Politics
Alaska lawmakers end their session with late bills passing on energy, education
Alaska lawmakers ended their four-month session early Thursday with a flurry of last-minute bills addressing priority issues such as energy and correspondence school programs that are a focus of ongoing litigation.
Bickering over the budget was muted compared with prior years, and Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and legislative leaders claimed successes in a session that was not without drama, marked by twofailed attempts to override Dunleavy vetoes of additional public school funding.
ALASKA LAWMAKERS FAIL TO OVERRIDE OF GOV. DUNLEAVY’S VETO OF EDUCATION PACKAGE
EDUCATION
Education was billed as a top priority, and lawmakers in the bipartisan-led Senate and Republican-led House overwhelmingly passed a compromise package that included a permanent $175 million increase in aid to districts through a school funding formula. But Dunleavy, who had sought charter school provisions and a three-year teacher bonus experiment that divided lawmakers, vetoed the measure.
A veto override attempt failed, along with efforts in the House to cobble together another package. Ultimately, lawmakers settled for pieces including a one-time, $175 million boost to the foundation formula in the budget and additional funding intended to help K-3 students with reading.
Last year, Dunleavy vetoed half of a one-time, $175 million boost to schools but has signaled willingness to support the increase in the just-passed budget.
Sen. Löki Tobin, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said work remained to address issues facing public schools, which “are still going to be struggling” because the funding approved is inadequate. School officials and education advocates had pushed for a roughly $360 million permanent increase in funding.
Tom Klaameyer, president of NEA-Alaska, a teachers’ union, said the Legislature’s failure to reinstate a pension offering for public employees also was disheartening. A pension bill narrowly passed the Senate but stalled in the House. Senate leaders said work would continue around retirement issues.
Late in session, lawmakers pivoted to correspondence schools, which allow for students to be homeschooled under the authority of school districts. That focus came after a judge found that laws around correspondence school allotments “were drafted with the express purpose of allowing purchases of private educational services with the public correspondence student allotments.” Under the state constitution, public funds cannot be paid “for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”
Lawmakers passed a bill with provisions aimed at providing stability for correspondence students while the litigation plays out.
“The idea was to be able to give some peace and calm to the people out there, the 22,000 students, who weren’t sure what was going to happen,” House Speaker Cathy Tilton, a Republican, told reporters early Thursday.
UNDERGROUND CARBON STORAGE
The second of two bills proposed by Dunleavy as a way to capitalize on interest by companies with carbon emission reduction goals passed, allowing the state to establish a system and protocols for underground storage of carbon dioxide, with an eye toward using pore space in aging gas or oil fields, such as Cook Inlet or on the North Slope.
Lawmakers last year passed Dunleavy’s bill allowing the state to set up carbon sequestration projects or to lease state lands to a third party wanting to develop a carbon project. Draft regulations for the offsets program were released in March.
Dunleavy previously pitched the bills as a novel means for Alaska to generate perhaps billions of dollars in new revenue while still embracing fossil fuel production and other resource extraction, such as timber harvests and coal production. But the revenue impact of the proposals remains speculative.
To pay for government, the state relies heavily on oil revenue and earnings from its nest-egg, an oil-wealth fund that has grown through investments. Lawmakers have been reluctant to raise taxes on industries, like oil, and Alaska, with about 737,000 residents, has no statewide sales or personal income taxes.
Rebecca Noblin is the policy justice director with the group Native Movement. In written testimony this month on the underground carbon storage bill, she said the measure “would allow oil and gas companies and coal plants to inject carbon from their operations back into the ground” and will “increase pollution, cost the state money and distract from real solutions to climate change.”
ENERGY
The carbon bill, HB50, also included a provision supporters said could encourage more gas production in Cook Inlet. So-called reserve-based lending would allow for the issuance of loans made against and secured by an oil and gas field, proven reserves or other assets of the borrower. Under the bill, loans could be made by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, a state corporation, for projects it deems necessary to bolster production.
Residents in Alaska’s most populous region rely on gas from the aging Cook Inlet basin. But gas availability has become a concern and was a focal point this session. In February, Luke Saugier, senior vice president for Hilcorp Alaska, told lawmakers that while the company is “not pulling back” on investments in Cook Inlet and is committed to developing its leases, gas under its lease holdings can’t meet all the region’s gas demand. He said other sources of energy are needed.
Sen. Bill Wielechowski, an Anchorage Democrat, said the lending provision could unlock gas fields and end up being “one of the most important things that we have done this year.”
Dunleavy’s office also applauded passage of a separate measure that it says would streamline tax and tariff policies “to make new and existing electrical generation projects more affordable.”
“That in turn incentivizes independent power producers to move forward on renewable power projects like solar and wind farms along the Railbelt,” his office said in a statement.
DIVIDEND
The size of the annual dividend paid to residents has often been one of the major points of contention, contributing to drawn-out or special sessions. But there was little pushback this year, with lawmakers agreeing to a dividend of roughly $1,360 and an energy relief payment of $295.
Legislative leaders pointed to better communication and a balancing of priorities, including what Republican Rep. DeLena Johnson, a House Finance co-chair, called a “solid” state infrastructure budget.
U.S. military forces stopped and boarded a second sanctioned tanker carrying oil from Iran in the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon said on Thursday, ramping up pressure on Tehran as the Trump administration seeks to resume negotiations to end the war.
A naval boarding team roped down from hovering helicopters and fanned out on the vessel, the M/T Majestic X, according to a Pentagon statement that included a 17-second video of the operation.
The military said the boarding was part of a “global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate.”
Earlier this week, Navy SEALS boarded another ship in the Indian Ocean, the M/T Tifani, after the Pentagon said it was carrying oil from Iran.
Navy destroyers are also shadowing several other Iranian vessels, including the Dorena and Sevin, which had left from the Iranian port of Chabahar before the U.S.-imposed blockade began on April 13, a U.S. military official said. The Navy is directing those ships to return to an Iranian port, the official said.
With the M/T Tifani and M/T Majestic X now at least temporarily in the custody of the military, a U.S. military official said it was up to the White House to decide what to do with the sanctioned vessels and their cargo. The administration previously seized several tankers carrying illicit oil from Venezuela after a U.S. commando raid there in January that seized Nicolás Maduro, the country’s president.
“International waters cannot be used as a shield by sanctioned actors,” the Pentagon said in its statement on Thursday, adding that the department would “continue to deny illicit actors and their vessels freedom of maneuver in the maritime domain.”
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hinted last week that the U.S. military would likely commence boarding operations like the ones this week. He said that U.S. military commanders elsewhere in the world, and especially in the Indo-Pacific region, would “actively pursue any Iranian-flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran.”
The U.S. Navy has turned back at least 31 ships trying to enter or exit Iranian ports since an American blockade outside the contested Strait of Hormuz began about a week ago, U.S. Central Command said late Wednesday.
Last Sunday, a Navy destroyer disabled and seized the Touska, an Iranian cargo ship, after it tried to evade the blockade. It was the first time a vessel was reported to have tried to evade the U.S.-imposed blockade on any ship entering or exiting Iranian ports since it took effect last week.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained why President Donald Trump does not consider Iran’s seizure of two ships in the Strait of Hormuz a violation of the ceasefire agreement.
Leavitt made the statement during an interview with Fox News’ Martha McCallum on Wednesday just hours after Iran captured the Greek and Mediterranean-flagged vessels.
“Does the seizure of two ships — as we said, they were Greek and Mediterranean-owned ships with cargo on them, and the reports are that Iran basically seized them and then moved them into Iranian waters. We don’t know what’s going to happen to these crews. We’re not sure where all of this is going. Does the president view that as a violation of the ceasefire?” McCallum asked.
“No, because these were not U.S. ships. These were not Israeli ships. These were two international vessels,” Leavitt responded.
US FORCES ATTEMPTING TO BOARD SANCTIONED RUSSIAN-FLAGGED OIL TANKER IN NORTH ATLANTIC, SOURCES SAY
Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, conducts a press briefing. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“And for the American media, who are sort of blowing this out of proportion to discredit the president’s facts that he has completely obliterated Iran’s conventional Navy, these two ships were taken by speedy gunboats. Iran has gone from having the most lethal Navy in the Middle East to now acting like a bunch of pirates. They don’t have control over the strait,” she continued.
“This is piracy that we are seeing on display. And the naval blockade that the United States has imposed continues to be incredibly effective. And, to be clear, the blockade is on ships going to and from Iranian ports. And the point of this is the economic leverage that we maintain over Iran now. While there’s a ceasefire with respect to the military and kinetic strikes, Operation Economic Fury continues, and the crux of that is this naval blockade,” she added.
The Iranian made ‘Seraj’ a high-speed missile-launching assault boat on display in Tehran on August 23, 2010, as Iran kicked off mass production of two high-speed missile-launching assault boats the ‘Seraj’ (Lamp) and ‘Zolfaqar’ (named after Shiite Imam Ali’s sword) speedboats which will be manufactured at the marine industries complex of the ministry of defense. (YALDA MOAIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said the vessels, identified as the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, were operating without proper authorization and had tampered with navigation systems, accusations that could not be independently verified. The ships had earlier reported coming under fire near the strait, underscoring the increasingly volatile conditions in one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.
US ‘LOCKED AND LOADED’ TO DESTROY IRAN’S ‘CROWN JEWEL’ ‘IF WE WANT,’ TRUMP WARNS
The Guard attacked a third ship, identified as the Euphoria, which had become “stranded” on the Iranian coast, Iranian media reported. It did not seize that vessel.
Ships and tankers in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Musandam, Oman, April 18, 2026. (Reuters)
Both the U.S. and Iranian sides have targeted commercial and cargo vessels as part of a broader pressure campaign tied to stalled negotiations. U.S. forces have also moved to seize at least one Iranian-linked vessel in the region, with each side accusing the other of violating the terms of a fragile ceasefire.
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The Strait of Hormuz is a vital artery for global oil shipments, with roughly 20% of the world’s supply passing through it. Traffic has slowed dramatically as ships reroute or avoid the area amid gunfire, seizures and conflicting directives from both militaries.
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger met privately with President Trump and administration officials Wednesday to press for federal support and yet-unpaid wildfire recovery funding as the region continues to rebuild from the 2025 fires.
“This afternoon we met with President Trump and Administration officials to advocate for families who lost everything,” Bass and Barger said in a statement. “We had a very positive discussion about FEMA and other rebuilding funds as well as the support of the President to continue joining us in pressuring the insurance companies to pay what they owe — and for the big banks to step up to ease the financial pressure on L.A. families.”
Barger said the two leaders had a “high-level discussion” with the president in the Oval Office, sharing stories about what fire survivors are experiencing day to day. She added that “we left details behind with the President,” but did not specify whether Trump made any funding or policy promises during the meeting.
“First and foremost, today’s meeting was to thank the President for his initial support of infusing federal resources to expedite debris removal, as well as his recent tweet about insurance companies, which have already proven fruitful,” she said in a statement provided to The Times.
Bass was similarly reserved about the discussions, telling reporters that “we will follow up with the details,” but signaled progress is being made on federal support.
“I think what’s important is that we certainly got the president’s support in terms of, you know, what is needed, and then the appropriate people were in the room for us to follow up. And that was Russ Vought, who is the head of the Office of Management and budget,” Bass told KNX on Wednesday.
The meeting comes on the heels of a yearlong standoff between California leaders and the Trump administration over wildfire recovery funding, disaster response and whether the federal government should have a say in local rebuilding permitting.
California leaders, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, have accused the Trump administration of withholding billions in critical wildfire aid, prompting a lawsuit over stalled recovery funds. Officials allege political bias in the delay of billions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Newsom visited Washington in December. When he made his rounds on Capitol Hill, he met with five lawmakers, including three who serve on the Senate and House appropriations committees, to renew calls for $33.9 billion in federal aid for Los Angeles County fire recovery.
But the governor said he was denied a meeting with FEMA and would not say whether he had attempted to meet with Trump to discuss the issue.
Bass, meanwhile, appears to have found a path to the president on a subject that has been paramount for her community.
The fruitful meeting comes after Trump lobbed insults at the mayor at a news conference earlier this year, where he called her “incompetent” for how she handled last year’s wildfire recovery efforts. He alleged that under Bass’ leadership, the city’s delay in issuing local building permits will take years when it should have taken “two or three days.”
California officials, including Newsom, have urged the Trump administration to send Congress a formal request for the $33.9 billion in recovery aid needed to rebuild homes, schools, utilities and other critical infrastructure destroyed or damaged when the fires tore through neighborhoods more than 15 months ago.
What Bass and Barger’s meeting with the president ultimately produces remains to be seen.
The billions in recovery aid have not yet materialized, but the meeting could potentially give those discussions new momentum.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment about the meeting.
Earlier this month, Trump criticized insurance provider State Farm on Truth Social for its handling of the devastating Los Angeles County wildfires. He accused the insurance giant of abandoning its policyholders when tragedy struck.
“It was brought to my attention that the Insurance Companies, in particular, State Farm, have been absolutely horrible to people that have been paying them large Premiums for years, only to find that when tragedy struck, these horrendous Companies were not there to help!” Trump wrote.
But the rebuke didn’t come out of the blue. It stemmed from a controversial February visit to Los Angeles by Trump administration officials.
Trump tapped Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in an effort to strip California state and local governments of their authority to permit the rebuilding of homes destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires.
Within the week, Zeldin was in Los Angeles, bashing Newsom and Los Angeles officials at a roundtable with fire victims and reporters, saying that residents were suffering from “bureaucratic, red tape delays and incompetency” and that leadership was “denying them … the ability to rebuild their lives”.
During the trip, officials heard direct complaints from local leaders and fire victims about insurers being slow, restrictive and insufficient with their claim payouts.
After these meetings, Trump directed Zeldin to investigate the insurers’ responses. State Farm, facing roughly $7 billion in fire-related claims, is also under formal investigation by California’s insurance commissioner over its handling of the crisis.
Despite tensions with the administration, Bass and Barger appeared confident that progress was being made on the insurance and funding issues.
“Our job is to fight for our communities,” their joint statement concluded. “When it comes to this recovery, our federal partners are essential, and we are grateful for the support of the President.”
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