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Analysis: Anchorage Economic Luncheon Theater

Guest Writer
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Analysis: Anchorage Economic Luncheon Theater

By Marcus Moore

Originally published in “Rants from Alaska,” the author’s personal Substack, on August 6, 2026, edited by Must Read Alaska.

What the H- E- double hockey sticks did they serve at that AEDC Economic Outlook Luncheon last week?

The way they spun Anchorage’s “slow growth” story was next-level gaslighting, and now that I have gone through the report line by line, I can prove it.

They stood up there talking about optimism and shifting sectors while the city bleeds people, schools collapse, and the one BIG UPSIDE they are pinning down as the whole forecast of Anchorage’s future is not even based on real money yet.

The facts are a population still sliding from the 2013 peak; net out-migration, year after year, for over a decade; and a 7,500-student freefall from Anchorage School District, which gets treated like an afterthought. That is not analysis. That is stagecraft for the people who wrote the check for the room.

Anchorage peaked at roughly 302,000 people in 2013. It is now sitting around 286,000–287,000. Alaska just logged its 13th consecutive year of negative net migration statewide, the longest losing streak since 1945. This is not a bad quarter. It is a structural bleed that predates COVID, predates the oil bust, predates every excuse in the deck.

But sure… Let’s keep blaming housing costs and perceptions that it is what it is (taking Alaska cost of living) while the actual family-retention of our Alaska residence is in free fall. The Anchorage School District has lost about 7,500 students since 2015, a 15% collapse. It’s staring down a $90–111 million structural deficit and closing elementary schools in 2026. Don’t get me started on the number of families that have pulled their kids out to homeschool because of how bad our school system performs.

The AEDC report mentions ASD once, in passing, as a line item under local-government job losses. Kind of an important topic if we were talking about the economic future of Anchorage, Alaska, but what do I know?

You don’t lose 15% of a school district’s kids to “perception.” You lose them because families left.

Public safety? They reduce it to homelessness and downtown conditions. Cute. Survey feelings are fine as watered down commentary, but when you will not put the hard numbers on the slide, it starts looking like deliberate soft-focus AKA gaslighting theater. Anchorage’s violent crime rate is still running 1.5–3x the national average, and property crime kept climbing from 2021–2025 while the rest of the country cooled off. That is not a vibe. That is a statistic they had access to and chose not to print.

And here is the crown jewel of the presentation: $2 billion in near-term military construction, called, “the single largest identifiable upside catalyst,” with half the three-year forecast quietly built on top of it.

Reality check: it is a budget request only Sen. Sullivan can ask. He has been fighting for a $6.9 billion total authorization with “$2 billion sought up front.” As of summer 2026, it is still moving through appropriations using alternative contracting authorities because traditional MILCON is too slow to hit the timeline they need. Treating a contested request as locked-in cash is not forecasting. It is projection inflation with a press release attached. Please prove me wrong!

Now here is the part that should embarrass anyone still pushing a “protected tax-funded sector crowding out the private base” story. The report’s own numbers torch it. Government employment in Anchorage fell harder than the state average over the last decade. Local government is down over 10%— more than four times the statewide local-government decline. Federal civilian jobs are cratering right now, down 8.4% year-to-date through mid-2026, with June alone off nearly 13%.

The public sector is not bloating. It has been shrinking faster than the state, at every level, for a decade. What is actually happening is eroding service capacity, which means fewer teachers, tighter police resources relative to need, and a school system hemorrhaging kids. That is a different diagnosis than government eating the private economy, but it lands in the same place. People are voting with their U-Hauls either way. If you want to shrink government spending for the shrinking private sector, the solution is not more taxes, it is cutting spending and the government workforce. That is just common sense!

But we aren’t, so you see us hemorrhaging people. That is not sustainable.

Energy is the cherry on top. Cook Inlet’s managed man-made decline is not a distant risk in a footnote anymore. Matanuska Electric just slammed through a 29.4% Cost of Power Adjustment, Chugach’s rate case landed a 4.3% increase with utility executives warning of 12–24% more once LNG imports kick in, and officials are publicly using the word urgent about supply this winter. The cost-of-living index in the report is already on the floor— not a pretty snapshot of where our future is headed.

And the Port of Alaska modernization they wave around as a growth catalyst? It is partly funded by a freight surcharge hike to roughly $4.80 per ton on a port that handles 90% of the state’s inbound freight. Infrastructure investment financed by making almost everything that arrives in this state more expensive is a hell of a growth strategy to put on a hero slide. Or am I the only one see this as a major problem?

The core trends in the report are real. Population decline is real. Cost pressure is real. The military opportunity is real— if it actually gets funded.

The selective gaslighting framing, the under-weighting of the school crisis, the soft-pedaling of crime stats, and the treatment of a budget request as a done deal— that is not analysis for the people who live here. That is a pitch deck for the stakeholders or— let’s just say it— the gatekeepers who need the room to feel good enough to keep writing checks.

Somebody needs to ask the next panelist what was in the catering. Because the gap between the slides and the streets is getting ridiculous.

Sources

U.S. Census Bureau / FRED (ANCPOP) · Alaska Dept. of Labor & Workforce Development, 2025 population estimate · Alaska Beacon · Anchorage School District budget filings, reported via ADN / Alaska’s News Source, 2026 · APD crime data via Alaska’s News Source, Oct. 2025 · FBI UCR-derived indices (CrimeGrade, HomeSnacks, City-Data) · Sen. Dan Sullivan, Senate Armed Services Committee remarks, reported via Alaska’s News Source / The War Zone, Apr.–Jun. 2026 · Regulatory Commission of Alaska rate order, reported via AARP Alaska · Matanuska Electric Association COPA filing, reported via Mat-Su Sentinel, 2026 · ADN / Alaska Public Media, Port of Alaska Modernization Program funding reporting, 2026 · AEDC Anchorage Economic Trends Report, Aug. 2026.

Alaska Supreme Court Issues Decision Supporting Legislative Ethics Committee’s Response to Sen. Reinbold Gatekeeping Public Comments

Natalie Spaulding
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Alaska Supreme Court Issues Decision Supporting Legislative Ethics Committee’s Response to Sen. Reinbold Gatekeeping Public Comments

Today, August 7, 2026, the Alaska Supreme Court issued a decision denying former Senator Lora Reinbold’s request for relief after the Alaska Legislature Select Committee on Legislative Ethics found her in violation of the Legislative Ethics Act. Reinbold had deleted public comments with which she disagreed from her social media page during her tenure in the legislature, prompting an investigation by the Legislative Ethics Committee.

In February 2021, an individual filed an ethics complaint with the Ethics Committee against Reinbold, alleging that Reinbold had violated the Legislative Ethics Act by blocking him on her Facebook page and deleting his comments. The Ethics Committee determined that an investigation was warranted and found Reinbold had violated the Legislative Ethics Act. The Ethics Committee cited AS 24.60.010(2), which requires that legislators “conduct the public’s business in a manner that preserves the integrity of the legislative process and avoids conflicts of interest or even appearances of conflicts of interest”; and AS 24.60.010(9), which requires that constituents “have unencumbered access to legislators about issues important to the state.”

The Ethics Committee did not sanction Sen. Reinbold but instructed her to “refrain from blocking members of the public from commenting on her legislative social media site(s) solely for expressing opinions in disagreement with her own.” Rather than allow the public to comment on her page without gatekeeping, she simply deactivated the account.

Reinbold then accused the Ethics Committee of political weaponization, noting that the ethics complaint was filed around the same time Governor Mike Dunleavy sent the Senate a letter criticizing her for spreading misinformation about the State’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Reinbold requested a public hearing, but the Ethics Committee denied the request, seeing no further proceedings as necessary.

She then pursued legal action in the Superior Court, seeking a judicial declaration that the Ethics Committee had violated its own governing statutes and her right to due process. She also sought an injunction forcing the Committee to provide her its investigative materials and to hold a public hearing. The Superior Court dismissed the complaint on the grounds of the “doctrine of legislative immunity and that [Reinbold] alleged no action by the State that could support the relief she sought.”

Reinbold then appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court, which upheld the Superior Court’s ruling. The Supreme Court stated in its decision: “We affirm the Superior Court’s judgment. The doctrine of legislative immunity, enshrined in the Alaska Constitution, protects members of the legislature from litigation over the exercise of their official duties. These duties include creating rules of conduct for legislators and sanctioning them for noncompliance. The legislator’s claims that the Ethics Committee violated its governing statutes and her right to due process are subject to the doctrine of legislative immunity, and the court cannot adjudicate them. Therefore, the Superior Court did not err by dismissing these claims.”

According to a press release by Reinbold’s legal team, “By ruling that statutory violations are beyond the reach of any court, the Alaska Supreme Court closed the courthouse door, failed to uphold the law, and left legislators’ constitutional rights of fair legal due process protections completely unprotected.”

Following the Alaska Supreme Court’s decision, which upholds the clear constitutional right of legislative immunity, Reinbold’s legal team “is actively evaluating taking Reinbold v. State of Alaska and SCLE to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

Full Court Decision:

2026-s-19143Download

Repeal Now Announces Funding Boost

Must Read Alaska
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Repeal Now Announces Funding Boost

Today, August 7, Repeal Now announced additional support from Aurora Action Network, the campaign’s largest contributor. In a press release, Repeal Now states: “We are honored that the donors to Aurora Action Network see ending Ranked Choice Voting in Alaska as a project worthy of attention and resources. In past years, groups opposing ranked choice voting have been outspent nearly 100:1 by supporters of ranked choice voting and their tens of millions in out-of-state dark money.”

Judy Eledge, Chair of Repeal Now, commented: “It’s hard to even put into words the gratitude that we feel that these titans of industry would show interest in our small state that has, for so long now, been picked on in a big way by special-interest supporters of ranked choice voting.”

Repeal Now thanks its donors for “all that they are doing to ensure Alaskans will no longer have their voices drowned out by dark money supporters of ranked choice voting.”

For more information about the Repeal Now effort: www.YesEndRCV.com.

To see the list of Aurora Action Network’s donors: Browse Receipts | FEC

To get all the facts, coverage of the statements of support/ opposition to Ballot Measure 2, and analysis of the arguments by Must Read Alaska:

For Informed Voters: RCV, Jungle Primaries, Campaign Finance Law— The Statements of Support and Opposition for Ballot Measure 2
Analysis: “Saying So Doesn’t Make It So”— How Do ‘No on 2’ Claims at Aug 5 Hearing Hold Up to Reality?
Analysis: Pro-RCV Group Badgers Repeal Now over Treasurer Located in Wisconsin; Math Shows Repeal Now Uses 6x Less Out-of-State Funds

Opinion: Rep. Louise Stutes Admits to Major APOC Violations, Now She Should Drop Out of Senate Race

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Opinion: Rep. Louise Stutes Admits to Major APOC Violations, Now She Should Drop Out of Senate Race

By Greg Sarber

This article was originally published in “Seward’s Folly,” the author’s personal Substack, on August 7, 2026, under the title “Representative Louise Stutes Gets Busted.”

Representative Louise Stutes cheated when it came to election financing. This isn’t my opinion; she recently admitted as much in a consent decree with the Alaska Public Offices Commission. They caught her committing numerous violations of state campaign finance regulations. The violations Stutes committed are so serious that they should disqualify her from ever holding public office again, and as a result, she should drop out of the District C race for state Senator.

In the July 28th consent decree, Stutes admitted to filing incorrect campaign finance disclosure documents for the last three times she ran for office, in 2020, 2022, and 2024. Stutes admitted failing to disclose contributors accurately in 2022, failing to describe expenditures in 2022 and 2024, improperly reimbursing herself for campaign and non-campaign related expenditures in 2024, improperly using campaign funds, and failing to disclose and accurately report contributions and expenditures in 2024.

This long series of violations was serious enough that, according to an article in the Anchorage Daily News, Stutes faced a civil penalty of $264,000. However, in exchange for her agreement to the consent decree, APOC curiously reduced the fine by 99%, to only $2,643.50. In addition, APOC required Stutes to repay $13,869 in funds she used improperly.

Large concessions on civil fines such as these are often made when politicians recognize an error and self-report it to ensure corrections are made. However, that is not what happened in this case. A third-party whistleblower reported Stutes to APOC, and when the APOC investigated the allegations, they found them to be accurate. APOC determined that Stutes had, in fact, made numerous violations spanning three legislative cycles, 2020, 2022, and 2024. The commission noted that “…the penalty must also reflect the serious lapses of accountability created by several of (Stutes’) errors…”.

For some reason, Stutes was shown great leniency by APOC, a leniency that most people would not receive, and which the third-party whistleblower disagreed with. He commented that “Stutes committed flagrant abuse, failure to disclose, depriving Alaska citizens of their right to accurate information, in one case for four years.” In response, Stutes said the errors were due to insufficient awareness of various laws governing campaign finance disclosure and were not intentional in nature.

Think about her statement for a moment. Stutes is a very experienced legislator, but said she didn’t understand the laws governing her job.

Based on her long time in public office, that is frankly very difficult to believe. Stutes has been involved in politics since she was first elected to the Kodiak Island Borough assembly in 2006. She has been a member of the Alaska Legislature for 12 years. She was the House Majority Whip 2021-2022, and the Speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives from 2021 to 2023.

Stutes isn’t some dewy-eyed schoolgirl who unknowingly made a simple mistake, self-reported, and deserves leniency. Stutes is an influential and experienced legislator who demonstrated a casual disregard for the rules that every other legislator must follow. When these violations were made, either Stutes was either too arrogant to adhere to the same requirements as every other member of the state legislature, or she had a callous contempt for the rules, believing they didn’t apply to her, and now she wants to say, Opps, my bad and move on.

Stutes’ financial impropriety is important because her role in the majority Democrat led governing caucus in the state House has given her an outsized influence on the state budget. She has helped write every state budget for the past 10 years, which has used part of the citizens’ Permanent Fund Dividend to pay for state government spending. The same woman who can’t keep track of her own finances is completely comfortable dipping into the finances of every Alaskan when she needs a few extra bucks to run the government.

Now this same woman is going to escape the full penalty she deserves for her misbehavior, and also wants us to give her a promotion by electing her as the next Senator for District C.

Stutes’s lack of financial intelligence and her willingness to squander our money to fund her policies should disqualify her from running for the Senate. If Stutes wanted to do the right thing, she would withdraw from the Senate race. Barring that, I hope Voters in District C will recognize she is unsuitable for the job and choose someone else to be our next state senator.

Greg Sarber is a lifelong Alaskan. He is a petroleum engineer who spent his career working on Alaska’s North Slope. Now retired, he lives with his family in Homer, Alaska. Greg formerly served as a board member of Alaska Gold Communications, Inc., the publisher of Must Read Alaska.

Analysis: “Saying So Doesn’t Make It So”— How Do ‘No on 2’ Claims at Aug 5 Hearing Hold Up to Reality?

Natalie Spaulding
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Analysis: “Saying So Doesn’t Make It So”— How Do ‘No on 2’ Claims at Aug 5 Hearing Hold Up to Reality?

At the public hearing held August 5 for Ballot Measure 2—the measure to repeal ranked-choice voting, jungle primaries, and certain campaign finance disclosure rules—Scott Kendall told voters, “Saying so, doesn’t make it so.” He used this truth against Repeal Now as an attempt to discredit the statement of support given by Bethany Marcum. However, the phrase holds truth regardless of political stance. Voters deserve to know the facts, not simply what a campaign is saying are the facts. How do Mr. Kendall’s claims hold up?

Claim #1: “Ranked-choice voting was not an outside idea sprung upon Alaska for the first time in 2020. It was, in fact, brought forward by basically every political party except for the Democratic Party back in 2002.”

Analysis: In 2002, a ballot measure was attempted to institute ranked-choice voting for state and federal elections except for governor and lieutenant governor. The measure was indeed backed by the Alaska Republican Party and all four of Alaska’s recognized minor parties at the time. The Alaska Democrat Party opposed the measure, claiming the system would be “expensive, complicated, and unnecessary.”

Democratic Lt. Governor Fran Ulmer commented on the 2002 measure: “I’m deeply troubled by this. If the system isn’t broken…, why do we want to change it?”

Another major opponent of RCV in 2002 was the League of Women Voters. The league’s president at the time, Cheryl Jebe, stated: “Our main concern is that preferential voting [another term for RCV] allows some voters to cast a vote for more than one candidate, and it appears to compromise the principle of one person, one vote.”

Now, in 2026, Mr. Kendall quotes a statement written by the Alaska Republican Party in 2002: “Ranked-choice voting is good government at its best.” He says this “is as true today as it was when they wrote it in 2002.” But what makes that statement true today but Fran Ulmer’s statement false today? Answering that will require a look at the actual concepts and reality of the system, not a potshot at a political party’s shift in stance after almost two decades.

Claim #2: “Despite the photo of a trash can, no ballot in ranked-choice voting in Alaska has ever been trashed.”

Analysis: Kendall’s claim here rests on perceptions of the term “exhausted.” The pro-repeal side interprets “exhausted” as “trashed.” The pro-RCV side rejects this interpretation. Who is right?

In ranked-choice voting, an “exhausted” ballot is one that can no longer be transferred because the voter did not rank any of the candidates still remaining. Once that happens, the ballot stops counting toward any candidate for the rest of the process. It is removed from the pool that determines the final winner.

That is functionally the same as the ballot being discarded for the purpose of choosing the ultimate winner. The system then calculates a “majority” only among the ballots that are still active. A candidate can therefore be declared the majority winner while receiving support from fewer than half of all voters who cast a ballot in that race.

Pro-RCV advocates prefer the softer word “exhausted” because it implies the voter’s preferences were fully honored until they ran out. In reality, the ballot is simply no longer part of the final decision. The votes that could have expressed a preference between the last two (or few) candidates are no longer counted. That is why critics accurately describe those ballots as trashed or discarded for the decisive round.

The language difference is not semantic nitpicking. It puts a mirror to the core claim of ranked-choice voting that it produces true majority winners and ensures every vote continues to matter. When thousands of ballots drop out before the final round, that claim simply does not hold true.

Claim #3: “Every irregularity cited by the Yes on 2 team comes from outside, and that’s for a reason. Alaska does it better, and we have handled the transition to the system very well.”

Analysis: This claim is a deflection to evaluating the system’s implementation rather than the merits of the system itself. Alaska’s own elections have shown the same structural problems as other states have had with RCV.

In the 2022 U.S. House race, more than 11,000 of Nick Begich’s ballots were exhausted and stopped counting—more than double the final margin. A “majority” was declared among remaining ballots while falling short of a majority of all votes cast. That is an Alaska result under Alaska rules.

Alaskan voters themselves describe the system as confusing. Interviews conducted by the Anchorage Daily News feature Alaskan voters saying that they “didn’t know what the heck they were voting for,” that seniors were “all confused,” and that “everybody’s confused.”

Ranked-choice voting inherently produces exhausted ballots, delays results, and can yield winners without majority support of all voters. Those features of the system, not the particular state implementing the system. Better administration relative to other states does not erase structural flaws.

Claim #4: “But as you can see from this section, a simple notice to the director that they have changed their bylaws to exclude undeclared and nonpartisan voters—by that simple stroke— either party can make it unlawful. And again, I will say that again, unlawful for nonpartisan and undeclared voters to vote in primary elections.”

Analysis: Mr. Kendall is referring to Sec. 15.25.014 of the repeal bill. In slides 5 and 6 of his PowerPoint presentation, he provides highlighted screenshots of paragraphs a and b, but conveniently leaves out paragraph c. Sec. 15.25.014(c) clarifies: “Party bylaws required to be submitted under (a) of this section must be precleared by the United States Department of Justice under 42 U.S.C. 1973c (sec. 5, Voting Rights Act of 1965) before submission.” This is not a “simple stroke.”

Furthermore, either party may also change their bylaws to expand participation by “permit[ting] a voter registered as affiliated with another party to vote the party’s ballot.” Nothing in the ballot measure would necessarily restrict nonpartisan or unaffiliated voters from voting in party primaries. Kendall’s rhetoric is a scare tactic relying heavily on a supposition that political parties would choose to exclude nonpartisan and unaffiliated voters from the primary election. But the ballot measure itself would not close primaries.

Claim #5: “If Ballot Measure 2 were to pass, we will have no ban on dark money in Alaska for two years… and there’s nothing we can do about it as voters, and there’s nothing the legislature could do about it.”

Analysis: This, too, is a scare tactic, and one with even less ground than the previous scare tactic regarding primaries. The actual bill language of Ballot Measure 2 states clearly in Sec. 6: “AS 15.13.074(b) is amended to read: A person or group may not make a contribution anonymously, using a fictitious name, or using the name of another.” Full stop.

Ballot Measure 2 does not affect the state’s ban on dark money, which is found in AS 15.13.040(r). This statute (which the repeal effort leaves fully intact as it was not part of the ballot measure in 2020) requires “every individual, person, nongroup entity, or group that contributes more than $2,000 in the aggregate… shall report making the contribution… The report must include the name, address, principal occupation, and employer of the individual filing the report and the amount of the contribution… For purposes of this subsection, the reporting contributor is required to report and certify the true sources of the contribution… The contributor is also required to provide the identity of the true source.”

So, how does Ballot Measure 2 affect dark money? The short answer is it doesn’t. It doesn’t bring more dark money into the state, but it doesn’t stop dark money either. It does not impact disclosure requirements for the person or group donating, but it does lessen the burden for the person or group receiving the donation (the campaign). This lessened burden will allow grassroots campaigns to focus more of their energy and resources on reaching voters rather than navigating government bureaucracy.

Aug 5 Public Hearing of Ballot Measure 2 in Full:

Link to Full Bill Text, AG Opinion, PowerPoints, etc.: https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/Notices/View.aspx?id=224503

Senators Sullivan, Cruz Send Letter Urging Sanctions on China’s Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Fleet

Must Read Alaska
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Senators Sullivan, Cruz Send Letter Urging Sanctions on China’s Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Fleet

U.S. Senators Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, sent a bipartisan letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outlining a strategy to counter illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing conducted by China’s distant-water fleet. The letter identifies vulnerabilities in China’s IUU fishing fleet linked to its reliance on a relatively limited number of support vessels, calls for the imposition of sanctions on such vessels, and specifically identifies 29 currently unsanctioned vessels.

The letter is co-signed by Sens. Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).

“Chinese trawl fleets ravage fish stocks in every corner of the world’s oceans without regard for any other users or future generations,” Sen. Sullivan said. “These fleets also engage in gross human rights abuses, including utilizing slave labor. I’ve led the fight against this cancer on our fisheries, authoring the Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvest (FISH) Act, which passed the Senate in March. Working with Senator Cruz and my colleagues, we’ve identified another powerful channel to target these evasive IUU fleets—by tightening the screws on the relatively few support vessels that enable Chinese IUU fleets to continue their abusive practices. We are urging Secretary Bessent to deploy the numerous Treasury Department tools and designations available to aggressively sanction these support vessels and dismantle the Chinese Communist Party’s hub-and-spoke IUU fishing scheme. Doing so will enhance the sustainability of our oceans and help support America’s and Alaska’s hard-working fishermen and our many coastal fishing communities.”

“The Chinese Communist Party is using its global distant-water fleet to conduct ecocide across at least three continents in both hemispheres,” Sen. Cruz said. “They kill endangered species by the hundreds and sharks, whales, and dolphins by the thousands, and have destroyed tens of thousands of acres of coral reefs. Their fleet uses coerced laborers, who are subjected to physical abuse, malnutrition, overwork, and withheld pay. They could not conduct these activities without supply ships, including reefers, tankers, and floating bases. The U.S. should bolster our Maritime Domain Awareness capabilities to identify these vessels, and then we should use every available option to sanction and disrupt them.”

“China’s dark fleets and forced labor threaten New Jersey’s fishing industries, our supply chains, and our national security,” Sen. Kim said. “Without action, global ecosystems and economies will suffer irreversible harm. I’m proud to join this bipartisan effort to use all of our tools to stop it.”

“Vessels that support and protect China’s illegal, unregulated fishing fleet threaten our maritime security and American’s livelihoods,” Sen. Cotton said. “We are encouraging Secretary Bessent to sanction these vessels.”

“China’s illegal fishing fleet is destroying our oceans and making it harder for our allies to fish right off their own coasts, threatening whole communities’ livelihoods and ability to feed themselves,” Sen. Coons said. “It also hurts American fishermen who are undercut by cheap, illegally harvested fish. This bipartisan letter calls on the administration to take action to protect our and our allies national and food security against China.”

“Illegal, unreported, and unregulated Chinese fishing vessels threaten the American maritime economy,” Sen. Wicker said. “It is a no-brainer that the United States should sanction these Chinese ships to protect our fishing industry.”

“China’s distant water fishing fleet continues to disrupt global and regional fishing economies,” Sen. Young said. “Through overfishing and illegal incursions into foreign waters, China seeks to undermine the global fishing industry until there is nothing left. The United States must take steps to combat these activities and promote American fishing practices, which remain the gold standard for sustainable fishing.”

“The Chinese Communist Party is evil and barbaric,” Sen. Scott said. “They are using slave labor and violating human rights on the high seas to prop up their regime, undermine America’s economy, and attack our way of life. America needs to do everything we can to end this practice, stop the oppression, and protect American workers at the same time. I will always stand up to Xi and the CCP—whether it’s cutting off these state-sponsored slave fishing fleets or blocking Chinese military companies from American markets—we need to start treating China like the enemy they are.”

“The Chinese Communist Party is committing gross human rights abuses by using forced labor on its fleet of thousands of fishing vessels that engage in illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing,” Sen. Blackburn said. “We are urging Secretary Bessent to counter this malign activity by sanctioning the support vessels that enable this Chinese water fishing fleet so we can ensure we are not doing business with them.”

Read the full letter here.

Press release provided by the Office of U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan.

“21st Century Panama Canal:” Leaders Discuss Plan for Alaska’s Global Commerce Hub

Natalie Spaulding
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“21st Century Panama Canal:” Leaders Discuss Plan for Alaska’s Global Commerce Hub

On August 4, leaders gathered in Eagle River to discuss a step-by-step plan to complete a long-held vision to position Alaska as the central transportation and commerce hub connecting the United States to Europe and Asia. The plan, put forth by gubernatorial candidate Shelley Hughes, received commendation from the mayors of Nenana and Nome, business leader and former Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell, and transportation consultant Peter Scholz.

“Instead of Alaska being at the end of the road, Alaska will be the door to the globe,” stated former Senator Shelley Hughes. “This will open the opportunity for exports, to diversify our economy, to grow our private sector to a whole new level. Alaska is as close to Europe as the East Coast is. Nome is the closet port to Asia in all of North America. We have a wide open ocean, no Strait of Hormuz, no long journey to cut across the narrow Isthmus of Panama. In fact, Alaska will become the far more convenient Panama Canal of the 21st century.”

Hughes laid out her plan in three steps: 1) Finish the Port of Nome expansion, which is already under construction. 2) Connect the existing Alaska Railroad to Canada’s rail network through the Alaska to Alberta (A2A) project, which already has a presidential border permit and Canadian right-of-way approvals. 3) Extend the railroad from Nenana to Nome.

These links would open export routes for Alaska’s resources, especially critical minerals and energy, while lowering shipping and fuel costs for rural communities. The corridor would also strengthen U.S. presence in the Arctic, where Russian and Chinese shipping currently dominate. A developed rail and port corridor to Nome would support expanded Coast Guard icebreaker capacity and future military presence in the region, integrating the state’s transportation and economic development goals with the defense posture the Arctic increasingly demands.

“This isn’t a new idea. It’s decades of planning that never quite got across the finish line,” said Joshua Verhagen, Mayor of Nenana. “Jack Coghill, decades ago, proposed a rail line to Nome. What’s different now is that the Arctic shipping traffic is increasing and the pieces are finally lining up. Canada already has permits and right of way to our border. There’s real private investment interest, not another taxpayer funded feasibility study. Shelley understands this only works if you build it step by step and invite private industry to make it real.”

Mayor of Nome Kenney Hughes spoke on the impact the plan would have for rural Alaska: “For rural Alaska, the benefit is direct and immediate. A rail link to the interior would absolutely mean the world to Nome. It would help us lower our costs and continue to afford our subsistence lifestyles. It would also give Nome the opportunity to be the Arctic crossroads of the world, a great and positive thing for our region as well as our community.”

“We are ready. The preliminary work is underway on our eastern and western borders, and it’s time to build on that,” stated Hughes, who played a significant role in laying groundwork through her prior work in the House and Senate. As House Transportation Chair, she led hearings on the opening of the Arctic shipping lanes and on what was then, the potential of the Nome port. In the Senate, her Senate resolution for the presidential border permit for the A2A (Alaska to Alberta) rail project passed successfully and she worked to broker the deal to appropriate $175 million in state funds to draw down federal funds for the Port of Nome.

According to Hughes, the railway is central to unlocking Alaska’s mineral and energy potential. Her plan would make a viable path to market for ore currently trucked from the Tok area to Fort Knox, and strategic mineral deposits across the interior and western Alaska that remain stranded without transportation infrastructure. Rail access, paired with port capacity at Nome, would allow Alaska to compete for the investment already flowing into critical mineral development across North America, rather than watching that investment go to Canada or elsewhere.

Former Lt. Governor and business leader, Mead Treadwell, who has frequently advocated for the A2A rail, emphasized how Alaska can become a lead player in global transportation with an opening Arctic. He asked, “How do we play a major role? Here’s how. We go to work. Alaska can be more productive. Alaska’s destiny is not just what it is, but where it is.” Treadwell also announced he will be voting for the Hughes-Gettys ticket. 

Business leader and transportation consultant, Peter Scholz of Cairnstone Planning Inc. joined online from Calgary to discuss his work on the A2A project’s Canadian portion. Scholz had presented the project in July at the PNWER Summit in Edmonton, Alberta to lawmakers and leaders from U.S. states in the northwest as well as western Canadian provinces.

Hughes stressed that private industry would lead the investment, not taxpayers. “I am inviting private industry to explore whether it makes sense to invest. This will not be a boondoggle,” stated Hughes.

Retired General Blake Gettys, Hughes’ Lt. Governor running mate tied the economic benefit of the plan to affordable energy for Alaskans: “Every mile of new rail also opens the door to economic activity and lower energy costs for Alaskans, including along the corridor. A completed line makes it far more practical to move natural gas, fuel, and other energy resources as well as other goods and products into communities throughout Alaska including into the rural villages along the route that currently pay some of the highest costs in the state.”

Opinion: Beyond the Deadlock— How a Direct-Invoice Mechanism Can Unlock Alaska LNG Right Now

Guest Writer
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Opinion: Beyond the Deadlock— How a Direct-Invoice Mechanism Can Unlock Alaska LNG Right Now

By Jason Dutch

As the Alaska Legislature convenes for its third special session of 2026, the mood in Juneau is a mix of exhaustion and predictability. We are watching a multi-billion-dollar energy-security lifeline get strangled by the same old political paralysis. On one side, the administration and private developers warn that forcing a traditional, front-loaded property tax structure makes our $44 billion-plus gasline project unfinanceable to outside capital. On the other, local corridor boroughs are rightfully afraid that a 30-year deferred volumetric tax model leaves them subsidizing the infrastructure strain for decades with no immediate relief.

Add a session-killing fight over extending the state’s 9.4% corporate income tax to private “pass-through” oil and gas companies, and the result is a 19-19 House tie that helps absolutely nobody. Meanwhile, Southcentral utility leaders are warning that Cook Inlet is running dry — raising the specter of supply shortfalls and expensive foreign LNG imports for Alaska families.

We are told we must choose between the financial survival of our host communities and the economic viability of the pipeline. That is a false choice. The deadlock isn’t happening because the problem is unsolvable; it’s happening because leadership keeps forcing a vote on a fundamentally broken framework.

There is a clean, conservative path out of this corner: Bill 5, the Generating Revenue and Public Works Act.

Instead of asking local boroughs to wait decades for state-managed grants or downstream backfills that may never materialize, Bill 5 bypasses the state general fund entirely through a direct-invoice mechanism. The corridor operator is legally permitted to satisfy up to 15% of its defined state tax obligations by paying certified local public-works invoices directly to the host boroughs. The other 85% of the state’s stream flows to the treasury exactly as scheduled. And the mechanism only switches on when a host borough votes to turn it on — putting in a matching share of the new local revenue the project itself creates. The community isn’t a subsidizer; it’s an invested partner getting its share built up front.

The beauty of the framework is the timeline. The money lands in host communities the exact year the construction workers arrive — not five to ten years later, after the local roads are already destroyed and municipal debt has spiked. And the developer doesn’t pocket a dime of it: it fronts the cost from its own cash and recovers only what it laid out, at par and interest-free — a bankable, legally defined offset that international lenders can finance against, not a windfall. The state avoids massive execution risk, and the corporate pass-through tax fight becomes irrelevant to the pipeline’s progress.

This isn’t an untested academic theory. It’s a proven Alaska model. Teck’s Red Dog Mine has run a Payment in Lieu of Taxes structure with the Northwest Arctic Borough for nearly forty years — proof that resource development and stable municipal funding can coexist when you cut out the middleman in Juneau.

My companion Multiplier Thesis shows the economic power of front-loading local public works. Build the infrastructure alongside the industrial impact instead of lagging behind it, and you capture an estimated 1.5x economic multiplier within two to five years. That local capital compounds immediately — crowding in private investment, creating jobs for domestic support industries, and expanding the municipal tax base right away.

Alaska cannot afford another 30 days of lawmakers trading talking points while our energy security hangs in the balance. The six host boroughs along the route — from the North Slope to the Kenai — could pull forward $1.8 billion to $3.6 billion in immediate local infrastructure, with zero exposure to the state general fund or to borough budgets.

The fully drafted bills, constitutional defense memos, and economic multiplier math are finalized, updated, and hosted openly at AKLegacyPackage.com.

It’s time for Governor Dunleavy and legislative leadership to stop chasing a compromise on a deadlocked bill and pivot to a new vehicle. Bill 5 protects the communities, secures the developer, and builds the line. Let’s pass it and get to work.

Jason Dutch is an independent Wasilla resident and the author of the Alaska Legacy Package.

To Do or Not Do: Christian Virtue Trains Desire and Intellect toward Right Action

Dr. Cindy
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To Do or Not Do: Christian Virtue Trains Desire and Intellect toward Right Action

The moment of decision, that pivotal instant caught between “do” or “do not,” is the crucible of human freedom. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, it is not a cold calculation of the intellect alone, but a dramatic interior contest in which reason, will, and the sensitive appetite confront one another. In that instant, the passions—movements of the sensory soul toward or away from perceived goods and evils—rise with particular force. Whether those passions are rightly or poorly disposed determines, in large measure, whether the person chooses the true good or settles for a lesser one. 

Aquinas distinguishes two classes of passions. The concupiscible passions concern goods or evils taken simply: love and hatred, desire and aversion, joy and sorrow. The irascible passions concern goods or evils that present difficulty: hope and despair, fear and daring, anger. Both sets are natural to human nature; neither is evil in itself. Rightly disposed—that is, following the judgment of reason and moderated by the virtues—they become powerful allies of the will. A rightly ordered desire for health strengthens the resolve to forgo an immediate pleasure; a rightly ordered hope sustains perseverance through hardship. Poorly disposed, the same passions disorder the soul. An unchecked desire for sweetness blinds the intellect to long-term consequences; an excessive fear of discomfort paralyzes the will before a necessary act of self-denial. The quality of the passions at the moment of choice therefore shapes the very options the intellect presents, and the ease or difficulty with which the will elects among them. 

Concupiscence lies at the root of this struggle, since in its broadest sense it is simply the appetite for what is agreeable to the senses. After the Fall, however, concupiscence has become disordered. Original sin left the sensitive appetite no longer perfectly subject to reason. As a result, the concupiscible passions in particular tend to surge toward immediate sensory goods with a vehemence that can cloud judgment. Aquinas is careful here: concupiscence does not destroy freedom. The will remains free, and the intellect retains its capacity to deliberate. Yet the struggle is real and continuous. The human person experiences an interior conflict between the higher inclination of the rational appetite toward the universal good and the lower pull of the sensory appetite toward particular, present pleasures. This is the daily warfare of the Christian life: not a battle between good and evil in the absolute sense, but between a lesser good that is vivid and near and a greater good that is perfect yet more remote. 

Consider the ordinary yet revealing example of a person trying to lose weight to avoid the necessity of insulin injections. Before him sits a piece of cake. The cake is not evil; it is a genuine good. Its sweetness delights the taste, its texture affords sensory pleasure, and the act of eating it produces a momentary joy. The concupiscible passion of desire is therefore rightly awakened by a true good. At the same time, the greater good of bodily health, the avoidance of chronic disease, and the preservation of long-term freedom from medical dependence stand before the intellect as more excellent still. Both objects are goods; the conflict is not between good and evil but between two goods ranked hierarchically. The cake is good in the order of immediate sensory delight; health is good in the order of the whole person ordered to his ultimate end. 

In this moment the irascible passions may also be evoked. The difficulty of refusing the cake can arouse fear of deprivation or despair of ever achieving self-mastery. Conversely, a rightly disposed hope can fortify the will, and a moderated daring can move the person to confront the hardship of self-denial. The outcome depends on whether the passions are ordered by reason or allowed to dominate it. If the concupiscible desire for the cake is poorly disposed—if it is allowed to magnify the pleasure and minimize the cost—the intellect may temporarily judge the cake the greater good, and the will follows that distorted presentation. If, however, the passions remain subject to reason, the intellect continues to hold the greater good clearly in view, and the will, strengthened by the virtue of temperance, elects the higher object. 

Temperance is precisely the virtue that disposes the concupiscible appetite rightly. It does not extinguish desire; it orders it. The temperate person still feels the pull of the cake, yet that pull no longer tyrannizes his judgment. Interior control, then, is not the suppression of passion but its education. Through repeated acts of choosing the greater good, the passions themselves are gradually reformed. What once required intense effort becomes, over time, almost connatural. The struggle does not disappear—Aquinas never promises a life free of interior conflict this side of heaven—but it grows less violent and more readily resolved in favor of reason. 

Yet even the virtuous person does not rely on natural powers alone. Aquinas insists that the full healing of concupiscence and the perfect ordering of the passions require the grace of Christ. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity elevate the will beyond the natural hierarchy of goods and orient it to the ultimate Good, who is God Himself. In the light of that final end, the cake and even bodily health take their proper places. The struggle at the moment of decision is thereby transformed from a mere contest of self-control into an act of love: the free preference of the Beloved over every lesser satisfaction. 

Thus the drama of human choice, as Aquinas presents it, is neither tragic determinism nor effortless autonomy. It is the free yet embattled exercise of a will that stands between the pull of disordered concupiscence and the call of the greater good. When the passions are rightly disposed, they serve reason; when poorly disposed, they obscure it. Between the two goods of sensory pleasure and integral health, only one is higher, and the capacity to recognize and choose it is the measure of interior freedom.  

In the decisive words of Joshua 24:15—”As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”—we encounter not merely a private vow but a deliberate, public act of the will that subordinates every lesser allegiance to the one true God. This declaration reaches its true fulfillment when the choice itself becomes habitual and joyful: a well-disposed passion that orders the affections, so that the heart spontaneously and steadily prefers the greater good of God above all competing goods. Cultivated within the household, such a rightly ordered desire transforms service from external duty into the free, loving orientation of the entire person and family toward the supreme Good who alone is worthy of undivided devotion. 

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