Alaska’s legislators received their office assignments for Juneau from their House and Senate Rules Committee chairs. The Legislature gavels in on Jan. 21.
House office assignments:
Senate office assignments:
Legislative look-ahead: Pre-filed bills and fundraisers
Alaska legislators are filing early bills and resolutions for the coming legislative session, which begins Jan. 21, 2025 in Juneau.
On Tuesday, Dec. 31, they’ll have their first deadline for the pre-filed bills, which will then be then published by the Legislative Affairs Agency on Jan. 10.
A second pre-file deadline is Jan. 14, for release to the public on Jan. 17.
The 34th Alaska Legislature will gavel in on Tuesday, Jan. 21. That means for the next three weeks, legislators and their staff will be packing personal belongings and office materials to be sent to Juneau, and legislative staff in Juneau will be preparing for the major move of offices. With the House having been taken over by the Democrat-led majority, most, if not all members’ offices will be moving, with Republicans issued the smaller offices to accommodate the smaller staffs that they will be afforded this session.
Meanwhile, the Alaska House Democrats will have a fundraiser in Anchorage on Jan. 9 to start protecting their majority in the next election, two years away. Sponsors for the House Democrat Majority fundraiser include Rep. Calvin Schrage, who has been the Democrat minority leader the past two years, while he presents himself to voters as an unaligned legislator.
The Republicans will have a joint House and Senate Leadership Fund fundraiser when they get to Juneau, with the annual event scheduled for Jan. 20, the night before the legislative session starts. Once the legislative session starts, all fundraising by incumbent legislators must end, whether in Juneau or elsewhere in the state, until the end of session.
On Jan 15, 16, and 17, freshmen legislators will attend all-day orientations in Juneau, so they know how the bill process works, legislative protocols, and where the bathrooms are.
Jan. 21 marks the annual legislative welcome reception by the City and Borough of Juneau and the Alaska Committee, starting at 5:30 p.m. at Centennial Hall. After that, there will be one legislative fly-in and reception after another for the first few weeks of the legislative session, as everyone from fishermen to oilmen visit Juneau and meet with lawmakers and their staff.
Video: What is it like at the helm of an oil tanker? Ask Capt. Eric Cooper
A company video produced by ConocoPhillips gives viewers a glimpse into what it’s like at the helm of the Polar Tanker Discovery, which takes oil from Valdez to West Coast ports. Captain Eric Cooper leads a crew charged with safely carrying oil from Valdez, which is the terminus of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, to West Coast ports.
Built in 2003 and sailing under the flag of United States, the tanker is part of the Polar Tanker fleet consists of five Endeavour Class tankers—the Polar Endeavour, Polar Resolution, Polar Discovery, Polar Adventure and Polar Enterprise.
F.B.I. scientists who suspected Covid came from Wuhan lab were cut out of presidential briefings
Federal intelligence officers and and scientists who recognized evidence that that Covid-19 leaked out of a lab in China were kept away from President Joe Biden and not allowed to offer their theory, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
In August of 2021, intelligence officers from the various spy agencies were invited to a briefing with Biden. The F.B.I. was the only agency in the intelligence community that was supportive of the lab leak theory. The other agencies advocated the theory that the virus jumped from animals to humans, possibly from the Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a nearby live animal and seafood market, where wild animals were sold.
The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed Jason Bannan, Ph.D., a microbiologist who had been with the F.B.I. since joining after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.
He had been investigating how the Covid-19 virus got out of China in 2019.
“Frustrated by China’s stonewalling, President Biden had ordered an urgent assessment by the U.S. intelligence agencies and national laboratories on whether the virus had leapt from an animal to a human or had escaped from a Chinese lab that had been doing extensive work on coronaviruses,” the WSJ reported.
“The dominant view within the intelligence community was clear when Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, and a couple of her senior analysts, briefed Biden and his top aides on Aug. 24. The National Intelligence Council, a body of senior intelligence officers who reported to Haines and that organized the intelligence review, had concluded with ‘low confidence’ that Covid-19 had emerged when the virus leapt from an animal to a human. So did four intelligence agencies,” the Journal reported.
While the F.B.I held an alternative view, no FBI officials were invited to the briefing with the president.
“Being the only agency that assessed that a laboratory origin was more likely, and the agency that expressed the highest level of confidence in its analysis of the source of the pandemic, we anticipated the FBI would be asked to attend the briefing,” Bannan told the newspaper in his first-ever interview. “I find it surprising that the White House didn’t ask.”
Birchwood residents file lawsuit to stop major casino planned by Village of Eklutna
A civil lawsuit filed by residents of Birchwood in the Eagle River area of Anchorage asks the court to declare that the National Indian Gaming Commission has overstepped its authority in approving a casino for Eklutna, a tribal area within the municipality of Anchorage.
The several plaintiffs in the lawsuit say that Sharon Avery, acting chairwoman of the National Indian Gaming Commission, doesn’t understand the history and legal status of what is called the Ondola allotment, which is where the proposed casino would be built.
The issue at hand is that the property is in a neighborhood with very limited, narrow access, and the people who live there would be overwhelmed and harmed by a 50,000-square-foot casino, with 700 video game machines, bingo, pull tabs, a bar and restaurant. Add to that a septic system and drain field to accommodate hundreds of people, a well to provide water, and run-off from a parking lot that would be able to accommodate hundreds of cars, all add to impacts on the environment, the plaintiffs said.
“That will inflict a direct, concrete, particularized, actual, and immediate injury in fact on the plaintiffs in that The NVE [Native Village of Eklutna] intends the seven hundred video gaming machines in its casino to attract hundreds of patrons who seven days a week will constantly travel in automobiles from the North Birchwood Exit of the Glenn Highway down Birchwood Loop Road to Birchwood Spur Road, then past the intersection of Alluvial Street and Birchwood Spur Road, to the casino. And then back again. That will irreversibly destroy the quiet family atmosphere and rural lifestyle in the Birchwood Spur Road neighborhood that the plaintiffs decades ago moved into the neighborhood to enjoy,” the lawsuit says.
The village of Eklutna history is complicated and much disputed, but through the decades and the application of politics has become more of an accepted reality, even though only about 70 people live in the village, it has total of 400 members who live mainly in Anchorage or the Mat-Su Valley. They see this gambling project as economic development for their members.
The village started in about 1897, when a few families of Dena’ina Athabascan Indian descent moved to the area that is 26 miles from downtown. It was a small community and by 1970, there were only 25 listed in the U.S. Census.
In the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), 43 U.S.C. 1609(b)(1), Congress designated the community of Eklutna as a “Native village” to enable residents of the community who were of one-fourth degree or more Dena’ina Athabascan Indian blood quantum to incorporate Eklutna, Inc., and to enable Eklutna, Inc., to be eligible for the monetary and land ownership benefits that ANCSA made available.
1988 the Alaska Supreme Court described Congress’s Alaska Native policy: “In a series of enactments following the Treaty of Cession and extending into the first third of this century, Congress has demonstrated its intent that Alaska Native communities not be accorded sovereign tribal status. The historical accuracy of this conclusion was expressly recognized in the proviso to the Alaska Indian Reorganization Act [of 1936] . . . No enactment subsequent to the Alaska Indian Reorganization Act granted or recognized tribal sovereign authority in Alaska.”
A series of other political and legal events occurred, notably under President Bill Clinton, who appointed Ada Deer as assistant Interior secretary. Deer published a rule saying Native entities within the State of Alaska that were recognized and eligible to receive services from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs included “Eklutna Native Village.” But Assistant Secretary Deer removed from her list Eklutna, Inc., and the other ANCSA village and regional corporations.
The dispute about whether Eklutna qualifies for the jurisdiction of the National Indian Gaming Commission is tied up in these and other legal events that are enumerated in the 34-page lawsuit, which was prompted when in July, the commission said that the Ondola allotment was under its jurisdiction for casino authorization.
The plaintiffs say the members of the Native Village of Eklutna are not a federally recognized tribe whose governing body possesses powers of self-government and is not eligible to conduct gaming pursuant to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The Ondola allotment is not “Indian Country,” the lawsuit says, or “Indian land.”
While the Village of Eklutna has already cleared the land for the casino, the Birchwood Community Council knew nothing of the development that will impact the neighborhood.
The plaintiffs have hired renown Indian law attorney Donald Craig Mitchell to represent them. He is the author of major works on the history of Indian Country in Alaska, and is considered a national expert. A former vice president and general counsel of the Alaska Federation of Natives, which was organized by Alaska Natives in 1967 to fight for land claims settlement, he has been continuously involved, both before Congress and in the courts, in the development and implementation of federal Native policy. In 1997, he represented Sen. Ted Stevens before the U.S. Supreme Court as amicus curiae in Alaska v Native Village of Venetie, which upheld Mitchell’s view that Congress did not intend land conveyed to Alaska Native corporations to be “Indian Country.” He has authored two books and numerous articles on Alaska Native law.
The lawsuit can be read in its entirety here:
Coast Guard, Navy see the start of construction of first U.S. heavy icebreaker in over 50 years
The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy Integrated Program Office announced Dec. 19 the approval to start construction of the nation’s first polar security cutter in more than 50 years. This icebreaker, being built by Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss, will enhance the United States’ ability to operate in the challenging Arctic and Antarctic regions, which are increasingly vital to national security and scientific exploration.
The approval incorporates eight prototype fabrication assessment units, part of the program’s phased approach. These units, either underway or planned, use a “crawl-walk-run” strategy as the shipbuilder refines techniques and gets the workforce skills up to speed before transitioning to full-blown production.
The icebreaker program is, however, behind schedule. It was supposed to have delivered the icebreaker this year, but now it may not be done until 2029. the delays include the fact that Halter Marine, which won the contract out of the five companies that bid on it, was bought this year by Bollinger.
The Polar Security Cutter class addresses the aging state of the U.S. Coast Guard’s operational polar icebreaking fleet, which is down to just one heavy icebreaker, the 399-foot Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, commissioned in 1976, and one medium icebreaker, the 420-foot Coast Guard Cutter Healy, commissioned in 1999.
To supplement the two, the Coast Guard recently acquired a commercially available polar icebreaker, M/V Aiviq, a 360-foot U.S.-built polar class 3-equivalent icebreaker, to bolster presence and mission capacity in the Arctic.
Biden used ‘indigenous knowledge’ to cut Alaska oil and gas. Some tribal leaders are ready for Trump
By NICK POPE | DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION
The Biden administration justified major crackdowns on fossil fuel and mineral development in Alaska by playing up its commitment to Native American tribes, but some community leaders who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation said they did not feel respected by the administration.
Over the course of the last four years, the Biden administration moved to shut down drilling activity on tens millions of acres of land in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A) and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), retroactively canceled lease sales and effectively blocked a major mining project in the state, often touting the administration’s commitment to protecting the environment for native communities in official statements and press releases. However, these actions were a major disappointment to some of Alaska’s natives, who told the DCNF that the administration seems to have mostly ignored their desire to allow development that generates revenues for their communities and that they are ready to work with the incoming Trump administration to strike an appropriate balance.
“With climate change warming the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, we must do everything within our control to meet the highest standards of care to protect this fragile ecosystem,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a September 2023 statement after the administration moved to shield 13 million acres from drilling activity in the NPR-A and retroactively canceled lease sales. “President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history. The steps we are taking today further that commitment, based on the best available science and in recognition of the Indigenous Knowledge of the original stewards of this area, to safeguard our public lands for future generations.”
However, the administration’s deference to “Indigenous Knowledge” did not mean much to some tribal leaders and officials in light of the government’s apparent disinterest in meaningfully engaging with them about key issues related to resource development.
Nagruk Harcharek is the president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, an organization that represents the interests of numerous native communities in the resource-rich North Slope region of Alaska. In his view, the Biden administration was not particularly interested in hearing what his organization had to say about the value of the economic benefits that resource development provides for his community.
“I started here in 2022. The first thing I did was try to get in there and make sure our voices were heard, because what we’re hearing from the administration is that we’re the most tribally-friendly administration in the history of the United States, right? ” Harcharek told the DCNF. “At least from our perspective, that’s not our impression.”
“We’ve always tried to stress that we are part of the environment. We utilize it for subsistence hunting, for our culture, and it’s extremely important to us. We don’t need to be protected from our own environment,” Harcharek continued. “We can make decisions and help administrations make decisions that are both good for the region and also good for the environment and good for the state, good for the nation. And that just wasn’t the case. There was a lack of engagement, meaningful engagement. Oftentimes, we heard of policy changes in the news and not from phone calls from folks, even though everybody has our number.”
Harcharek says his organization attempted to secure a meeting with Haaland on nine different occasions, but only managed to get a chance in June of this year. Other times, the Department of the Interior (DOI) sent staffers or other officials to meet with them, if their outreach to the government was even returned.
“Sometimes we didn’t even get a response from those emails, so saying that they’re the most tribally-friendly and then not speaking to most of our tribes or us in a timely manner or a meaningful manner, the just question is, who are you? Who considers you the most tribally friendly organization? Because it sure isn’t us, or we’re not getting that sentiment,” Harcharek said.
Doreen Leavitt, secretary for the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope (ICAS), also ripped Haaland for lackluster engagement with her community since 2021 and expressed hope that Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — Trump’s pick to replace Haaland — will be a better leader at DOI.
“Secretary Haaland’s leadership for ICAS and our region was not just deeply frustrating, but it was saddening because as an indigenous woman myself, who wants to see other indigenous women in leadership succeed and grow, her lack of respect for our region was frustrating, to say the least, despite her recognition of tribal stewardship, our requests for consultation on critical issues were ignored or dismissed,” Leavitt told the DCNF. “I don’t know much about Secretary Burgum, other than that he comes from the Dakotas, but we will expect the incoming secretary to provide that meaningful consultation, that transparent process and respect for our tribal sovereignty and self-determination and those things we did not see under Haaland.”
Leavitt also explained that resource development has provided the money her community needed over the past 50 years to establish and maintain basic things like running water, school systems, health clinics, emergency services and more.
Without taking a political stance, Leavitt noted that she and her organization are “especially looking forward to having the government-to-government relationship rights respected” by the incoming Trump administration.
Charles Lampe, the president of Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation, said that he and his people are looking forward to Trump’s return to power after sensing that most of his community’s concerns about cracking down hard on resource development were “pretty much just cast aside” by the Biden administration.
“We’re really excited about the next four years. With the previous administration, the Trump administration, we had a great relationship. We just felt like we were actually listened to during that time,” Lampe told the DCNF.
Nagruk Harcharek is the president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, an organization that represents the interests of numerous native communities in the resource-rich North Slope region of Alaska. In his view, the Biden administration was not particularly interested in hearing what his organization had to say about the value of the economic benefits that resource development provides for his community.
“I started here in 2022. The first thing I did was try to get in there and make sure our voices were heard, because what we’re hearing from the administration is that we’re the most tribally-friendly administration in the history of the United States, right? ” Harcharek told the DCNF. “At least from our perspective, that’s not our impression.”
“We’ve always tried to stress that we are part of the environment. We utilize it for subsistence hunting, for our culture, and it’s extremely important to us. We don’t need to be protected from our own environment,” Harcharek continued. “We can make decisions and help administrations make decisions that are both good for the region and also good for the environment and good for the state, good for the nation. And that just wasn’t the case. There was a lack of engagement, meaningful engagement. Oftentimes, we heard of policy changes in the news and not from phone calls from folks, even though everybody has our number.”
Michael Tavoliero: Biden’s presidential pardons bring his mental competency into question
By MICHAEL TAVOLIERO
Our country has witnessed the highest number of presidential pardons in the history of our nation. As of Dec. 12, 2024, President Joe Biden has given 8,027 pardons, commutations and clemencies. On Dec. 23, he granted clemency to 37 men on death row.
We’ve all by now seen memes on social media. We all innately understand that innocent people don’t need pardons. But 8,027 pardons, commutations, and clemencies?
Hunter Biden’s preemptive pardon is the one and only preemptive pardon handed out by outgoing President Biden so far., pardoning him for all crimes known and unknown, and granted to Hunter two weeks before his sentencing for felony firearms charges. Are there other preemptive pardons in the wind?
Historically, past presidents, Republican and Democrat, have issued preemptive pardons.
In 1858, during the “Utah War,” a conflict between Mormon settlers in Utah and the federal government, President James Buchanan, a Democrat, issued a blanket pardon to Brigham Young and others involved in resisting federal authority.
In 1974, President Gerald Ford, a Republican, issued a full and unconditional pardon to his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office as president.
In 1977, shortly after taking office, President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, issued a blanket pardon to thousands of men who had evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.
The courts have held that the presidential pardon power is unlimited except in cases of impeachment (Ex Parte Garfield 1866); is broad and inclusive nature of constitutional authority (Ex Parte Grossman 1925); and not limited to cases where charges have been filed, or a conviction has occurred (Murphy v Ford 1975).
Alexander Hamilton discusses the pardon power in Federalist No. 74, arguing in favor of its inclusion in the Constitution by emphasizing the importance of mercy in the justice system. Hamilton rationalized that a single executive (the president) is better suited to exercise this power than a larger body like Congress, which might be too slow or swayed by factionalism. He argued that there must be a mechanism to mitigate the “rigors of the law” in certain cases where justice would otherwise be overly harsh.
Hamilton points out that concentrating the pardon power in one person ensures accountability. The president’s reputation and legacy are on the line, making them cautious in using this authority.
He also notes that the pardon power can play a crucial role in times of political unrest, such as during insurrections or rebellions, to promote peace and reconciliation.
The anti-Federalists were more skeptical of the broad pardon power, and their concerns appear in various writings, though they do not focus extensively on it. The pardon power could be abused by a corrupt or partisan president to shield allies or accomplices from prosecution.
They worried that this power might enable a president to obstruct justice by pardoning individuals involved in crimes, including those that could benefit the president personally. Further, Cato (likely George Clinton) and Brutus (likely either Melancton Smith, Robert Yates or perhaps John Williams) both saw this broad pardon power as monarchical and an abuse of executive authority. There was a definitive lack of checks on the President’s pardon power.
But what about the questioning of competency when a sitting president exercises such constitutional authority?
While U.S. courts have addressed various aspects of presidential authority and actions, they have generally refrained from directly questioning a sitting president’s mental competency.
The list of some of the sitting presidents who have faced competency questions include James Madison, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and now, Joe Biden.
One of the significant checks comparable to many monarchs throughout history is competency affected by cognitive decline, such as George III of England, Charles VI of France and Caligula to name a few.
As Hamilton states, one person owning pardon power secures accountability, accountability implicitly implies being answerable.
Concerns about President Joe Biden’s competency have been raised in political and public discourse, particularly focusing on his age, verbal and physical incongruities. We as the public have witnessed a variety of verbal and physical gaffes, moments of confusion and other intelligible fog which have fueled our concerns over his cognitive decline.
A December 19, 2024, article by Diana Glebova begins by stating, “White House aides covered up President Biden’s apparent mental decline from Day 1 of his presidency shielding the aging commander-in-chief from the public and even rearranging his schedule after scatterbrained performances, an explosive report revealed Thursday.”
“The bombshell report by the Wall Street Journal revealed that White House aides hid President Joe Biden’s apparent mental decline from day 1 of the presidency. Aides kept meetings short and controlled access, top advisers acted as go-betweens and public interactions became more scripted. Private discussions with the President became less frequent and a voice coach was also hired.”, synopsis 12/19/2024 by The Economic Times.
A former CNN pundit has offered a mea culpa for shrugging off concerns about President Biden‘s mental decline.
Chris Cilizza, who served as CNN’s editor-at-large before leaving the network in 2022, spoke candidly about his lack of journalistic curiosity about Biden’s condition to serve following a pair of damning reports this week from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal that shed light on the president’s diminished state.
“As a reporter, I have a confession to make,” Cillizza began his “apology” on his YouTube channel last Thursday. “I should have pushed harder earlier for more information about Joe Biden’s mental and physical well-being and any signs of decline.”
Today, those concerns take on new urgency. If a president’s cognitive decline affects the ability to exercise sound judgment, can the president responsibly wield the pardon power? Outside of Hamilton’s clear requirement for accountability and the anti-Federalists’ warning on monarchism, the Constitution’s framers did not foresee the intersection of such broad authority with potential mental incapacity, leaving Americans to grapple with these difficult questions.
As we consider the implications of President Biden’s unprecedented use of pardons and the potential of preemptive pardons, the public must reflect on the balance between constitutional authority and presidential competency.
Can a sitting president experiencing cognitive decline effectively carry out the responsibilities outlined in Article II, Section 2, which grants the President the authority to issue reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States?
History, legal precedent, and modern concerns all suggest this is a critical and unresolved issue.
Michael Tavoliero is a senior writer at Must Read Alaska.
Passing: Andy Kriner, restaurant owner who took on an Anchorage mayor’s Covid lockdowns
When former Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz shut down businesses in 2020 over the Covid pandemic, one man’s restaurant stayed open in defiance. Andy Kriner’s establishment, Kriner’s Diner, defied the mayor’s orders, saying they were unlawful.
The code enforcers quickly converged and nailed a “Stop Work” order to his cafe wall. After the enforcers left, a customer tore down the order.
Kriner’s act of civil disobedience was roundly criticized by people like then Rep. Harriet Drummond, a Democrat, and other Democrats. Soon, Berkowitz was begging for a meeting with Kriner.
Andy Kriner, the owner of Kriner’s Diner, died Dec. 21, 2024 of a heart attack, the family wrote on Facebook:
“Dear Kriner’s Diner customers – scratch that – family, because you know when you’re at Kriner’s Diner, you are our family! Unfortunately, we have news that we never thought in a million years we would ever have to deliver…a tragedy hit our family on Saturday, December 21st. Andy Kriner, husband, father, brother, grandfather, son, and friend, has fatally passed from a heart attack.
We know, this will never ever make sense, and, honestly, Andy would tell you that it is not for us to understand, it is only up to the Good Lord to know. Andy is the most God-fearing man, well, besides his dad Norm Blakeley, his mom Sally Hoskins, and his stepmom Barb Blakeley.
“Questions that have come to mind: how is Norann ever going to make it? Do you know Norann Kriner, the strongest woman you will ever meet? God blessed us with a family that is large and in charge, and we all have roles that play a part in keeping things going.
“Another question: are we closing Kriner’s Diner? NO! The last post Andy put on social media was a happy birthday to Jim Meredith, his best friend of 60 years. Poetically, Andy Kriner passed on his best friend‘s birthday, always trying to take that spotlight. All jokes aside, Jim Meredith is a very intelligent man and he has taken over all the strategies to help make Kriner’s Diner work.
“Now, we know we just celebrated Christmas and we’re busy but the Kriner family must move forward. All we ask for at this time is prayers. We need all the prayers our entire family can get.
“We share our sincerest condolences with every single one of you that felt like you were his best friend because that’s exactly how you made him feel. Know that our hearts are with you and you all are in our prayers for comfort and love.
“One last thing, never miss a moment to tell someone you love them!”
Kriner became a folk hero in Alaska in 2020, and his customers/family never forgot his acts of courage. To this day, the diner remains popular with freedom-loving Alaskans.
Read about how Andy Kriner took on City Hall in 2020 and how other businesses followed in the links below.
