Along with five environmental groups, the Native Village of Nuiqsut is challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s approval of ConocoPhillips’ exploratory drilling program this winter in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
North Slope
Federal agency delays final environmental review of Alaska’s gasline project
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission attributed the delay to the state’s gasline corporation.
Alaska’s oil production future could be bright, but it’s also unpredictable
Oil from new fields could boost the state’s production, but predicting when they’ll come online — and how much money the state will bring in — is tricky.
ASRC, after backing Dunleavy’s campaign, blasts his oil tax redistribution plan
ASRC president and CEO Rex Rock Sr. said: “Trying to balance a state budget on the backs of the Iñupiat people across the Arctic Slope is a wrongsided attack on our region.”
With winter snow trails, North Slope Borough hopes to offer residents a safe path over tundra
“Near-deaths and freezing, running out of gas are some of the issues surrounding being able to go between communities,” said Gordon Brower, director of the North Slope Borough’s Planning and Community Services Department.
Sweeping budget lowers spending on schools, university, Medicaid, ferries
Dunleavy says his budget would ensure that the money the state spends matches the money it brings in — without new taxes, PFD cuts or drawing down savings.
How Alaska school districts planned to spend that $20 million
Gov. Michael Dunleavy proposed doing away with $20 million in education funding approved by the Legislature in 2018. Superintendents and lawmakers say school districts were counting on that money, and many have already started spending it.
U.S. Air Force ‘barren lands’ survival course teaches how to stay alive in Arctic wilderness
Survival course trainees are exposed to subzero temperatures and winds that gust up to 30-plus miles an hour. “They don’t go back inside after they come out here and begin the training,” said instructor Sgt. Garrett Wright.
Don’t count on oil to bail out Alaska’s budget soon, says unpublished state tax memo
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska is a hot area for oil development right now. But don’t count on new production there to bail out the state budget any time soon. That’s the takeaway from a previously unpublished, two-month-old analysis drafted by former independent Gov. Bill Walker’s administration.
With spring whaling around the corner, sinew thread makers are hard at work
“Everything just falls into place,” says Nancy Leavitt of the hard work involved in sinew thread making. “The problems, the stress, the thoughts you have. Most of them just disappear.”