The race horse Sovereignty galloped to a commanding victory at Churchill Downs in the 151st Kentucky Derby, leaving the pre-race favorite, Journalism, to write its own race recap for near-miss glory.
Journalism, despite 3-1 odds and a compelling narrative leading up to the race, couldn’t quite craft the fairy-tale ending on the sloppy track. While Journalism wrote the lead early on, it was Sovereignty’s late burst, after trailing the majority of the race, that clinched the win for the underdog.
According to theCourier-Journal, all the horses who ran the race were descendants of the famed racehorse Secretariat. Sovereignty was sired by Into Mischief. A $2 bet on Sovereignty paid out $17.92.
Simulated reality? Metaphor of the year? End of fake news? Next race bet: Truth vs. algorithm? Never count on Journalism? The jokes can go on, and some stories just write themselves.
Call it the Etsy tax. Or the Amazon tax — a tax on companies that provide a marketing and logistics platform for small businesses across America.
The Senate Rules Committee’s Senate Bill 113, the proposed tax on the profits of internet-based companies, was heard by the House Finance Committee on Friday. Its presenter, Sen. Bill Wielechowski, told a whopper.
This legislation would amend the state’s corporate income tax code to include out-of-state corporations that are conducting digital business with Alaskan consumers. Think Amazon and Etsy, two online companies that allow small businesses all over the world to have access to the American markets. Whatever portion of profit that Amazon might make from Alaska would be taxed by Alaska.
Alaskans depend heavily on Amazon and other digital platforms to get the goods they need — from medications to top soil, things that are hard to find in rural communities, especially.
But many Alaskans use Amazon Prime, which allows them free shipping. That means the sales to Alaska have a lower profit because people in Nome or Galena can buy top soil from out of state and have it flown in, with the shipping costs all but erasing any company profits. It’s possible that for many Alaska sales, the Lower 48 retailer barely breaks even. This tax could mean that companies start refusing to ship to Alaska.
The bill is projected to generate between $25 million and $65 million annually in new revenue for the State of Alaska — an amount that was once a rounding error in the budget.
SB 113 proposes shifting from the current “cost of performance” method to a “market-based sourcing” approach. This change would tax businesses based on the location of their customers rather than the location of the business itself.
For highly digitized businesses, defined as those deriving 50% or more of their sales in Alaska from intangible property or services delivered electronically, the bill suggests using a single sales factor formula. This method focuses solely on sales to determine tax liability, excluding property and payroll considerations.
In presenting his bill to House Finance Committee on Friday, Sen. Wielechowski said it was the same idea that Gov. Mike Dunleavy Administration had proposed in 2021, when he said he would back a bill that taxed out-of-state businesses doing business in Alaska, if the Legislature took the lead. He’s taking the lead.
“I can’t take credit for this bill. This was not my bill. This was proposed by the Dunleavy Administration a couple of years ago,” Wielchowski said. “And they proposed this idea to the fiscal policy working group.”
It’s false that the governor said he supported this concept. His former Revenue Commissioner Lucinda Mahoney had discussed such a tax at a forum once, but the governor never signed on.
In addition, the Department of Revenue has no understanding of how much this would bring in until FY 28. Wielechowski said the amount is as much as $65 million but it may be closer be $20 million. Few legislators appear to have a solid understanding that Amazon is a platform and that many of the sellers on the platform are very small companies with different taxes that apply to them, depending on their location.
The bill already passed the Senate on a vote of 15-4, with senators casting their votes:
Yeas: Jesse Bjorkman, Matt Claman, Mike Cronk, Forrest Dunbar, Cathy Giessel, Elvi Gray-Jackson, Lyman Hoffman, Scott Kawasaki, Jesse Kiehl, Kelly Merrick, Donny Olson, Bert Stedman, Gary Stevens, Loki Tobin, Bill Wielechowski, and Rob Yundt.
Nays: Shelley Hughes, James Kaufman, Robert Myers, and Mike Shower.
Wielechowski’s bill also increases taxes on oil and gas by changing the formula used to determine what portion of a business’ income is subject to Alaska’s corporate income tax. His changes target how oil and gas producers apportion their income to Alaska by changing the term “business income” to “apportionable income.”
Although the changes are possibly modest for the oil and gas sectors, there are other bills still in the queue by the Senate’s Democrat-led majority that would have a greater impact on Alaska’s producers and job creators, notably:
Senate Bill 112: Proposes reducing the maximum per-barrel oil production tax credits from $8 to $5. The reform aims to create a fairer and more sustainable tax structure for the state and is projected to raise approximately $400 million in new revenue per year. This bill is also sponsored by Sen. Wielechowski.
Senate Bill 92: Applies corporate income taxes to certain S-corporations in the oil and gas sector, specifically targeting companies that make over $5 million in taxable income. Called the Hilcorp tax because it targets one company, the measure is expected to generate as much as $175 million in revenue. It was originally sponsored by Sen. Rob Yundt of Wasilla, who later took his name off the bill. SB 92 awaits a hearing in Senate Finance Committee after passing Senate Resources Committee.
It’s unclear if food and medications purchased through Amazon would be considered part of the taxable base of businesses in the SB 113 tax, which if enacted, would take effect on Jan. 1, 2026.
SB 113 seems destined to pass the House, and it appears to have several Republicans supporting it, as they did in the Senate, as it is seen as an “easy” tax that will have no consequence.
However, there may be consequences unforeseen, such as the choice sellers can simply make to not do business with Alaska. Amazon sellers can choose not to sell to the 49th state due to high shipping costs. All they need to do is configure their shipping templates in the Seller Central tab to exclude Alaska by unchecking the state or setting prohibitively high shipping rates for Alaskans. This is sometimes done to avoid losses on heavy or bulky items, where shipping costs to remote areas can exceed profits.
If sellers, who will have the tax passed along to them, start reconsidering their interest in trading in Alaska, this may be one of the unintended consequences of Wielechowski’s Etsy Tax.
In Anchorage this week, former House Rep. Liz Cheney told an audience of Trump haters that only Sen. Lisa Murkowski is a good senator for Alaska. Apparently, she is not so keen on Sen. Dan Sullivan and she said that Republicans deserve to lose the majorities in the House and Senate.
“You have one good senator,” she said, after complimenting Murkowski profusely, and giving a backhand to Sullivan, who is up for reelection in 2026.
Cheney was paid over $151,000 by the University of Alaska Anchorage to travel to Alaska to trash Republicans as part of the university’s public lecture series. She spent an hour on stage with former NPR reporter Elizabeth Arnold, who asked her softball questions.
The university was effusive in its praise of Cheney, in this promotional note prior to her arrival: “Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney is at the fulcrum in our political divide. Displaying courage, discipline, and integrity in the wake of a national crisis, Cheney’s actions during her last term in Congress laid bare her commitment to country and democracy over politics—and they pose new questions about the future of the American two-party system. Hear Cheney tell the stories of how she arrived at her personal convictions, her remarkable career in Congress, and the road that lies ahead. Her insight into policy, principled leadership, and the future of bipartisanship is unparalleled.”
It was clear from the start that only those who agree with Cheney would be attending, and they packed the Atwood Concert Hall at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.
Cheney lost her reelection bid in Wyoming last year, as her voters were fed up with her constant attacks on Republicans. In 2021, her own state Republican Party voted to not recognize her as a Republican.
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, chaired the House Republican Conference, the third-highest position in the House Republican leadership, from 2019 to 2021, and she served as the vice chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
Cheney has long blamed Trump for inciting what she called an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and said that he “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.”
Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, called Trump the greatest threat to American democracy. In 2024, he said, “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.” Both Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris for president, and Liz Cheney campaigned with Harris.
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was perhaps the last of the great pianist-composers whose line stretched back to Mozart and Beethoven. The kind of musician whose craft demanded instruments of commensurate quality, the world’s finest pianos: Steinway & Sons. Rachmaninoff called them “perfect in every way.” Part of that perfection was owed to the uniquely excellent acoustic qualities of the Sitka spruce used to build the soundboards.
But not just any tree will do. To achieve its trademark warm, rich tone, Steinway requires spruce sourced from Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, which is today supplied exclusively by Viking Lumber. Located on Prince of Wales Island, it is one of the last sawmills standing in the state and the only one in the U.S. capable of meeting Steinway’s needs.
Now, Viking is threatened with extinction by the caprice of the U.S. Forest and Wildlife Service. In a complaintfiled in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, the sawmill’s attorneys stated that “decades of federal overreach, broken promises, and dereliction of statutorily mandated duties by executive branch agencies have slowly decimated this once thriving industry—jobs continue to evaporate, and many livelihoods have been lost.”
Filed on March 6, the lawsuit against the Forest Service also names the Alaska Forest Association and Alcan Timber as plaintiffs. They are being represented pro bono by Pacific Legal Foundation.
Viking employs 46 people year-round in a small, isolated community, but the ripples of its influence and operations reach much further than that. Everything from helicopter blades to garage doors and the wind tunnels used by our nation’s space agency is made with the lumber it sources in Southeast Alaska. There are hundreds of people—contractors, union workers, storefront businesses—across the country who depend on the sawmill.
In 2016, the US Department of Agriculture enacted a management policy to transition from sales of old- to young-growth timber while promising the availability of a certain amount of old-growth timber from the Tongass on a fixed, annual schedule. The plan was to gradually shift to young-growth timber without inadvertently wiping out an entire industry in Southeast Alaska.
But the Forest Service never kept its promise. According to the complaint, the federal government “ended the harvest of old-growth timber promised in the plan unilaterally—through guidance—without going through proper rulemaking channels.”
“The USDA and the Forest Service have not fulfilled their obligations under either the TTRA” or the 2016 management plan, the complaint states.
The Alaskan timber industry has been the product of compromise for decades. The Forest Service manages the Tongass under rules established by Congress in the Tongass Timber Reform Act. Passed in 1990, it sought to balance meeting market demand for timber with protecting the forest. Notably, the March complaint also states that old-growth timber has “not been offered to a degree” that would meet either the 2016 management plan schedule or the TTRA’s market demand requirement. As a result, the industry has slowly been whittled away.
In 1991, approximately 3,500 people were employed by the Alaskan timber industry. Today, that number has plummeted by 90%.
Viking came to Alaska on a gamble. “I moved my family, sight unseen, in June of ’94,” Kirk Dahlstrom, the general manager of the sawmill’s operations, told Must Read Alaska.
Originally operating in Washington, he made the jump north when the government’s efforts to protect wildlife squeezed the family timber business. Dahlstrom saw a bankrupt sawmill in Alaska and rolled the dice.
Their initial Sitka spruce harvests went primarily to Kawai Musical Instruments in Japan, which, like Steinway & Sons, produces some of the finest pianos in the world. Viking almost immediately struck gold. The gamble paid off.
“In 2016, we became the sole supplier for Steinway,” Dahlstrom said.
That was, of course, the same year the Department of Agriculture decided to enact the new management policy that it never honored. Dahlstrom believes that the agency has been captured over the years by people who go too far in the direction of conservation. Only a fraction of the Tongass is made available for timber management, and Viking harvests a small portion of that each year. The industry that employs Alaskans is at far greater risk than the forest it relies upon.
Fortunately, Viking also entered into negotiations with the Alaska Mental Health Trust in 2016. The Trust Land Office negotiated a 100-million board-foot timber sale with the company, which has helped Viking weather the storm.
But the contract will be completed this year. When that happens, it will put the Dahlstrom family business and all the people employed by it on the brink of disaster.
“We are getting awfully low,” Dahlstrom said.
He praised the state for trying to provide a measure of relief by putting together a “rich timber program.” It will buy them another year at most.
“And then, we’ll be out.”
Dahlstrom is holding out hope that the Forest Service will start producing sales before it is too late. It is another gamble he is being forced to make.
What Dahlstrom and other Alaskans are asking for is for the Forest Service to honor its end of the bargain and not circumvent Congress. All it would take is a change of tune from the new administration.
According to public records dug out by The Alaska Landmine, Alaska Commissioner of Revenue Adam Crum was on an unauthorized vacation to Hawaii when he called up his deputy commissioner, Fadil Limani, and fired him in early April.
In a report sure to make the Dunleavy Administration unhappy, The Landmine brought the receipts showing that Crum didn’t file a leave slip for his trip until after he returned home, and he asked for paid leave; Deputy Chief of Staff Rachel Bylsma denied him that and signed off on his leave slip, noting it was unpaid leave. And although it’s unclear why he fired Limani, writer Jeff Landfield speculates that it was over unknown conversations and developments concerning the Alaska Gasline project.
In political circles, it’s well known that Crum is planning to run for governor in the 2026 election, now that Gov. Mike Dunleavy is finishing his second and final term. The report from the Landmine may complicate the matter for Crum, who started in the Dunleavy Administration as the commissioner of Health and Social Services, managing the crisis created by the Covid pandemic.
Crum and Dunleavy both traveling last week, and Dunleavy has a political action committee, Future 49 PAC, that he is raising money for to support a candidate in the next election. He had a fundraiser on the East Coast for his PAC. There’s no indication yet that he intends to support Crum or Attorney General Treg Taylor, who has also indicated an interest in running for governor.
One of the comments on the Landmine story comes from former Deputy Commissioner of Revenue Brian Fechter, who left shortly after Crum came onboard and who now works in Idaho.
“When I was DC of DOR, Crum told me point blank that he expected me to violate statute to enrich oil companies on public money they weren’t legally entitled to – sounded like they promised to donate to his 2026 election bid. To this day, I get a call every month or so from Tax and Treasury staff telling me about the guy trying to violate statue (sic) to do the craziest stuff. Folks were telling me he tried to get an employee fired at AIDEA for refusing to violate their rules to give the UMV (a company he has financial interest in) a preferential interest rate, he was upset about flying coach and tried to get entry level travel employees fired for not booking luxury accommodations counter to state rules, the list goes on and on,” Fechter wrote.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced Friday a slate of presidential appointments for key Farm Service Agency and Rural Development state director roles.
They include Eric Koan, the new director of Rural Development for Alaska. Koan, of Wasilla, is a graduate of Michigan State University with an Agribusiness Management degree. He was subsequently hired by USDA Rural Development, starting in Michigan and then transferring to Alaska. He retired in 2019 but is coming back out of retirement to work for the Trump Administration.
“When America’s farming communities prosper, the entire nation thrives. This new group of USDA appointees will ensure President Trump’s America First agenda is a reality in rural areas across the country. I am grateful for the leadership of these new state directors and look forward to their work reorienting the agency to put Farmers First again,” said Secretary Rollins.
Rural Development state directors focus on finding ways to empower rural America and unleash economic prosperity.
Under the Biden Administration, the Alaska role was held by Julia Hnilicka. Jerry Ward was the RD director under Trump 1.
The Alaska Democratic Party has appointed Jenny-Marie Stryker as its new executive director, succeeding Lindsay Kavanaugh, who had served in the role since 2019. Kavanaugh left in January for a job with an Anchorage-based public employee union, APEA-AFT.
Stryker has a background in political organizing, communications, and journalism. She previously worked as the political director for the Alaska Center (for the Environment), and worked on campaigns for the Ship Creek Group, a leftist political consulting firm based in Anchorage.
Stryker was a briefly an intern reporter at the Chilkat Valley News in Haines. She came to Alaska in 2017 with a leftist program run by former Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, a Democrat in Sitka.
Her appointment marks a new chapter for the party following the departure of Kavanaugh, who faced legal issues in July 2022. Kavanaugh was arrested near Soldotna and charged with three misdemeanors: driving under the influence (DUI), refusing a chemical breath test, and fifth-degree criminal mischief for unplugging Alaska State Trooper equipment during her arrest. She was detained at the Wildwood pretrial facility in Kenai and later released. Prosecutors dismissed two charges, and she pled guilty to refusing a breath test.
At the time, then-party chair Mike Wenstrup expressed disappointment but supported Kavanaugh, praising her performance and expressing confidence in her continued leadership.
Before Kavanaugh, the party had Jay Parmley as its executive director. Parmley served from 2016 to 2019. His hiring in 2016 sparked controversy because Parmley had been accused of sexual harassment by another male staffer while he was executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party in 2012. Parmley resigned and took the job in Alaska. In a 2012 story by The Daily Caller, a reported claim from an ex-girlfriend, possibly a former student, alleged that Parmley infected her with HIV.
The current party chair, Eric Croft has voiced strong support for Stryker.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Friday a major workforce restructuring that will reduce staffing to levels not seen since the Reagan Administration. The agency says the reorganization will improve operational efficiency and save taxpayers over $300 million annually by the next fiscal year, 2026.
This phase of restructuring impacts several key areas of the agency, including the Office of the Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, and Office of Water. The changes are part of a broader effort to implement President Trump’s Executive Order titled “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative,” which aims to transform the federal bureaucracy and reduce costs.
The current EPA workforce of permanent employees is over 17,000.
“With these organizational improvements, we recommit to fulfilling all of our statutory obligations and exceptionally delivering on EPA’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. “This reorganization will bring much needed efficiencies to incorporate science into our rulemakings and sharply focus our work on providing the cleanest air, land, and water for our communities. It will also save at least $300 million annually for the American people.”
The EPA will establish several new offices as part of the restructuring:
Office of State Air Partnerships within the Office of Air and Radiation, designed to improve collaboration with state, local, and tribal air permitting agencies.
Office of Clean Air Programs, which will focus on aligning statutory obligations with technical expertise for improved transparency and consistency in air regulations.
Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions (OASES) under the Office of the Administrator, which will integrate scientific research directly into regulatory decision-making.
In the Office of Water, regulatory and scientific functions will be more closely aligned, and issues such as cybersecurity, emergency response, and water reuse will be elevated to receive increased resources.
OCSPP will gain over 130 experts in scientific, technical, bioinformatics, and IT fields to address significant backlogs in chemical and pesticide reviews. These include more than 500 new chemicals under review and over 12,000 overdue pesticide decisions. The agency notes that the reorganization will help advance its PFAS testing strategy and better utilize computational tools and artificial intelligence in future reviews.
Earlier this year, EPA began a Reduction in Force as part of the elimination of its Environmental Justice (EJ) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices. Approximately 280 employees were separated, while 175 were reassigned to other offices performing mission-essential functions.
The agency says this is one part of a broader realignment effort and that, once complete, EPA’s overall staffing will reflect the scale it maintained in the 1980s.
House Bill 57 introduces targeted reforms to Alaska’s public education system, including suggested smaller class sizes, increased vocational funding, and reading incentive grants.
However, these measures fail to address the foundational problems plaguing Alaska’s education system: poor academic outcomes, systemic inefficiencies, and top-heavy bureaucratic control.
In 2024, Alaska ranked 51st in fourth-grade reading proficiency with only 22% of students meeting grade-level standards. Eighth-grade reading scores also declined, underscoring systemic instructional failure. Despite HB 57’s attempt to incentivize reading improvements, it does not fundamentally reform curriculum standards, instructional delivery, or the accountability structure that has allowed these deficiencies to persist.
Alaska spends over $20,000 per student, among the highest in the U.S., yet ranks 46th in return on investment. HB 57 increases expenditures with no structural accountability, continuing a pattern of high costs with poor outcomes.
In other words, the Legislature is caving, as it always does, under the NEA-Alaska’s pressure techniques.
This inefficiency is compounded by central administrative bloat and state-directed mandates that limit local responsiveness. Nothing is really changed, just let’s throw more money at the problem.
HB 57 maintains the existing centralized education framework, merely adjusting administrative processes and metrics. It does not empower local districts with meaningful autonomy or give parents greater control over their children’s education. Power continues to reside in DEED and school district hegemonies. Neither have a history of any success in education nor educate children. Reporting reforms and modest charter school updates fall short of enabling flexible, locally driven innovation. Alaska’s education system requires structural reform, not superficial adjustment. Lipstick on a pig or in this case shellac on moose pellets to make a swizzle stick.
Real improvement depends on restoring local control, enforcing academic accountability, and redirecting funding to classrooms and students rather than bureaucracy. Without these changes, HB 57 risks becoming another costly policy with minimal long-term benefit.
The time for bold, systemic correction is now. If HB 57 passes and is fully implemented, Alaska’s public education system may experience modest financial stabilization and program restoration over the next five years, particularly through the $700 BSA increase and targeted incentives like reading proficiency grants. However, without deeper structural reforms—such as curriculum improvements, teacher support, and meaningful local control—academic outcomes will likely remain stagnant, and systemic inefficiencies will persist.
HB 57 may provide short-term relief, but without bold, accountability-driven changes, Alaska risks continuing its pattern of high spending with low educational return.
I’m open to the opportunity of discussing these reforms (review my MRAK opinions especially on the Alaska Education Reform and Local Act), but my concerns are the Legislature has already made up its mind. The sad part is this will impact future Alaskans with no productive future.
