As Gov. Mike Dunleavy reviews the stack of legislation on his desk, a critical June 19 deadline looms. Among the most significant are three major budget bills: the state’s Operating, Capital, and Mental Health budgets. In addition to those, numerous other bills await action — some likely to be signed, others vetoed, and a few potentially allowed to become law without the governor’s signature.
Already, lawmakers have taken the rare step of overriding one of Dunleavy’s vetoes, an increase to Alaska’s education funding formula. Whether the Legislature will take further steps to challenge the governor on other spending matters remains to be seen. A special session to override additional vetoes is possible, though not probable. Such a move would require 40 votes, and several Democrats appear reluctant to pursue that route. More likely, legislators could wait until the 2026 regular session in January, when a joint session could be called to take up veto overrides.
Much of the state’s approved spending this year relies heavily on diverting funds from the 2025 Permanent Fund dividend. Lawmakers allocated roughly 85% of available Permanent Fund available proceeds to state operations, leaving Alaskans with a dividend of just $1,000 — far short of their statutory 50% share. The Legislature also dipped into funds originally intended for college scholarships for Alaska students. The question now is how the governor will see those two funding raids.
Two of the most consequential spending bills have now been formally transmitted to the governor’s office:
HB 53 – Operating, Capital, and Supplemental Budget (Transmitted: May 27, 2025)
HB 55 – Mental Health Budget (Transmitted: May 27, 2025)
Notably absent from the governor’s desk, however, is Senate Bill 113, the controversial internet income tax bill. More than a month after its passage, it still hasn’t been transmitted, suggesting a calculated delay by the Democrat-led majority. Their strategy may be to hold the bill until November, daring Dunleavy to veto it late in the year, with an eye toward overriding the veto during the January session.
Regardless of when it reaches his desk, SB 113 appears destined for a veto. The only question now is when that battle will begin.
The Alaska Center, formerly the Alaska Center for the Environment, has officially secured majority control of the Chugach Electric Association Board of Directors following the 2025 election, which ended May 30. The control by the leftists of Alaska’s largest utility will influence how it governs for years to come and may eventually lead to power insecurity in the Railbelt.
With the election of Katherine Jernstrom to a four-year term, five of the board’s seven directors were endorsed by The Alaska Center.
That gives the group a solid 71.4% majority, with serious implications for future energy policy, ratepayer impacts, and the political influence of the board.
Katherine Jernstrom, Director – Alaska Center-endorsed
Only Dan Rogers and Sisi Cooper are independent of pressure from The Alaska Center. The rest owe their seats to a powerful leftist coalition that includes the Renewable Energy Alaska Project (REAP) and wealthy labor unions such as IBEW 1547 and the AFL-CIO.
These coordinated endorsements on Alaska’s largest utility’s board consistently deliver 6,500 votes in elections that typically see about 10,000 to 11,000 votes cast.
For example, when Bettina Chastain, an independent candidate in 2023, Susanne Fleek-Green got 6,700 votes, Jim Nordlund received 6,400, and Chastain came in with 6,200, beating The Alaska Center’s Shaina Kilcoyne’s 6,000 votes. In 2024, when Alaska Center’s Mark Wiggan ran, he received 6,400 votes, and this year Katherine Jernstrom pulled out 6,500 votes.
The membership of Chugach Electric Association is not quite 90,000. The participating voters, just 11–12% of eligible cooperative members, determine the outcome. For a regular candidate running independently, breaking through is nearly impossible without matching the Democrat-identifying coalition in both funding and visibility. The high turnout for board seat elections came in 2023, when 15% voted. This year’s election season at Chugach Electric Association was more subdued.
In 2024, Dan Rogers pulled off a rare upset by unseating then-chair Sam Cason. But Rogers was uniquely positioned. He is well-known in the electric utility sector, a former Chugach Electric employee, and was able to finance a significant campaign. Chastain, once a longtime board chair, also managed to win in 2023 by spending her own money and benefiting from name recognition. But even she barely edged out an Alaska Center-backed challenger.
Now, with Jernstrom’s win, the door has effectively closed on independents. The Alaska Center is the new gatekeeper.
In utility association elections, there are no campaign finance disclosures, spending limits, or election transparency laws that govern the races. That lack of oversight has allowed advocacy groups to dominate what are supposed to be member-owned cooperatives, and it’s beginning to show.
Readers of Must Read Alaska will recall that The Alaska Center gets funding through the shadowy Arabella Advisors network of donors, with funding coming through subsets that include the Sixteen Thirty Fund and the Tides Foundation, League of Conservation Voters, another 501(c)(4) environmental advocacy group that gets funding from Arabella Advisor groups.
The board’s Alaska Center-aligned majority is expected to push hard for environmental policy priorities, including the controversial removal of the Eklutna River dam, a push that is concerning to ratepayers and those concerned about long-term energy reliability in Southcentral Alaska.
Group photo of The Alaska Center staff and board, which now effectively is the puppet master for Chugach Electric Association.
Meanwhile, the looming natural gas shortage, which is expected to become acute after 2028, demands urgent strategic planning. However, the majority of the board of Alaska’s largest electric utility are firmly anti-fossil fuel and deeply committed to renewables, even as some experts warn that large-scale wind and solar projects for the region are neither economically viable nor technically feasible as replacements.
By resisting cheaper natural gas options in favor of renewables, the board may be steering the utility toward higher rates, less reliability, and costly infrastructure changes that burden ratepayers.
Compounding concerns about the environmentalist takeover of Chugach Electric, board member Susanne Fleek-Green recently took a job as Chief of Staff to Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance. That’s raised eyebrows in the wake of a new Anchorage Assembly ordinance that permitted Assemblywoman Anna Brawley to also serve as partisan legislative staffers to Democrat Rep. Andrew Gray, who represents Anchorage in the Legislature. Fleek-Green being both on the board of the utility and running the city of Anchorage raises questions about political loyalty vs. sound energy policy.
Katherine Jernstrom’s successful 2025 campaign shows just what has happened to Chugach Electric. She was backed by a long and influential list of endorsers, as published on her campaign website. These endorsers include Democrat Mark Begich, who was the person who negotiated the deal to sell Municipal Light and Power (the Anchorage utility) to Chugach Electric and for whom Fleek-Green was a paid congressional staff member when Mark Begich was in the Senate:
The Alaska Center
IBEW 1547
Alaska AFL-CIO
Renewable Energy Alaska Project (REAP)
Alaska Carpenters Union
Rep. Andrew Gray
Sen. Forrest Dunbar
Rep. Zack Fields
Rep. Carolyn Hall
Rep. Ky Holland
Assemblyman Daniel Volland
Former Anchorage Mayor and U.S. Senator Mark Begich
Former Rep. Jennie Armstrong
Former Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins
Jimmy Miner
Matt McDaniel
Ben Kellie
Jon Bittner
Karen King
Lori Davey
John-Henry Heckendorn
Katie Scovic
Eric McCallum
Andre Horton
Kate Consenstein
Radhika Krishna
Kirk Rose
Laile Fairbairn
Claire Pywell
Gretchen Fauske
Jenna Wright
Brit and Jerrod Galanin
Veronica Slajer
Isaac Vanderburg
Penny Gage
David McCarthy
Bill Popp
As the power dynamic on the Chugach Electric board shifts sharply toward a Green New Deal ideological direction, ratepayers may soon feel the impact in the form of higher bills, costly and unreliable experimentation projects, and fewer checks and balances at the utility’s top level. The governance of Alaska’s utility cooperative is no longer representing the members, but is now representing the Democratic Party and its surrogate — The Alaska Center (for the Environment).
The Alaska Permanent Fund reached a new milestone last week, closing at an all-time high of $83,384,400,000 on Thursday. The figure,published by the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, surpasses the fund’s previous record of $82.1 billion set on Dec. 7, 2021.
The Permanent Fund, managed by the APFC, is a state-owned sovereign investment fund established in 1976 by a constitutional amendment approved by Alaska voters. Its purpose is to invest a portion of the state’s oil revenues to benefit current and future generations of Alaskans.
The fund receives a constitutionally mandated deposit of at least 25% of all mineral lease royalties collected by the state, and its earnings have become a major source of revenue for both the state government and the annual Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) paid to Alaska residents, since Alaskans are not able to own the subsurface mineral rights on their own properties.
Despite the record-high fund value, Alaskans can expect a relatively small dividend in 2025 of $1,000. While the Permanent Fund has grown through long-term investment strategies and market gains, most of the annual draw from the fund’s earnings reserve, set by a statutory percent of market value formula, is being drained off for government spending this year after the Legislature opted to allocate the bulk of the earnings to balance the state budget, leaving only a modest amount for Alaskans.
This year, the Legislature took 85% of the available earnings from the fund for government spending, whereas before 2016, when former Gov. Bill Walker first vetoed half of the Permanent Fund dividends, the split was 50-50, an formula that is still on the books in statute, but that has not been honored since 2016.
The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation operates independently under a board of trustees tasked with managing the fund’s investments across a portfolio that includes public equities, private equity, fixed income, real estate, infrastructure, and other alternative assets. The principal and earnings reserve account vary from day to day but has generally remained over $80 billion for the past year.
The fund’s record high comes amid the public debate over the size of state government and the future of the PFD itself.
I was going to continue writing on the topic of climate by responding to an article from Yereth Rosen on the cost of permafrost related damage, and the response from Rep. Kevin McCabe, but I attended the Commonwealth North Forum on Cook Inlet gas recently and attended another meeting about annual net metering for grid-tied renewable energy. I spent much of one afternoon thinking on both these meetings and the context of Alaska Energy, so changed my immediate plans.
I consider the attitude of Alaskans, and the population nationwide on whether greenhouse gas is the primary cause of warming of our planet or if we have just recovered (or are recovering) from the Little Ice Age, to be most important to developing a proper energy plan.
Those who read my columns know I think that greenhouse gas is not a significant problem and that IPCC and various complicit organizations around the world that manipulate the climate data to enhance the argument of human caused warming through emission of greenhouse gases are misleading the masses. This premise will lead to a totally wrong energy solution as our bulk power generation needs to be based on high energy density fuels.
I have stated in many of my articles that wind and solar are appropriate for locations that do not have high energy density fuels readily available, or where they are prohibitively expensive. I also promote residential and commercial solar projects which are connected behind the meter, or on the load side of the meter.
Utility scale wind and solar projects installed in Alaska must be thoroughly thought out and properly engineered on both the Utility side and the Solar/Inverter side to be truly beneficial to Alaska. There are complexities of Inverter Based Resources (IBR), which are generally using variable sources of energy (wind and solar). Problems in states with high IBR penetration and the recent power outage in Spain and Portugal should give pause to consideration of increased use of utility scale IBR without providing inertia and long term energy storage (i.e. not batteries) with the design of new installations. Geothermal, tidal and nuclear power are three alternate sources we can look forward to that will provide less variable power that would more sustainable and resilient than wind or solar power.
Now back to Alaska energy and how to move forward.
We learned at the Commonwealth North “Energy on the Edge: Future of Cook Inlet Gas” that to provide confidence to utilities that we have enough gas on hand, we need to drill more wells.
But drilling more wells just to have in reserve does not pay for those wells if they don’t flow gas. We need a financial mechanism that provides financial resources to the producer to cover the expense of drilling new wells. Legacy financial institutions have been influenced by ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) policies and are less likely to finance any hydrocarbon fuel projects in the recent past. That influence is still present.
So let’s try something different. A few years ago I thought that venture capital could be set up in Alaska so that individual citizens of Alaska could invest in a venture capital fund so they could earn from Alaska projects. Each Permanent Fund dividend recipient could be allowed to designate a portion of their annual dividend to a venture capital fund that could provide financing to particular Alaska projects.
This Cook Inlet gas drilling effort could be one of those qualified projects. Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority could manage the fund and provide financing to gas producers in Cook Inlet to encourage drilling enough holes to provide more certainty of gas reserves to provide the confidence needed. So we are on our way to secure our future with Cook Inlet gas.
Next, the Alaska LNG project can help with our Railbelt energy issues by accelerating the North Slope-to-Fairbanks gas pipeline to get gas into Fairbanks and the rest of the interior sooner than later. With natural gas in Fairbanks, a new natural gas fueled power plant could be built, which would provide less dependence on power from the south and reduce the demand on Cook Inlet gas for energy for the Interior.
I still recommend large long duration energy storage to enhance the ability to save summer solar for use in the winter or other times of need. Pumped hydro seemed to be an ideal means to store renewable energy at the time of generation, and to store the potential energy for a long time, (i.e. many months). No one seems to be very excited about pump hydro, but we’ll leave that tool on the table for use eventually.
The non-hydro energy storage means are all still fairly short duration. Batteries are not long duration and cannot discharge at significant rates for any significant length of time, so we should not build very many battery energy storage systems (BESS). We just need to install sufficient BESS to provide system stability for the utility without much consideration for the variable energy sources to be installed. We need to focus on non-hydro long duration energy storage to be installed through-out the Railbelt to have an energy source available for whatever part of the system is islanded from the Railbelt grid and these energy storage devices can drive rotating machines to ensure there is inertia in that part of the system that will allow existing and normal controls and protection means to function properly.
As I have mentioned before, the island of Kauai can use BESS with their solar because the sun will be there every day, for about the same amount of time every day and it will not be freezing. Here in Alaska, I continue to advocate for storage of the solar energy for those cold stormy days. If the utility scale wind and solar can directly feed storage and then have the energy released through a high inertia rotating machine we can definitely improve our sustainability and resilience.
Of immediate importance is that Alaskans in leadership positions must look at the available data to determine how realistic the climate crisis concerns are. My findings show that while the average annual temperature may be increasing slightly, the high temperature is not increasing over historical norms. The high annual average gets higher when less cold temperatures in the winter while summer temperatures remain in their historical normal range. We need people looking at the impact of the Little Ice Age and make a determination of whether or not our present condition is just a recovery from that era. I have been following the jet stream movements the last three or four years and it sure looks like the unusual weather across the country and the world is driven by the changes in the jet stream. If that is the cause of the “climate problems,” then our focus needs to be on adapting and preparing for the impact of high rainfall, high winds, or lack of rainfall.
Planning for the future of our energy and power systems is simplified if we truly understand our weather and our climate.
Robert Seitz is a professionally licensed electrical engineer and lifelong Alaskan.
A fatal helicopter crash on Alaska’s remote North Slope claimed the lives of two men who were experts in their fields: Shiloh Schulte, 46, a shorebird biologist from Maine, and Jonathan Guibas, 54, an experienced helicopter pilot recently hired by a Wasilla-based aviation company.
The crash occurred on June 4 about 25 to 30 miles southwest of Deadhorse, near Kuparuk. The Robinson R66 helicopter, operated by Pollux Aviation, departed from Prudhoe Bay around 10:40 am under special visual flight rules clearance, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The aircraft was supporting a wildlife research mission when it went down.
Schulte, a senior scientist at Manomet Conservation Sciences based in Plymouth, Massachusetts, had traveled to Alaska for fieldwork. According to the organization, he was en route to deploy recording devices on shorebirds as part of an ongoing research effort. Schulte was known nationally for restoring populations of the American oystercatcher and for his broader work in shorebird conservation. He lived in Kennebunk, Maine, where he had previously served on the town’s Select Board, and was the father of two daughters.
“Shiloh was a deeply respected member of the Manomet Conservation Sciences team, whose passion for shorebird conservation and unwavering commitment to protecting our planet inspired everyone fortunate enough to work alongside him,” the nonprofit said in a statement.
Also killed in the crash was pilot Jonathan Guibas, who had recently joined Pollux Aviation. Guibas had a long and accomplished career in rotorcraft aviation, with prior experience as chief helicopter pilot and operations officer at Protocom Aviation, and leadership roles at Skyland Aviation Services and Hampton Roads Helicopters in Virginia. Before relocating to Alaska, he had lived in California, Guam, and Virginia. His mother told Alaska Public Media that he had only recently moved to Wasilla to begin work with Pollux.
The wreckage was located by North Slope Borough Search and Rescue teams, and recovery operations began on June 6. The helicopter is being transported to Deadhorse as part of the ongoing NTSB investigation. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
President Trump officially ordered deploying 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles after violent protests broke out in the city over the weekend following a series of high-profile US Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that swept through commercial areas of the city on June 6.
ICE agents arrested 121 individuals during operations targeting locations such as a Home Depot in the Westlake District, a fashion retailer in the Downtown Fashion District, and a clothing warehouse in South LA.
The agency said the arrests included immigrants with prior criminal convictions, including charges related to drug trafficking and assault. However, the enforcement actions provoked a wave of unrest, with demonstrators gathering in major intersections by Friday evening and continuing through Saturday.
What's happening in Los Angeles tonight is a billion times worse than January 6th. Call in the National Guard, make thousands of arrests, and hold them all with no bail until the next election. The January 6th detainees set the precedent. pic.twitter.com/O3wipqRT93
Protests intensified in areas like downtown Los Angeles and the Paramount area, where crowds threw concrete chunks, eggs, and fireworks at law enforcement. Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, and pepper spray. The Los Angeles Police Department declared multiple unlawful assemblies, and the County Sheriff’s Department deployed less-lethal munitions to disperse demonstrators.
At one flashpoint, more than 1,000 protesters surrounded a federal building, violently clashing with ICE officers and damaging property.
A statement from the White House characterized the deployment of he National Guard as a response to “violent mobs threatening federal officers and facilities.”
“The President will not tolerate insurrection in our streets,” said White House senior advisor Stephen Miller in a press briefing. “We are restoring law and order.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who would normally be in charge of the California National Guard unless the president takes over that role, criticized the move as “purposefully inflammatory,” asserting that the National Guard presence would escalate tensions rather than quell them. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also condemned the raids.
“These actions sow terror in our neighborhoods,” Bass posted on social media. “They do not make us safer. We will not stand for this.” She added that her office was working with immigrant rights nonprofits to respond. Importantly, she did not say she would work with law enforcement to stop the riots.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security and Trump administration officials have defended the crackdown. Border Enforcement Czar Tom Homan and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blamed Democratic leadership for “emboldening resistance to lawful enforcement” and insisted the operations would continue. In an appearance on Fox News, Homan confirmed that the National Guard would “support ICE and federal authorities in maintaining public order and conducting future operations.”
While the national spotlight is fixed on Los Angeles, sources say ICE has also increased its presence in Anchorage. Over the past two weeks, agents have reportedly conducted spot checks at local construction sites and plant nurseries — industries where the use of illegal immigrant labor is common.
“America is a nation of laws,” the White House said in a statement on Saturday. “We will enforce our immigration laws and protect our communities—regardless of political grandstanding.”
Given the increasingly chummy relationship between the Eklutna Tribe, its casino operation, the Assembly and the Suzanne LaFrance administration, my interest was piqued by an announcement out of the Muni earlier this week of a casino-themed Annual Employee Incentive Awards Night, Nov 1 at the Dena’ina Center. The announcement was sent out to all Muni employees via e-mail.
The thing that makes you go “Hmmm” was the note that “Guest must be 18+.”
There are a few things that would limit attendance to those of legal age (over 18). These include most adult pastimes, some would refer to as vices, most legal, some not, starting the old standby of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Gambling would be on that list, as would adult beverages and tobacco.
The theme of the get together is Casino Royale at a time when the LaFrance Administration and the Assembly are up to their armpits in greasing the skids for the new casino operation by the Eklutna tribe, so the question is obvious.
I asked it in the following e-mail to the HR Director on June 4 at 1323:
Howdy –
Probably ought to log this as an official press inquiry.
I am looking into your announcement of the Annual Employee Incentives Awards Night scheduled Nov 1. The announcement lists the event as an 18+ event, meaning no families with youngsters can attend. What is the reason for this?
The only two things I can think of are either gambling or alcohol, as the Muni doesn’t typically traffic in sex. If it is gambling, is the Eklutna Casino or people involved with it involved in any way? If so, how? If not, precisely what is going on that requires such a prohibition?
I am preparing a piece in Must Read Alaska for the weekend on the event. Your additional information would go a long way to making sure I am accurate in what I am attempting to report. That being said, I need a response by COB Friday.
Thank you for your assistance. I look forward to hearing fr pm from you. Cheers – AG
I received the following from the Human Resources director on June 5:
Thank you for your question regarding the Municipality’s employee awards ceremony and event.
The Annual Employee Incentives Awards is planned and organized by a committee of municipal employees, and the theme, style, and location changes year-to-year. Results of an employee survey last spring indicated that many staff members would like this year’s event to be a more formal-style occasion held at the Dena’ina Center.
The annual event is held to celebrate our municipal employees and is a way to strengthen our team and bring staff together for a fun social event. Fostering a positive and supportive work environment at the Municipality is essential for promoting employee retention and delivering the best possible services to our community.
This event will be a plated dinner and is scheduled to run into the late evening at the Dena’ina Center. The cost to attend is $50 per person, and it is an optional event for municipal employees. There will be a no-host bar on site serving alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, with bartenders performing I.D. checks.
The event is casino-themed, with tokens and games, and there will be no gambling of actual money. The gaming theme offers a way to hold a fun and engaging event in a lighthearted and interactive atmosphere. This event aims to promote team building and camaraderie among our different departments. The Native Village of Eklutna is not involved.
I certainly appreciate the quick response which seems to answer all my questions. Should be an interesting event especially if entertainment changes a bit over the course of the next four months. I look forward to hearing what goes on afterwards.
One of the lessons learned over the last decade dealing with the Assembly and those connected closely to them (Mayor LaFrance, for instance), is trust but verify.
We are well into the verify part of the discussion today.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
There was a time when federal programs had clear, limited objectives — programs like the Job Corps, designed to offer young Americans vocational training and a path to employment. But over the years, the original mission was quietly stretched by deep state bureaucrats with a liberal agenda.
Today, Job Corps includes housing support, counseling services, and wraparound programs that were never in the original blueprint. This is not an isolated example. It’s part of a larger trend known as “mission creep,” and it is costing the American taxpayer dearly.
Federal bureaucrats, often insulated from elections and accountability, have enormous discretion in how these programs evolve. They can add services (and forced education like DEI), expand eligibility, and reinterpret mandates, all without a vote in Congress. It is no surprise that programs grow beyond their scope. Bureaucrats do not spend their own money; they spend ours. And with little oversight from Congress, expansion becomes the default.
We see the same pattern in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, better known as WIC. What began as a basic nutritional aid program has expanded into a sprawling system that includes everything from breastfeeding peer counselors to state-specific initiatives with little measurable return on investment. Each well-intentioned layer adds cost and complexity, yet oversight remains minimal.
Then there’s USAID, the United States Agency for International Development. It is one of the worst offenders. Originally meant to support nations in crisis, USAID has become a bureaucratic behemoth spending billions on long-term development projects such as DEI education and LGBTQ support in foreign countries, many of which yield questionable results. From failed agricultural projects in sub-Saharan Africa to redundant health initiatives in Central America, USAID operates with virtually no accountability. Add to the billions in foreign aid funneled into unstable regions, and we find ourselves bankrolling inefficiency on a global scale while our own infrastructure and veterans go underfunded.
Bureaucratic expansion happens for a few simple reasons. First, there is a built-in incentive for bureaucrats to grow their agencies. Bigger budgets mean more influence and more job security. The National Taxpayers Union has documented how agencies justify budget increases by adding responsibilities and staff, often duplicating existing efforts. Second, political pressure from advocacy groups and elected officials often encourages expansion. Programs get loaded, often with no clear program association, with extras to appease interest groups and constituents. Finally, there is the, often times genuine, perception that new or emergent challenges must be addressed, even if they fall outside a program’s original scope (again, DEI).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is another example. Originally established to combat communicable diseases, the CDC has taken on workplace safety, obesity, and even gun violence research. These might be serious issues, but they are not within the CDC’s founding mission. Meanwhile, the agency was an utter failure, during COVID-19, performing its core function of disease control. By broadening its scope, the CDC diluted its focus and weakened its performance, even as its budget ballooned to nearly $12 billion.
The Federal Reserve has also wandered far from its lane. Since the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed has engaged in direct credit allocation, studied inequality, and ventured into climate change policy. These are not monetary policy. When the Fed speaks on social issues, DEI, and ESG, it raises questions about its neutrality and credibility, all while expanding its power without direct accountability to the American people.
Mission creep is not always easy to see. It often unfolds slowly, behind closed doors, under the radar of the average taxpayer. But its effects are real. Budgets swell, programs become unfocused, and the cost of government rises. Worse, it erodes public trust. When agencies do too much and achieve too little, Americans rightly wonder whether their money is being used wisely. And then there are those who complain when a service they have come to expect is cut.
Oversight is supposed to be Congress’s job. We have committees for that very purpose. But the reality is far less reassuring. Congressional oversight suffers from resource constraints, limited expertise, and shifting political priorities. Committees are often understaffed and overwhelmed. Complex programs require specialized knowledge that few lawmakers possess. Oversight rarely wins headlines or re-election campaigns.
Meanwhile, federal spending surges. In 2025, the federal budget will top $6 trillion. A significant portion of that goes to programs that have strayed far from their original missions. Add the $34 trillion national debt and interest payments that will burden our children, and it becomes clear that mission creep is not just a bureaucratic problem. It is a taxpayer problem. And It’s a national problem and a national disgrace.
We cannot afford to ignore this any longer. Reform starts with reclaiming congressional authority. Agencies must be held to their statutory mandates. If expansion is necessary, it should go through Congress, not through regulation. Second, we need transparency. Every federal program should be subject to routine performance audits and cost-benefit analyses – programs and projects must have a discernible Return on Investment. And third, we must demand that spending reflects American priorities. Before sending billions overseas or funding redundant federal programs, let’s take care of our own.
This is not about gutting government. It is about restoring focus and discipline. Programs should do what they were designed to do — no more, no less. When unelected bureaucrats chart their own course, the American people lose control of their government. And when Congress fails to hold them accountable, it fails in its duty to the taxpayers.
Mission creep might be gradual, but its impact is enormous. The time to push back is now. Demand an ROI!
Kevin McCabe serves in the Alaska Legislature on behalf of Big Lake.
The National Park Service officially opened the Richard Proenneke cabin for the summer season last week, welcoming the first visitors of the year to one of Alaska’s most iconic and remote historic sites.
A group of military veterans joined park rangers in a ceremonial raising of the American flag beside the hand-built log structure on the shores of Upper Twin Lake, marking the start of the 2025 season.
The cabin, in the heart of Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, is open for self-guided tours daily from 10 am. to 4 pm through the summer. Park rangers are on site to offer historical context and answer questions about the life and legacy of Richard Proenneke, the man who constructed the cabin and lived there alone for nearly three decades before he died of a stroke at age 86 on April 20, 2003.
Dick Proenneke was a Navy veteran, naturalist, and master craftsman who became a symbol of self-reliance and wilderness stewardship. In 1968, at age 51, he arrived at Twin Lakes with the goal of living simply and more closely with nature. Over the course of that first summer, he built the now-famous log cabin, using only hand tools and local materials. He documented his efforts in detailed journals and 16mm film, which later formed the basis for the PBS documentary Alone in the Wilderness.
Proenneke, born in Iowa in 1916 and never married, lived in the cabin year-round, recording daily weather patterns, wildlife behavior, and natural changes in the landscape. He left his cabin in 1999, and spent the last four years of his life living with a brother in California but his detailed writings and films became important cultural and ecological records, and his lifestyle has inspired many others.
The cabin was designated a National Historic Site in 2007, and it remains a testament to craftsmanship, endurance, and harmony with nature. Visitors to the site can view Proenneke’s tools, furnishings, and original construction features, all preserved just as he left them.
Lake Clark National Park is accessible only by boat or small aircraft, and the journey to Upper Twin Lake is a pilgrimage for many seeking to walk in Proenneke’s footsteps.
This year, the presence of military veterans during the opening added a layer of reflection and honor to the occasion, underscoring the enduring respect for Proenneke’s life of service, solitude, and stewardship.
For more information about visiting the Richard Proenneke cabin or planning a trip to Lake Clark National Park, visitors can contact the National Park Service or visit nps.gov/lacl.
