.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
In other words, you have no tangible scientific facts to support your religious beliefs.
And yet to criticize others. Classy.
Life begins at conception.
NOTHING grows if it is not living.
It is as simple as that.
Dawg, once again you display your inability to defend your argument with logic and resort to a tedious stream of insults directed at your opponent. Your invective reveals how disturbed and shallow your thought process is and how dependant you are upon group think. Sad really.
Thems some good claims there. A couple are misrepresentative but other than those, that is a good list. Shoot, you may just be an anon one day. If you ever wake up that is.
I’ll take all this BS a touch more seriously when Leo Decaprio and John Kerry give up their private planes and start flying solar powered planes.
Not on day sooner.
Based on the misguided notion that they want prosperity. They dont!! The goal is to make more misery!!
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