Alaska

Environmental groups file new challenge to yet-unbuilt Alaska LNG export project • Alaska Beacon

Published

2 years ago

May 31, 2024

Environmental groups file new challenge to yet-unbuilt Alaska LNG export project • Alaska Beacon

Two environmental groups filed a new legal challenge to the Biden administration’s approval of a yet-to-be-built project that would send the Alaska North Slope’s vast reserves of natural gas to markets.

In a petition filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club argued that federal agencies failed to properly consider harms that the massive natural gas project would cause to Endangered Species Act-listed animals living in the affected marine areas: polar bears, Cook Inlet beluga whales and Eastern North Pacific right whales.

The petition was filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, along with the agencies’ parent departments, the Department of the Interior and Department of Commerce.

The Biden administration last year renewed an approval of exports from the project, which has been pursued in various forms since the 1970s but never built. The current plan is being promoted by the state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corp. It proposes a 42-inch-diameter pipeline running about 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope to tidewater at Cook Inlet, where a new facility would convert the product to liquefied natural gas and load it onto tanker vessels for export to Asian markets.

The Biden administration’s most recent approval, which follows numerous other permits and approvals over the years, was based on flawed biological reviews, the environmental groups argued.

“The rubber-stamp approval of the Alaska LNG project was reckless in many ways,” Sierra Club Alaska Chapter Director Andrea Feniger said in a statement. “The project will be devastating to vulnerable wildlife already struggling to face the catastrophic impacts of climate change. The agencies responsible for assessing the impacts on whales, polar bears, and other species neglected to take proper care in evaluating the full scope of harm Alaska LNG will cause.”

The lawsuit comes about a week after a different case was filed that challenges the project. On May 22, a group of young Alaskans sued the state to block the project because of its anticipated carbon emissions and impact to climate change. That case was filed in Alaska Superior Court in Anchorage.

The cases are unrelated and the timing of the two is coincidental, said Kristen Monsell, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. However, “it just goes to show how damaging this project would be in a variety of different ways,” she said by email.

The environmental groups’ legal claim was filed directly in the appeals court, bypassing lower courts, in accordance with the Natural Gas Act, Monsell said.

Under the act’s judicial review provision, challenges to permits for LNG projects other than those issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are to be filed directly in appeals courts in which projects are located, she said.

A rare North Pacific right whale is seen swimming in Alaska waters in this undated photo. The whale, spotted during a scientific survey conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is demonstrating the distinctive V-shaped exhale for which right whales are known. Environmentalists challenging approvals for Alaska liquefied natural gas exports say the state’s yet-unbuilt pipeline project could harm the critically endangered Eastern North Pacific right whale population. (Photo provided by NOAA Fisheries)

A previous lawsuit challenging the export approval was filed last August by the same environmental groups in a different court. That challenge, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Energy, alleged that federal approval decisions overlooked both climate and nonclimate environmental impacts of the yet-unbuilt LNG project. That lawsuit remains pending; the most recent action was a series of briefs filed by opposing parties earlier this month.

A spokesperson for the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., responding to the latest legal challenge, said numerous reviews have already found the project to be worthwhile.

“Alaska LNG has withstood intensive environmental scrutiny by two successive administrations because of its obvious and abundant benefits, which include reducing global emissions by up to 2.3 billion tons, strengthening allied energy security, and finally ending longstanding air quality problems plaguing Interior Alaska villages and communities,” corporation spokesperson Tim Fitzpatrick said by email.

The Alaska North Slope has about 35 trillion cubic feet of known natural gas reserves, with more than that believed to exist in different areas of the region, including both conventional sources that would be produced through normal drilling technology and unconventional sources that would require more advanced techology, according to the U.S. Geological Survey estimates.

While oil has flowed from the North Slope since 1977, the natural gas that exists in the same fields has been stranded without a market and without any means of delivery to a market. The natural gas that is pumped up with oil in the North Slope fields is mostly reinjected into the ground to help push up more oil.

State, federal and industry officials have for decades pursued plans for pipelines to send that natural gas to markets – including a plan that was endorsed by then-President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s – but none has proved economically feasible.

The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. estimates its plan would cost $39 billion.

The Alaska Legislature, in its operating budget passed earlier this month, appropriated money to continue the state-owned corporation’s operations through the fiscal year starting on July 1.

Legislators allocated about $2.5 million in general-purpose state money to the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., less than the $4.5 million the corporation had requested at the start of the session. The corporation can also spend up to $3.1 million from a special gasline-specific account, under the operating budget.

Earlier in the session, some lawmakers expressed skepticism about continued state funding of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. and its efforts.

Reporter James Brooks contributed to this article.

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Alaska

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

Published

7 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

SAND POINT, Alaska (KTUU) – A teenage boy who was last seen Monday when the canoe he was in tipped over has been found by a dive team in a lake near Sand Point, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Alaska’s News Source confirmed with the person, who is close to the search efforts, that the dive team found 15-year-old Kaipo Kaminanga deceased Thursday in Red Cove Lake, located a short drive from the town of Sand Point on the Aleutian Island chain.

Kaminanga was last seen canoeing with three other friends on Monday when the boat tipped over.

A search and rescue operation ensued shortly after.

Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team posted on Facebook Thursday night that they were able to “locate and recover” Kaminanga at around 5 p.m. Thursday.

“We are glad we could bring closure to his family, friends and community,” the post said.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated when more details become available.

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Alaska

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

Published

19 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

iStock / Getty Images

This is a tax tutorial for gubernatorial candidates, for legislators who will report to work next year and for the Alaska public.

Think of it as homework, with more than eight months to complete the assignment that is not due until the November election. The homework is intended to inform, not settle the debate over a state sales tax or state income tax — or neither, which is the preferred option for many Alaskans.

But for those Alaskans willing to consider a tax as a personal responsibility to help fund schools, roads, public safety, child care, state troopers, prisons, foster care and everything else necessary for healthy and productive lives, someday they will need to decide on a state income tax or a state sales tax after they accept the checkbook reality that oil and Permanent Fund earnings are not enough.

This homework assignment is intended to get people thinking with facts, not emotions. Electing the right candidates will be the first test.

Alaskans have until the next election because nothing will change this year. It will take a new political alignment led by a reality-based governor to organize support in the Legislature and among the public.

But next year, maybe, with the right elected leadership, Alaskans can debate a state sales tax or personal income tax. Plus, of course, corporate taxes and oil production taxes, but those are for another school day.

One of the biggest arguments in favor of a state sales tax is that visitors would pay it. Yes, they would, but not as much as many Alaskans think.

Air travel is exempt from sales taxes. So are cruise ship tickets. That’s federal law, which means much of what tourists spend on their Alaska vacation is beyond the reach of a state sales tax.

Cutting further into potential revenues, state and federal law exempts flightseeing tours from sales tax, which is a particularly costly exemption when you think about how much visitors spend on airplane and helicopter tours.

That leaves sales tax supporters collecting from tourists on T-shirts, gifts for grandchildren, artwork, postcards, hotels, Airbnb, car rentals and restaurant meals. Still a substantial take for taxes, but far short of total tourism spending.

An argument against a state sales tax is that more than 100 cities and boroughs already depend on local sales taxes to pay for schools and other public services. Try to imagine what a state tax piled on top of a local tax would do to kill shopping in Homer, already at 7.85%, or Kodiak, Wrangell and Cordova, all at 7%, and all the other municipalities.

Supporters of an income tax say it would share the responsibility burden with nonresidents who earn income in Alaska and then return home to spend their money.

Almost one in four workers in Alaska in 2024 were nonresidents, as reported by the state Department of Labor in January. That doesn’t include federal employees, active-duty military or self-employed people.

Nonresidents earned roughly $3.8 billion, or about 17% of every dollar covered in the report.

However, many of those nonresident workers are lower-wage and seasonal, employed in the seafood processing and tourism industries, unlikely to pay much in income taxes. But a tax could be structured so that they pay something, which is fair.

Meanwhile, higher-wage workers in oil and gas, mining, construction and airlines (freight and passenger service) would pay taxes on their income earned in Alaska, which also is fair.

It comes down to what would direct more of the tax burden to nonresidents: a tax on income or on visitor spending. Wages or wasabi-crusted salmon dinners.

Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.

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Alaska

Nome brothers summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, carry Alaska flag to third major peak

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Nome brothers summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, carry Alaska flag to third major peak

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Two brothers from Nome recently stood at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, planting an Alaska flag at 19,000 feet above the African plains.

The Hoogendorns completed the seven-day climb — five and a half days up and a day and a half down — trekking through rainforest, desert, and alpine terrain before reaching snow near the summit. The climb marks their third of the world’s seven summits.

Night hike to the top

The brothers began their final summit push at midnight, hiking through the night to reach the top by dawn.

“It was almost like a dream,” Oliver said. “Because we hiked through the night. We started the summit hike at midnight when you’re supposed to be sleeping. So, it was kind of like, not mind boggling, but disorienting. Because you’re hiking all night, but then you get to the top and you can finally see. It’s totally different from what you’d expect.”

At the summit, temperatures hovered around 10 degrees — a familiar range for the Nome brothers. Their guides repeatedly urged them to put on jackets, but the brothers declined.

“We got to the crater, and it was dark out and then it started getting brighter out,” Wilson said. “And then you could slowly see the crater like illuminating and it’s huge. It’s like 3 miles across or something. Like you could fly a plane down on the crater and be circles if you want to. Really dramatic view.”

A team of 17 for two climbers

Unlike their previous expeditions, the brothers were supported by a crew of 17 — including porters, a cook, guides, a summit assistant, and a tent setup crew.

The experience deviated from their earlier climbs, where they carried their own food, melted snow for water, and navigated routes independently.

“I felt spoiled,” Wilson said. “I was like, man, the next mountain’s gonna be kind of hard after being spoiled.”

Alaska flag on every summit

Oliver carried the same full-size Alaska flag on all three of his major summits, including in South America and Denali in North America, despite the added weight in his pack.

“I take it everywhere these days,” Oliver said. “It’s always cool to bring it out. And then people ask, you know, ‘where’s that flag from?’ Say Alaska.”

When asked about his motivation for the expeditions, Wilson said “I guess to like inspire other people. Because it seems like a lot of people think they can’t do something, but if you just try it, you probably won’t do good the first time, but second time you’ll do better. Because you just got to try it out. Believe in yourself.”

Background and next goals

The Hoogendorns won the reality competition series “Race to Survive: Alaska” in 2023. In 2019, they were the first to climb Mount McKinley and ski down that season. Oliver also started a biking trip from the tip of South America to Prudhoe Bay with hopes of still completing it.

Kilimanjaro is their third summit. The brothers said they hope to eventually complete all seven summits, with Mount Vinson in Antarctica among the peaks they are considering next… all while taking Alaska with them every step of the way.

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