The announcement from ConocoPhillips last week that the cost of the Willow project has increased to $9 billion means that state revenues in future years will be lower for longer.

This will add to the Dunleavy deficit projections unless the governor abandons the practice he adopted in the aftermath of the recall movement, ignoring his responsibility and forcing the Legislature to balance the budget.

ConocoPhillips now says the Willow project, about half finished, will cost between $8.5 billion and $9 billion, with oil expected to flow in early 2029.

Read More

Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent, two of the obsequious Yes Men in the Trump cabinet, have repeatedly spread the fantasy that Trump will be able to order Japan and Korea, among others, to pay for the giant Alaska LNG project, which could cost upwards of $70 billion.

It appears someone forgot to tell the Japanese and the Koreans.

Read More

Sen. Dan Sullivan, who is campaigning for reelection, refuses to admit that he is part of the problem in Washington, D.C.

He won’t get away with it.

It’s obvious that while Sullivan likes to complain about the “Schumer Shutdown,” it’s also the “Sullivan shutdown.”

Read More

The exemption for Alaska Natives from the new Medicaid and SNAP work requirements allows Alaska’s Republican congressional delegation to stand before AFN and claim a great political victory from the rules the Republicans insist must apply to other Alaskans because they are “common sense.”

Read More

Asked to provide examples of his writing and editing experience, Aaron C. Peterson, the Sullivan/Trump choice for the federal bench in Alaska, came up with 11 state press releases and a 2005 letter to the editor in which he attacked Democrats and claimed there was not an obesity epidemic in the U.S.

Read More

“Maybe Congress isn’t entirely comatose,” the right-wing Wall Street Journal editors say in an editorial praising Sen. Lisa Murkowski and four other Republicans who joined with Democrats to protest Trump tariff tantrums. Sen. Dan Sullivan can be found in the comatose section.

Read More

Sen. Bill Wielechowski is calling on the suit-happy Dunleavy administration to back a legal claim by 25 states that the Trump administration is violating the law by withholding food assistance money for political purposes.

“Certainly the clear, legal rights of 66,000 Alaskans to feed their families is of at least similar importance to ‘professionals like cake bakers,’’ Wielechowski said in a letter to Dunleavy and Cox.

Read More

Donald Trump, who has repeatedly claimed there is a Japanese joint venture to build the Alaska LNG pipeline, claimed Thursday that China is going to provide lots of cash.

Read More

If U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is right, a big if, the Alaska gas pipeline could be a public works project funded by the Korean government under duress.

I find it hard to believe that the Koreans will do what Lutnick claims and hand over $200 billion in cash, some of which Lutnick claims would go to the Alaska LNG project, making it the most expensive example of government involvement in private industry.

Read More

Sen. Dan Sullivan said he has a “red line” that no Alaska federal judge nominees are allowed to cross.

The Sullivan mandate is that anyone trying to become a federal judge in Alaska cannot be anything like Sharon Gleason, the first woman to serve as a district judge in Alaska.

Speaking to reporters in Juneau seven months ago, Sullivan claimed Gleason has done “more damage to our state that almost anyone” with rulings he doesn’t like.

Read More