Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed Randy Bates as the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Bates assumes his new role on Monday, May 19, succeeding Christina Carpenter, who has served as acting commissioner since January.
Emma Pokon was the commissioner until January, when she was tapped by the Trump Administration to be the regional director for the EPA.
“Randy is uniquely suited to assume the role of commissioner-designee for DEC and continue to push my Administration’s agenda to develop our plentiful resources responsibly and to minimize the impacts from all of our actions on the environment,” Gov. Dunleavy said in a statement.
Bates brings decades of experience in state government to the position, including a previous tenure as director of DEC’s Division of Water. He also held the role of director of the Division of Habitat at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, where he worked to balance development with environmental protections.
Bates expressed appreciation for the appointment and emphasized his commitment to the department’s mission.
“It is an honor to be named commissioner, and I look forward to working for Governor Dunleavy and with the other members of his cabinet,” Bates said. “My primary goal as commissioner will be to continue the department’s mission of balancing the need for responsible development and preserving Alaska’s pristine lands and waters and wildlife.”
Christina Carpenter, who stepped in as acting Ccommissioner earlier this year, has accepted a position outside of state government. She will continue serving as deputy commissioner through May 30 to help ensure a smooth leadership transition. Governor Dunleavy thanked Carpenter for her service and leadership, acknowledging her contributions to DEC and to Alaskans statewide.
Bates will need to be confirmed by the Alaska Legislature in a joint session but will serve in the capacity of commissioner until that time, which could be next week or next year.
The US Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer in the US, for possible Medicare fraud, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The investigation focuses on UnitedHealth’s Medicare Advantage business practices. The probe has been active since at least last summer, and is being led by the DOJ’s healthcare fraud unit, according to the Wall Street Journal report, which cited unnamed sources.
UnitedHealth has a large footprint in Alaska, providing Medicare Advantage plans and other health insurance products. Alaska residents enrolled in these plans could be indirectly affected if the investigation leads to a settlement or changes in UnitedHealthcare’s billing practices or plan offerings.
The exact nature of the potential criminal allegations remains unclear, but the investigation follows a separate civil fraud probe launched earlier this year into whether UnitedHealth inflated diagnoses to trigger extra payments for its Medicare Advantage plans.
UnitedHealth has not been formally notified by the DOJ of the criminal investigation and called the WSJ’s reporting “deeply irresponsible.”
UnitedHealth’s stock plunging up to 18% on Thursday, hitting a five-year low and contributing to a 49% year-to-date decline.
This alleged investigation adds to other federal inquiries, including an antitrust case and shareholder lawsuits alleging the company downplayed risks.
The developments coincide with recent turmoil at UnitedHealth, including the abrupt resignation of CEO Andrew Witty and the high-profile assassination of its insurance division head, Brian Thompson, in December.
UnitedHealthcare has significantly gained market share after Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) passed in 2010. The ACA created health insurance marketplaces (exchanges) where individuals and families could purchase coverage, often with taxpayer-funded subsidies.
UnitedHealthcare expanded its presence in these marketplaces, growing from 11 states in 2021 to 30 states by 2025, covering over 1,250 counties. In 2024, 90% of UnitedHealthcare’s ACA marketplace plan members are on subsidies, with over half paying $0 monthly premiums, making these plans attractive and driving enrollment. The ACA business side is separate from the Medicare side of the business.
While UnitedHealthcare does not offer individual ACA marketplace plans in Alaska, it provides group-based plans for employers and unions.
The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation reported a 4.55% return on the Alaska Permanent Fund through the first three quarters of the current fiscal year, which ended March 31. The year-to-date performance matches the Fund’s passive benchmark and exceeds the 4.26% performance benchmark set for the same period.
The Fund’s performance is evaluated against three key benchmarks: a passive benchmark composed of a blend of passive indices; a performance benchmark, which aggregates the benchmarks of individual asset classes at their target weights; and a long-term real return objective of 5.50%, representing inflation (as measured by Consumer Price Index) plus 5%.
Over a five-year horizon, the Fund’s returns have consistently outperformed these targets. The total Fund earned an annualized 10.49% return over the past five years, surpassing the passive benchmark (9.71%), the performance benchmark (9.93%), and the 5.50% real return objective (9.38%).
“I am pleased that APFC’s active investment management approach has added value against the performance benchmark we have been assigned both in the short term (FYTD) and the longer time horizon that we manage portfolios against (5-year). In this period of increasingly turbulent markets, our active approach to investment management and our diversified asset allocation should provide stability to our stakeholders,” said Marcus Frampton, APFC Chief Investment Officer.
The Fund’s strategy relies on active investment management and diversified asset allocation, with the goal of achieving a real return of 5% annually over the long term.
Since President Donald Trump took office, U.S. Border Patrol has seen an unprecedented surge in applications from men and women who want to serve at the U.S. borders.
From January to April 2025, USBP received 34,650 applications, representing a 44% increase over the same four-month period in 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection says.
“This historic spike in applicants is a direct reflection of the renewed national commitment to border security under the leadership of President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” it said.
Under Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks, Texas’ first Border Czar, the first quarter of 2025 marks “the most successful four-month recruitment stretch in the agency’s history.”
In January, the month Trump was sworn into office, Border Patrol received the highest number of applications in recorded history since the agency’s founding in 1924.
“The continued surge in applications speaks volumes about the pride and purpose Americans see in joining the U.S. Border Patrol,” Banks said. “We thank President Trump and Secretary Noem for their leadership and commitment to strengthening our workforce and mission readiness.”
The increase in applicants also underscores the public’s confidence in the Trump administration’s enforcement priorities “and the sense of purpose Americans feel in answering the call to protect the homeland,” CBP said.
Recruitment gains also increased after the agency enhanced its outreach, including targeted hiring incentives, and reached out to veterans and law enforcement professionals who bring mission-ready experience to consider serving in Border Patrol.
The news is a reversal of morale under the Biden administration when agents retired, resigned or committed suicide in record numbers.
At the height of the border crisis under the Biden administration, 17 Border Patrol agents committed suicide in 2022. At a congressional hearing in 2023, Chris Cabrera, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, testified before Congress about the hardships Border Patrol agents were experiencing, The Center Square reported.
“To put that in perspective,” the New York Police Department’s roughly 35,000-man force lost four to suicide, he said.
“We see a lot of stuff out there that the average person doesn’t see. What hits folks the hardest is what happens with the children,” he said, referring to human trafficking and unaccompanied minors being smuggled across the border.
“It’s a difficult job. It’s increasingly getting harder by the fact that we’re not put in a position to do the job that we were trained to do,” he said, referring to agents being pulled from patrolling the border and fulfilling their mission of national security. Under the Biden administration, they were ordered to release foreign nationals into the country instead of processing them for removal. Those orders violated federal law, he argued, by implementing a policy of “catch and release,” a policy President Donald Trump ended.
At the time, he and others argued Border Patrol needed several thousand more agents to respond to the crisis, adding to roughly 19,300 working in USBP at the time.
Under the Biden administration, USBP’s attrition rate was 6.9% – 72% higher than that of the Office of Field Operations – and was “expected to climb to over 9% by 2028.”
Under Trump, who was endorsed by the Border Patrol union, that trajectory has reversed in just a few short months.
The Anchorage School Board has developed a next year’s budget based on the Legislature increasing the Base Student Allocation by $560, which would provide the district with an additional $39.8 million for the next school year.
But the district further states that it will have a $74 million budget deficit in 2027.
This is shortsighted at best and counts on the Legislature to provide even more funding when the state is facing a fiscal cliff.
The district allocates about $30 million of the new funding to “direct instruction”, the classroom. This includes increasing the pupil-teacher ratio by only one student versus the original increase of that ratio by four students in the previous FY26 budget.
This “direct instruction” would include funding the IGNITE program, elementary summer school, preschool, Battle of the Books, elementary immersion teachers, and elementary special ed teachers.
It also funds 21 “holdback teachers” and adds another 5 of these teachers who are used to fill in for teachers who are absent from their classrooms. It doesn’t seem like this would be a direct instruction factor. This may provide flexibility, but it could also bea “slush” fund.
The $30 million in new funding pays for more than 213 full-time employees (FTE). Remember, these are positions not real live teachers. Here is the chart showing the $30 million expenditures:
By reversing cuts to the gifted program, elementary school immersion teachers, and adding funding to charter schools, the district has garnered the support of those parent groups to fight for even more funding next year.
The district has decided to use another $9.8 million to pay for “instructional support” employees. These additions are much more controversial and are not directly related to classroom learning.
This includes the following FTEs: 12.5 librarians, 13 elementary nurses, 5 principals, 8 library assistants, 3.5 counselors, and 2.5 elementary counselors. The total FTEs is increased by 59 for a $9.8 million cost.
This chart shows those positions (FTEs) added to the FY26 budget:
Why is the district adding more non-teachers, known as overhead, when it faces a horribly large deficit of $74.5 million in 2027?
Here’s why. The AEA, the ASD teachers’ union, knows very well that it is losing teachers due to the decreasing number of students in the future. Thus, it will be losing union members.
But the AEA also knows that it can increase its membership by adding librarians, nurses, library assistants, and counselors. And that is what’s happening in the ASD FY26 budget.
ASD is gambling that it can extort more funding from the legislature and the AEA can also maintain its membership and power by adding employees this next year.
So, while the school board is adding more personnel back to the budget and adding more costs, it should be saving this funding for the next fiscal year which looks even more bleak.
Adding more personnel when the student population is decreasing and the state is facing a huge fiscal crisis in the coming years is unfathomable.
The administration projects a huge $74.5 million budget hole for the next fiscal year. It could save the $9.8 million shown above for the “instructional support” cost and help fill next year’s budget hole and further avoid giving “pink slips” to newly hired employees.
But it is apparent that the district is counting on getting even more funding from the Legislature next session. That may be very difficult if the price of oil plummets and even more people leave Alaska.
We can look forward to the Education Establishment demanding more money to improve student outcomes even when those outcomes are not linked to more funding.
And that may mean an even smaller PFD — or maybe none at all.
President Donald J. Trump taught a brutal but necessary lesson to anyone serious about becoming Alaska’s next governor: If you aren’t fully armed with your team, your playbook, and your orders before your hand leaves the Bible — you’ve already lost.
My late and sharp-minded friend Art Chance (Recommended reading for every Alaska candidate, “Red on Blue: Establishing Republican Governance,” by Art Chance) put it best: the moment your hand comes off that Bible, you must act with ruthless precision.
No waiting, no hesitation. Executive orders? Filed. Departmental overhauls? Filed. Appointments, lawsuits, administrative purges? Filed. Every reform, every dismantling, every necessary battle plan — already mapped, locked, and loaded for immediate execution.
If you hesitate, you will be poked with a fork because you’re already done.
And yet, time after time, Alaska has elected dreamers — good on the stump, paralyzed in power. They step into the governor’s mansion full of hope, and within days, the choking white noise of entrenched bureaucracy and revenge-seeking legislature strangles their resolve. Vision fades to confusion. Action drowns in static. Another administration dies before it even begins.
“Not this time!” many of Alaska’s political elite now declare. But words are not enough.
The next governor must come ready for war — against apathy, against inertia, against the bureaucratic rot that steals Alaska’s future, and a Legislature riddled with RINOs who repeatedly hand power to the Left and its enforcers: the union cabal and its media lackeys. Like President Trump, he or she must embody the Boy Scout motto in its purest form: Be prepared. Act immediately. Never retreat.
Anything less is surrender.
The Trump Doctrine for Executive Success in Alaska
To win and to govern with purpose, Alaska’s next chief executive must embrace the following strategic pillars now:
1. Personnel is Policy: Vet, Appoint, Fire
Have every commissioner, deputy, and legal counsel selected before taking office. Their loyalty must be to the people, not the bureaucracy.
Use Schedule F-style reforms at the state level: reclassify or remove entrenched bureaucrats who sabotage reform.
Purge state departments of career obstructionists embedded in agencies like Health, Education, and Natural Resources.
2. Preload Executive Orders and Legal Challenges
Draft every EO for the first 100 days before Election Day. Don’t plan — execute.
Anticipate litigation. Pre-write legal arguments. Pick your courtroom battlegrounds.
Prepare challenges against unconstitutional federal overreach, especially in energy, land use, and tribal jurisdiction.
3. Create a Parallel Power Structure
Empower external advisory councils and citizen working groups to bypass agency roadblocks.
Use local governance commissions to decentralize administrative authority.
Create public oversight tools for transparency, real-time spending audits, and whistleblower protection.
Harvest from these bodies loyal and capable individuals for your administration as well as legislative candidates.
4. Own the Narrative
Control the messaging pipeline. Traditional media will be hostile.
Deploy a rapid-response digital communications team. Use direct-to-voter media, not legacy outlets.
Educate Alaskans: your agenda isn’t radical — it’s restorative.
5. Declare Legislative Contingency
The single most productive reality of state government will be a conservative majority in Alaska’s legislature. Work directly with the Alaska Republican Party and all Alaska conservative groups to make this a reality in 2026.
If that doesn’t happen, prepare for a hostile Legislature. Expect betrayal. Don’t depend on a majority — build policy tools that don’t require one.
Use the veto, executive reorganization powers, and statutory reform through regulation.
Force public accountability: make lawmakers vote against their own constituents in broad daylight.
6. Dismantle the Union Machine
Audit every union contract and grievance system.
Redirect resources from union-dominated programs to direct services for families and small businesses.
Empower school choice, eliminate forced dues, and challenge unlawful bargaining practices.
The Battlefield Is Already Set
The deep state isn’t limited to Washington. It thrives in Juneau — in boards, commissions, regulatory fiefdoms and activist departments. The only way to win is to enter the fight like Trump in 2024: with precision, preparedness, and a war cabinet, not a transition team.
Alaska needs a wartime governor. A peacetime candidate — however likable, however polished — will be devoured before the snow melts in April.
It’s time to break the pattern — to elevate not just a politician, but a commander-in-chief of Alaska’s recovery. The blueprint has been tested. The opposition is entrenched. The stakes are existential.
So here is the final question every candidate must answer before they ask for your vote:
“Are you ready — truly ready — the moment your hand comes off that Bible?”
Democrat Cliff Groh, who served one term in the Alaska House before being unseated by Republican Rep. David Nelson, filed a letter of intent with the Alaska Public Offices Commission to seek election to Alaska State House District 18.
The history shows a lot of seesawing in the seat. Nelson beat indicted Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux in 2020, when the district was known as District 15. Then, Groh bounced Nelson from his seat in 2022. But in the presidential election year of 2024, Nelson was able to win the seat back — by the thinnest of margins.
The district includes Government Hill, North Muldoon, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, and the northern parts of downtown Anchorage, Falrview, and Mountainview.
“North Anchorage working families deserve a representative who works just as hard as they do. we can’t afford to have someone who just sits on the sidelines. l’m committed to fighting crime, reducing homelessness, fully supporting our students and teachers, and making sure that we do everything we can to keep the prices for basic necessities like energy as low as possible,” said Cliff Groh, although he has done little since being unelected, other than strategize a comeback.
Groh, 71, outperformed then-US House Rep. Mary Peltola. who had the best Democratic statewide performance in a presidential election since Mark Begich in 2008, Groh pointed out in his press release. She still lost statewide.
“This result represents the single biggest overperformance in a head-to-head Democratic-Republican matchup across all State House candidates in Alaska in 2024,” Groh stated.
Groh was in Juneau in recent weeks to strategize with the Alaska Democratic Party about the various targeted seats that the party will focus on.
Groh is a lifelong Alaskan who was born and raised in Anchorage. While he was a staffer for the Alaska Legislature, he worked on issues relating to the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, and now refers to himself as a primary author of the dividend. He is a lawyer.
Nelson, who is 27 years old, may be in one of the seats that the Democrats feel most confident they can take, and one that Republicans will need to fiercely defend.
Sen. Loki Tobin, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, may have worn out her welcome in her own caucus of Democrats when she rose to speak agains the confirmation of Kristine Resler to the University of Alaska Board of Regents.
At issue for Tobin was the Regents’ decision earlier this year to comply with the executive order from President Donald Trump, which said any school that continues to push the “diversity-equity-inclusion” agenda of bias and discrimination would lose federal funding.
“After listening to her testimony in Senate Education,” Tobin said, “the entire UA community was caught off-guard about this motion. There is real fear happening amongst our students, our faculty, our staff, our alumni, the diverse peoples of Alaska right now. And instead of ameliorating that fear with transparency and with public discourse, Ms. Resler chose to affirm the motion.”
Tobin went on to personalize it and say that Resler would erase people like her.
“When she was asked in the Senate Education Committee if she would defend the independent integrity of our state’s institutions of higher learning, she said she would do nothing different in the future. Mr. President, I cannot in good conscience vote for somebody who would be willing to violate the public trust so blatantly and willing to erase people like me from the university.”
It was clearly playing the race card. Ironically what she was calling for would jeopardize the higher education funding of the university system, which is a curious move for an “education advocate” like Tobin.
But for the quick action of the Board of Regents, the university might have millions of dollars less than it has today.
Resler’s nomination passed, with several Democrats, including hard-left Rep. Zack Fields, voting in the affirmative. The vote was 40-19, with Rep. Neal Foster not voting.
A continuation of the hearing on the penalty phase of former Fairbanks Assembly woman Savannah Fletcher’s ethics hearings will take place on Friday, May 16 at 6 pm at the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly Chambers.
The earlier hearing was full of irregular events, from the nullification of the proper succession of the gavel and uses of conflicts to deny quorum. The continuation of the hearing allows member Kristen Kelly an opportunity to participate. This is a meeting that all conservatives should watch, as there is nothing like a room full of eyes to serve as a check on shenanigans and maintain balance.
During the April 29 meeting, Fletcher was found by the board of ethics to have violated the ethics rules three times by running a series of radio spots on KFAR as a member of the FNSB Assembly.
The hearing, to be continued on the 16th, began with a nullification of the rules regarding the gavel.
Presiding Officer Mindy O’Neal walked the gavel over to member Brett Rotermund for the declaration of conflicts. The rules of succession regarding gavel handoff are that the gavel should go to the deputy presiding officer, who currently is Scott Crass, and next to the Chair of Finance, Kristen Kelly. Kelly was absent due to a medical reason. By handing the gavel directly to Rotermund, O’Neal nullified the procedures. The only way to reclaim the gavel from Rotermund is a vote of those who were not conflicted out.
The events of the April 29 meeting seemed pre-planned before the meeting in an effort to deny a quorum. O’Neal declared a conflict in that she was too good of friends with Fletcher to rule.
While Rotermund ruled she had a conflict, there is nothing about having an affection for a member in the rules — they are not blood relatives, spouses, or even business partners. However, Fletcher did implicate O’Neal in the wording of one of the radio spots. If O’Neal participated in the radio spots, then she would have a legitimate conflict.
Scott Crass declared he had too much animus against Rita Trometer, the complainant against Fletcher, to rule impartially, because School Board Member Bobby Burgess, with his own scandals, was an uncle to his children.
While Rotermund ruled that Crass had a conflict, this puts Crass in a very difficult situation.
If Crass’ family ties to Burgess are too strong to rule on this matter, then he should not have been able to participate in the censorship of Assemblywoman Barbara Haney, because the complainant was the wife of Bobby Burgess.
In addition, Assembly members are expected to put aside their animus and rule on law, and he clearly stated he could not perform his duties in this case. As Scott Crass has so aptly pointed out repeatedly at assembly meetings when threatening other Assembly members over votes, failure to perform duties is a basis for recall.
David Guttenberg and Liz Reeves Ramos are the only two with potentially legitimate conflicts on the record thus far.
Guttenberg certainly has a conflict, as he declared that he helped pay for the radio spots. He presented no proof and the statement conflicts with Fletcher’s statements in the record that she paid for the radio spots.
Perhaps David Guttenberg created an issue in an attempt to deny quorum and something upon which to base a recall. However, there might be proof or receipts of some kind to verify his conflict. If he did help pay for the radio spots and can prove it, it could save him from a recall.
Fletcher was, and may still be Reeves Ramos’s attorney. That is a disqualification under borough code and she cannot participate. Strangely, this conflict also protects her from a recall from failure to perform her duties.
While Fletcher tried to argue Assemblywoman Haney had a conflict on her Superior Court appeal, that matter is fully briefed and ripe for decision after oral arguments. The cases are also quite different. Haney’s editorial in the newspaper was a letter to the editor, signed by herself and was clearly an opinion column.
Fletcher’s case involves radio spots that were paid for and designed to sound like she was a spokesman for the Assembly when she was just an assembly member.
These paid radio spots had no disclaimer. Because the radio spots were purchased on broadcast media, it does not have the same first amendment protection as a letter to the editor in a newspaper.
Furthermore, Fletcher failed to identify her voice on the radio ads, and she did not have authorization to even place the ads. Since Fletcher is also a licensed attorney, and an appointed member of the Alaska Judicial Council, so her ethical violations as determined by the FNSB Board of Ethics now presents a greater concern at the state level.
