Juneau blends towering glaciers, the Tongass National Forest and rich Indigenous culture.

Juneau, Alaska, is the only U.S. state capital not accessible by road — a remoteness that adds to its magic and appeal.

Nestled between mountains, rainforest, and the waters of the Inside Passage, Juneau combines Alaska Native heritage, Gold Rush history, and some of the state’s most spectacular scenery.

Visitors can watch humpback whales surface offshore, ride a tram above downtown, stand face-to-face with or even on Mendenhall Glacier, a river of ice flowing from the vast Juneau Icefield. Surrounded by the Tongass National Forest — the world’s largest temperate rainforest — Juneau offers a quintessential Alaska experience where nature feels immense, and adventure begins just minutes from the cruise dock.

Why Juneau matters

Long before prospectors arrived in search of gold, the area now known as Juneau was home to the Áak’w Kwáan, whose name for this place — Áakʼw, often translated as “little lake” — reflects a deep connection to the surrounding land and water.

• Arizona is home to several roller coaster attractions, including two mountain coasters.
• The Canyon Coaster Adventure Park is located in Williams, Arizona.
• The Sunrise Apache Alpine Coaster is at Sunrise Park Resort near Greer.

Despite its desert reputation, Arizona has several exciting roller coaster attractions that make it a fun destination for thrill seekers. One of the best-known rides is the Desert Storm coaster at Castles N’ Coasters in Phoenix.

Arizona is also home to two popular mountain coasters located in the cooler mountain regions of the state.

Mountain coasters are gravity-powered rides built along hillsides or mountains. Riders sit in individual carts attached to a track and control their own speed using hand brakes. Unlike traditional roller coasters, mountain coasters often wind through forests and natural scenery, creating a mix of adventure ride and scenic experiences.

And Arizona is lucky enough to have two mountain coasters. Here’s how to visit.

What roller coaster is in the mountains in Arizona?

There are two mountain coasters in Arizona: the Canyon Coaster Adventure Park in Williams and the Sunrise Apache Alpine Coaster at Sunrise ski resort.

By Dan Walters, CalMatters

This commentary was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Two decades ago, when California got serious about reducing or even eliminating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, its political leaders weighed two potential tactics about industrial emissions.

The state could impose direct facility-by-facility limits, generally favored by climate change advocates. Or it could set overall emission reduction goals that would gradually decrease and auction off emission allowances, assuming their costs would encourage reductions.

The latter, known as cap-and-trade, was favored by corporate interests as being less onerous and was adopted, finally taking effect in 2012.

Since then, the California Air Resources Board has conducted quarterly auctions of emission allowances, collecting a total of $35 billion dollars so far, which, in theory, is being spent on projects that would reduce emissions.

The revenues have varied from year to year, but they have generally increased as the emission caps have declined. Since reaching a peak of $8.1 billion in the 2023-24 fiscal year, however, auction proceeds have been declining.

Roughly half of the money has been given to utilities to minimize cap-and-trade’s impact on consumer costs. However, the program has been widely criticized as a de facto tax on gasoline and other fuels, which were already among the most expensive of any state.

The remaining revenues have been deposited into a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that governors and legislators have tapped for various purposes, not all of them connected to emission reductions. In a sense, it’s been a slush fund.

Last year Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature overhauled the program in two bills, Senate Bill 840 and Assembly Bill 1207. The program was extended, it was renamed as cap-and-invest and new priorities for spending auction proceeds were set.

Notably, the state’s cash-strapped and long-stalled bullet train project would get a flat $1 billion a year, rather than the 25% share it had been getting. Project managers hope that lenders will advance enough money to complete its first leg in the San Joacim Valley; the plan is to repay the loans from the $1 billion annual cap-and-invest allocation.

Early this year, the Air Resources Board released new regulations to implement the legislative changes but faced criticism that they would increase consumer costs. That led to a revision in April that softens the rules’ impact — most obviously on refiners who have been threatening to leave California — but environmental groups are very critical.

The April version would also sharply reduce net revenues from emission auctions, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, providing barely enough for the $1 billion allocation to the bullet train and another $1 billion for the governor and Legislature to spend. Other programs that have been receiving cap-and-invest support, such as wildfire protection and housing, would probably get nothing.

The program has been tapped in recent years to backfill programs that a deficit-ridden state budget could not cover, so the projected revenue drop would exacerbate efforts by Newsom and legislators to close the state budget’s yawning gap.

“The (Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund) is a relatively small portion of the overall state budget, but it has been a noteworthy source of funding for environmental and other programs in recent years,” the state Assembly’s budget advisor, Jason Sisney, says in an email. “Collapse of its revenues would change the state budget process noticeably. The state’s cost-pressured general fund seemingly would be unable to make up much, if any, of a significant (Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund) revenue decline at this time.”

When Newsom presents his revised budget this week, he may reveal how he intends to cover the cap-and-invest program’s shortfall, particularly whether he will maintain the $1 billion bullet train commitment that project leaders say is vital to continuing construction of its Merced-to-Bakersfield segment.

It could boil down to bullet train vs. wildfire protection.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.