Joe Biden has made many promises to his keepers that he now must keep. Of special interest to Alaska is the one that he says he is going to end America’s oil industry as we know it by 2035 as he launches the green economy.
Biden policies for the shale sector will soon alter investor behavior, which could result in a loss of up to 1 million barrels a day in oil production by 2025, according to Forbes magazine. Biden is on record saying he will ban all new oil and gas drilling on federal land, something that should send a chill up the spine of Alaskans.
In addition, the Biden White House will rejoin the Paris Climate Accords. He’ll get the U.S. back in bed with the World Health Organization, which has been wholly corrupted by China.
Biden is on record saying he will renew immigration from majority-Muslim countries. He’ll open back up the border with Mexico. He’ll restart the U.S. paying the bill for do-nothing NATO.
There will be a Biden national mask mandate and we don’t know how far that will go. U.S. Marshals would be in charge of enforcement.
For Alaska, a Biden presidency means four years in the wilderness. The depressed economy brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and the price and production of oil will be with Alaska for a long time to come, as Biden’s Administration will likely reverse decisions made to open up oil development.
Quite simply, Alaska may once again become the Land of No, as it had been for many years before the Trump presidency.
There will be no life-saving road from King Cove to Cold Bay. There will be no Donlin Mine or Pebble Mine. Even the Kensington and Red Dog mines will find it harder to operate under more regulations they expect under a Biden EPA.
The Trump decision to exempt portions of the Tongass National Forest from the roadless rule, to allow limited, responsible logging, will be reversed.
Alaska will, for awhile at least, become unable to support its state services, and this will likely mean the Permanent Fund dividend will be scraped from the citizens and used to patch the budget hole.
For Alaska, President Trump has been the best president since Statehood — not just talking, but walking the walk on his promises. True, he was not able to get the road built to King Cove, but that was because of the judicial system blocking him.
He opened up ANWR after 40 years of effort by Alaska’s D.C. delegation, as he promised he would. He opened up a portion of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and now the Willow project is on track to deliver 160,000 barrels of petroleum to the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, all of it taxable to the state treasury.
He approved a treaty document to allow the A2A railroad construction, that would allow petroleum products to be shipped over land from Alberta to ports in Alaska.
These developments are now in peril, and those Alaskans with common sense will want to study their personal finances carefully over the coming weeks and make prudent decisions.
While wise Alaskans are surveying the possibilities of a depression in the state, Biden advisers, aides, and campaign staff are already divvying up the spoils of war. They have government-issued phones and computers and a 10,000-square-foot space in the Herbert Hoover Building, home of the Department of Commerce, where the pods of Biden loyalists will create landing teams to begin embedding even more Biden loyalists in every agency, with the goal of rooting out the Trump appointees and preparing the way for Biden bureaucrats to retake the vast federal agencies.
The swamp will have its due.
Gone will be Betsy Devos, Education secretary, and champion of school choice. Gone will be Interior Secretary David. Bernhardt, and BIA Chief Tara Sweeney, the fearless Alaska Native who became the head of that agency under Trump.
Andrew R. Wheeler will soon depart the Environmental Protection Agency and Region 10 Administrator Chris Hladick, who oversees the Pacific Northwest and Alaska Region of EPA, will have to find another job. William Barr, the U.S. Attorney General who brought funds to rural Alaska to fight sexual assault, will be out of there.
And most of all, gone will be Alaska’s greatest champion — the president himself, the man who built up our U.S. military and considered Alaska of upmost importance to the country. Trump will return to private life, no longer able to wrestle the bureaucratic monster that is the federal government.
Come January, the environmental league of bureaucrats from the national nonprofits will swoop in, operating under a doddering figurehead president who fumbles through his days, protected by his handlers, and who does not appear have the cognitive function to guard or grow Alaska’s economy, to say nothing of the American economy and national security.
These are dark times for Alaska. Under President Biden, the 49th State, where Trump is well regarded, will become America’s carbon sink, the economic sacrificial lamb for the rest of the nation, to assuage the wrath of the environmentalists who consider this the place on earth that must be preserved at all cost.
Pebble mine is not a “No”. With ROD imminent for Pebble after adhering to NEPA standards, and with the veto of the clean water act removed as of the EPA rule change enacted on 9/11, Biden can’t/won’t stop the project. They would first need to do their own EIS which would take a couple of years. After ROD, It’s on to the state level where Gov Dunleavy and DEC commissioner Jason Brune will ensure the process is thorough and fair.
If we do not stop this Democrat cheating, forget electing anymore Republicans.. trump must prevail in exposing the cheating..
Good to see someone point that out, Mr Irons.
Biden may not be able to stop the project but the politicians, rabble, and Lower 48 radical enviros can.
He can tie it up in the courts. He can do a lot to stall it into oblivion if he can’t outright put an end to it.
I hope all you liberals are proud of yourself
Good luck enforcing the mask mandate. I am NOT wearing one.
Do you wear a seat belt? Do you wear a shirt and shoes when you go into a store? How about pants? Do you drive on the right side of the highway? Signal? Stop at stop signs? I won’t ask about driving drunk.
Is wearing a mask such a big thing to have to do?
YES! YES it is! I will NOT wear a mask for a virus that has over a 99% recovery rate. But if you want to and it makes you feel safer, go ahead.
Nothing to actually do with safety, just conformance… a sign of loyalty to the state and publicly showing solidarity. I understand loyal citizens don’t mind having their mail read, phones tapped and their where-abouts GPS tracked at all times for their’s and the public’s safety. I guess a false sense of security is better than none.
Are you really comparing wearing a mask to wearing a pair of pants, shirt and shoes or abiding our traffic laws? Yes, wearing a mask is a big thing and good luck forcing Americans to do it. If you want to wear one then knock yourself out but we will not be forced to capitulate an unlawful mandate.
I will wear my Trump/Pence mask as we all should. Now that should be mandatory!
When I absolutely forced to wear a mask (as I was yesterday in REI, by the feel-good and self-righteous mask Nazi at the door), I wear one that is emblazened with the words “Slaves wear masks.”
You wear one and pretend it works, I’ll just pretend to wear one.
It absolutely is a big deal. All gov’t officials said masks were not necessary, until all of a sudden, they are necessary. Never before have non sick people been quarantined. Never before has as a national economy been shut down for a very minor number of hospitalizations. You can be the sheep before wolves and bow down before global deceit and lies. I and mine will use our brain and God given rights of freedom to say not only no, but hell no… not now or ever.
Some people that are sick aren’t staying quarantined not just carriers of the Covid but flu and colds as well. People at a certain age with or without a strong immune system have to be more careful than others unfortunately I am in that category so yeah I’ll wear my mask. Thank you for your opinion on this matter and have a nice day. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!
450,000 ballots so far found in swing sates of MI, WI, PA and GA that have only a single bubble filled in, for Biden? C’mon Man. Lisa, where are you? Not defending the most pro-Alaskan president we have every had? Been asking you that for four years. While you waged your petty middle school war against the greatest president Alaska has known since statehood. Why aren’t you demanding an immediate federal investigation into what happened in these states dripping with fraud. Anyone who thinks the kinds of things we are seeing in those states do not present an election steal has their head up their butt. Lisa, I know you won’t do the right thing by the president or by Alaska. Fortunately, with your precious ballot measure 2 having gone down in flames, you may as well not even run again. Good bye.
Buckle up.
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Everything positive that President Trump has done for Alaska and the United States will be undone.
At this moment the election is still in play so who knows what will happen. But I think Must Read is pretty accurate here.
So I was just imagining federal marshals enforcing a mask mandate here & everywhere. That’s a lot of federal marshals. Not to mention they’ll also be busy trying to go after semi-auto rifle owners who refuse to register them or pay the excessive taxes required to permit continued possession of those that exist.
It will be interesting to watch especially in light of how resistant liberals were in using federal LE to enforce immigration law. Democrats set the example for following only the laws they like & ignoring or refusing to comply with those they disagree with. This may all come back to haunt them when they discover the shoe is on the other foot.
Then we also have the President’s authorization to extend the Alaska Railroad to the Yukon Canadian boarder. That would enhance the capabilities of the Alaska Railroad in many ways, but one of the main purposes was helping to move Alberta oil resources to our ports. You can bet these guys will stop that if they can.
I hate to say it but thinking about these things makes one contemplate the wisdom of continued statehood. Maybe that’s a little too alarmist, I don’t know. But we see more consideration now in the lower 48 where parts of Oregon are considering hooking up with Idaho & parts of Northern California are advocating a similar State of Jefferson. Alaska is different in that we don’t connect with any other states. We’re like a giant island. But now even our land bridge “outside” (The Alaska Hiway) is closed to most of us.
Maybe all this is over thinking the situation. We’ll see. I hope so.
Still could link a free and independent Alberta and Yukon Territory with Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Dakotas. BC? Who knows? But a Pacific coast port around Ca, Oregon and Wash is needed.
Thank you for this dose of reality. I cannot see any development moving forward for at least the coming 4 years; Pebble, Donlin, Grapite, Niblack, Ambler, Palmer and on and on. Alaska is too easy a gift (or a trade, if you like) to Morgan, Goldman, Wells Fargo, REI, Patagonia, Wilderness Society, Sierra Club and hundreds, if not thousands of other constituencies. But anyone could say that the Biden election will uncover rather than create the huge economic gap and inconsistencies that have characterized Alaska over the past 30 years of oil production decline. And the truth is that retail and office space is already way overbuilt for an economy based upon 500,000 barrels a day at $40, 6 mid-sized mines, a flagging cruise ship tourism industry, a commercial salmon industry supported by state oil revenues and depending upon China, and not much else at all. State and municipal government may well be twice as large as the economy can support; and state government is in the railroad business, the missile launching business, the marine freight and passenger business, the low income housing business, and the air freight terminal and FBO business. State government provides local government throughout the state to towns and villages that choose to not do for themselves, especially in education, law enforcement, electricity, and water and sewer. If the incoming legislature halved the state operating budget I am not sure that would be an adequate reduction for the long-term. I am curious what others see that could turn this around and when they think that turnaround might occur.
Dead nuts, too many people in tough, expensive places demanding services for a complete non-productive area (Bethel) and hard working people with kids suffer, paying for it all….
Not accepting Biden as POTUS. Really believe the election was stolen. But I also think it will take time to reveal this in a legal manner.
Americans will be learning some hard lessons about what Socialism, The New World Order, and Globalism is really all about. Those things have been only simmering in the background. Now they will come out in full force.
To Harris and Pelosi, Biden will be a “Brown-Shirt”; to be dealt with in a “Night of the Long Knives”.
Only silver lining is the now conservative Supreme Court, which will prevent the worst of abuses.
RINO Lisa has already shown her true colors time and time again. I hope some one really who represents Alaska, instead of the Liberal and mainstream aka globalists, runs against her because Biden is a globalist and does not represent the working man. He is beholden to the Left Coast Global Elites, Climate Change Folks
Almost buried in this depressing and accurate column is what I consider to be the most important aspect that follows the election of presidents of the Left: Private investment very often collapses. When faced with more oppressive regulation, private investment moves to other options. This was the standout feature of eight years of the Obama regime. The moment Obama left, investment revived. Creepy Joe can avoid this problem if he says “no” and “stop” to the Left but I doubt that has the strength or attention span to do so. I cannot wait for the 2022 election cycle.
Biden Wins!
Not yet.
It’s over a month till the electoral college convenes… time for the spotlight to illuminate the swamp rats’ fraud nest.
The horror ! Biden’s a tool !
I wonder who among us thinks that Alaska’s “economic boat” is doing that great. It’s terribly disingenuous to blame Biden who isn’t even seated as the POTUS, or President Trump, for Alaska’s economic failures. We need to own our own problems, work together, and stop blaming others.
You must be a child. How naive and ignorant.
All true Ms. Slajer, but President Trump has been very good for every prospective economic development in Alaska: ANWR, NPRA, Ambler, Ted Stevens Airport, Tongass Roadless Rule, and on and on. All that evaporates with Biden. Yes, we have perhaps 250,000 more consumers than our economic output – what we produce so we can pay for all the F150s, Oreo cookies, etc. we buy every day – can afford. We have much too low adult workforce participation, and that is particularly true when the subset of workers who produce goods and services we sell to the rest of the world is compared with aggregate consumption. You’re right that we cannot blame Biden, but Trump was helping us out of the mess we created ourselves; Biden won’t. When the federal Covid spending ends we will see workers leaving Alaska for better pay and more opportunity, leaving us with an even higher percentage who cannot work or choose to not work. Democrats think our problem is how to support state government but we easily have twice as much government as our current economic output can support. And while we have had Democrats in the White House before, and we have always had to contend with environmental extremists we now have investment banks and other new interest groups also wanting to stop and end our natural resource development. Right now we have less reason to be prosperous than any other state.
Well said.
Alaska’s legislature has continually followed the lead of the spend it all Dems and created myriad welfare programs to suck up the revenue generated by oil However, to attempt to obfuscate the very real dangers of a Biden presidency to our economic future is to be ignorant and shows where you cast your lot in this election. I hope you saved some cash, you are going to need it.
This ain’t over. Trump’s still fighting, rooting out the corruption. This could be our finest hour and we may need to build new prisons to house all the agents of corruption who will be sentenced.
Standby.
Biden is not going to win the Presidency… Trump will be in place for another four years.
The party of lie cheat steal chaos rioting and deaths will be revealed.
Yes. It has. And replaced.
Conceding the election because the Dems claim victory and the Mainstream media concurs is ridiculous ! Until the President of the US Senate reads the electoral votes, it’s not over. So, first, don’t jump the gun. The US Supreme Court has yet to rule, and they have already shown a willingness to get involved. Trump won the election, and then the fraudulent votes showed up, just enough to make the difference. Who hasn’t seen this happen ? There are six states at least in question. I have to wonder if Must Read Alaska is supporting the New World Order …
Let’s go through this line by line.
1) The King Cove road is a lifeline for a few people in one small area of the state. If a lifeline road is required for them, why wouldn’t one be required for every other village, especially those that have no water access? That would require, let’s see, a few hundred long all weather roads from remote villages to main highways. Would that be enormously expensive? You tell me.
2) Mining provides virtually nothing to the state treasury. A few hundred jobs, maybe, that will marginally help the economies for a few years in local areas, but no real money for the state. Then, wait until cleanup time comes, when it will cost billions.
3) Logging the Tongass will benefit a few people who will log the timber and ship the raw logs to Asia, where they will be turned into particle board furniture and imported back to the US for us to buy back. Until the lumber industry becomes a major value added industry in Alaska, there is no money for the state and its citizens. A few logging companies, probably yes, the rest of us, no.
4) Trump has done nothing for Alaska. There was the proposed King Cove road, but that didn’t and probably isn’t going to happen, there was the opening of ANWR, but that hasn’t, and probably won’t, happen because of low oil prices, and there is the pie-in-the-sky rail link to the rest of the world that probably won’t happen because it is going to be enormously expensive and no one will want to pay for it because it won’t pencil out.
All the rest of the comments are merely speculative, fanciful dreams that would be off in the future where unicorns dwell, if they ever happen at all. Alaska has been mired in a where’s-mine, boomer mind set since the GOP took over during the oil boom. No taxes, full PFD, why should I have to fund schools when I don’t have kids, show me the money thinking has got us to where we are now, thanks to voters who want things to happen for them but don’t want to contribute, thus becoming the ultimate, entitled society duly voting those into office who tell us what we want to hear.
Sorry, party’s over. We’re about to find that out with the newly elected state house. The reserve funds, judiciously accumulated by relatively responsible state legislators over the years, in spite of significant push back, has been looted by those who lured us into their something for nothing schemes, and now that the money is almost gone and the reckoning is at hand, are trying to lay the blame on the newly elected President who had nothing to do with it.
If you want to see the real guilty party, Alaska, look in the mirror.
Probably the best constitutional attorney in the country, Sen. Ted Cruz, has stated that he hasn’t heard the fat lady sing yet. There’s evidence of widespread voter fraud and corruption by election officials. This thing ain’t over yet by a long shot. Probably another 30 or 40 days before The Supreme Court hears briefs. Even then we might not accept a negative outcome. Have to see how many people want to fight for their country. See if LeBron James wants to pick up a weapon and defend his mouth.
“There will be a Biden national mask mandate and we don’t know how far that will go. U.S. Marshals would be in charge of enforcement.”
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Bring it on.
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Sure and it’ll be a thin line of Non Masqueteers arrayed against the world-conquering might and technology of the United States Peoples Mask Police.
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But look at this way, the Viet Cong and the Taliban won, not by force of arms but by manipulating public opinion. We remember Tianemen Square not because Chinese Army was boss, but because one poor fool made history by standing his ground in front of a tank.
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So, to all bloody hell with national marshal-enforced mask mandates, shall we stand together, mask-free, and say “(expl del) No!”
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Really, do we Americans have a choice?
Democrats have got to be the stupidest people in America. Following a senile old man over the cliff? For what? Because they are brainwashed by the Leftist media and now conditioned to affect the outcomes of all elections.
This comment is offensive and inflammatory.
Thanks for flagging it. It’s gone now. – sd
wear a mask, keep socially distant and be kind to everyone.
Nah, you go ahead and wear yours if you want. If they work so well, your mask will certainly protect you from those of us who aren’t wearing one.
To Greg R Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa YOU ACT IF YOU ARE SHEEP
Before oil was discovered, Alaska was poor. Between 1975 and 2015 Alaska lived the good life off the oil money. A lot of good stuff, and no income or sales taxes. And free money for every man, woman and child who claims to be a resident. But that sweet ride ended several years ago and we thereafter emptied the piggy bank to keep the fantasy alive. 2016 was a depressed year for Alaska. Same for 2017, 2018 and 2019. Alaska was in the toilet before covid. Claiming that Alaska’s economy has improved during the past five years is just stupid. You good conservatives shouldn’t be expecting the government, including the President, to help financially. Has Alaska become a welfare queen? Yes. But at least we have our guns to preserve our liberty.
Many Alaskans pay a municipal sales taxes, but on the other hand many Alaskans do not pay municipal property taxes. In any event, Alaska does not have the capacity to have a personal income tax, unless that tax is only paid by people who are paid by government or work on on or for government contracts. For those who receive their income from government it would make more sense to reduce their rate of pay than it would to pay them and then tax them. And perhaps that points to the tax inefficiency of the PFD; so much of the PFD goes to the IRS that from an economist’s standpoint the PFD leaks too much. First we need the incoming legislature to honestly and seriously reduce the cost of state operations; to do that the huge areas held harmless, and even increased each year (especially on a per person basis) must be reduced. We can blame Biden if we like, and it’s certainly true that Democrats, perhaps especially those posing as Republicans (many un-elected in 2020, thankfully) are much to blame.
Thank you for such an articulate and accurate account of the presidential election consequences – both sad and true. The 2021 cruise season also hangs in the balance which may be hampered from a Jan/Feb re-start if there is another shut-down. This would further decimate the economy in SE and railbelt.
There are only a handful of true liberals left in congress. Lets call the rest of them for what they are, Communists. Will will have to defeat them again but not at the ballot box, too late for that.
I wonder when he will declare all federal lands in Alaska to be National Monuments – as Carter did.. Alaska never does well under Democrat presidents. Democrats are the party of government and government clients. All of those people despise private enterprise.
Sad to say….
This column has, hands-down, won the year’s Blue Ribbon for having stated the obvious.
Bend down and grease up.
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