Alaska
Industry disputes Interior Department’s rationale for canceling Alaska offshore lease sale
Industry teams and a few Republicans are disputing the Biden administration’s justification for pulling the plug on the offshore lease sale in Alaska’s Cook dinner Inlet, which it stated was canceled “because of lack of trade curiosity.”
Each have argued power corporations and different events did need the sale to maneuver ahead and that the one option to gauge curiosity within the sale correctly would have been to carry it and permit power corporations to supply bids.
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The Inside Division confirmed late Wednesday it will not transfer ahead with work on three offshore lease gross sales, one for acreage in Cook dinner Inlet and two off the Gulf Coast, the final excellent gross sales outlined within the present five-year offshore leasing program.
Kara Moriarty, president and CEO of the Alaska Oil and Gasoline Affiliation, stated the administration’s reasoning on Cook dinner Inlet was “disingenuous” and pointed to feedback she filed with the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration in December wherein she expressed her group’s assist for the sale.
“We definitely stated, ‘Hey, we assist having a lease sale transfer ahead,’ and as a commerce affiliation, we do not put out any feedback until, clearly, nearly all of our members assist that,” she informed the Washington Examiner.
Moriarty additionally echoed the response of Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), who criticized the cancellation and stated “solely holding a lease sale” would finally illustrate corporations’ degree of curiosity.
“In case you actually need to know if an organization is enthusiastic about selecting up leases, maintain the lease sale. There’s nothing that claims you’ll be able to’t maintain it after which no one present,” she stated.
Moriarty additionally likened competitors over acreage to a recreation of poker wherein power corporations are sometimes not ready to “present their hand” and reveal publicly whether or not they intend to bid or not beforehand.
The Inside Division didn’t disclose the way it decided the extent of trade curiosity to be missing, however it is not a novel justification, one thing the Bureau of Ocean Power Administration famous in an replace to the lease sale’s webpage printed Friday.
The Inside Division canceled a lease sale for Cook dinner Inlet in 2011 for a similar cause. Then, in 2017, the division went on to award 14 tracts masking 76,615 acres within the inlet.
As for the 2 Gulf lease gross sales canceled Wednesday, the administration stated it is not going to transfer ahead due to “delays because of elements together with conflicting court docket rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease gross sales.”
The administration is presently engaged in a number of energetic lawsuits affecting the leasing program. It’s interesting a ruling delivered final June that enjoined the federal government from implementing a blanket pause on each onshore and offshore leasing.
Decide Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee, dominated in that case that federal regulation requires the federal government to carry lease gross sales, and administration officers have cited that ruling as a justification for shifting ahead with lease gross sales since.
In one other case, the American Petroleum Institute is interesting a federal decide’s ruling that threw out the lone offshore sale carried out final yr.
The Nationwide Offshore Industries Affiliation argued that the sum of litigation mustn’t have disrupted the gross sales. BOEM minimize the method off earlier than finishing draft environmental opinions for both sale.
“They completely may have executed the environmental work for these lease gross sales,” stated Erik Milito, NOIA’s president. “There was completely nothing that held them again with regards to the court docket choices, or the underlying statutes, when it got here to getting this work executed.”
The Biden administration has been below competing pressures in latest months concerning the right way to transfer ahead on the leasing program with oil and gasoline costs excessive and rising to document ranges.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Environmental teams have been lobbying the administration to maintain President Joe Biden’s marketing campaign promise of ending drilling on federal lands and waters as a option to mitigate local weather change, arguing the federal government has the discretion to carry no gross sales in any respect.
Some are additionally making the case that the Inside Division’s subsequent, and presently delayed, five-year plan for the offshore program, which the division should finalize as a way to maintain lease gross sales, ought to merely be printed with none lease gross sales in it.
In the meantime, Republicans and a few Democrats need Biden to make extra lands and waters accessible to curb costs and cut back worth shocks.
Senate Power and Pure Sources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-WV) said the three cancellations are “simply terrible.”
Alaska
Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport busy with holiday travelers
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) -Many of the people arriving to and departing from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport Sunday agreed that Anchorage’s main airport isn’t as tough to navigate as most right now.
On Dec. 22, three days out from both Hanukkah and Christmas, travelers at the airport were lined up, checking in, waiting for baggage, or going through security; all of those, demanding a wait. However, several travelers told Alaska’s News Source about their experiences and what they were expecting during their flights.
Matt Howard departed from Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina around 5 a.m. “It was the busiest I’ve ever seen it,” Howard said. He estimated he touched down in Anchorage around 6 p.m., adding Ted Stevens was much “less frantic” than the other airports he was at, but thought the evening time frame might have been a contributing factor.
Flying in from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, Kimberly Lamar said she visits her mother in Alaska at least once a year.
“It was pretty overwhelming, trying to get through from Atlanta,” she said. “Then I got to Seattle; it was hard to get through to the gates of Seattle. And finally, this is the easiest airport I’ve actually been in all day.”
Born and raised in Alaska, Gideon Mahoney was traveling to Colorado where he recently relocated. “I’m actually really surprised, right now it’s easy and we were a little late, so…” Mahoney said, glancing at the line for security.
Growing up in Alaska, Mahoney said flying into Denver International Airport can be overwhelming at times.
“We’re working on figuring out how to deal with that,” he said. “We’re getting it.”
As for travelers who haven’t left just yet, Lamar’s advice was aligned with a prepared statement from Alaska Airlines: both said arriving early is the key for holiday travels.
“If you’re flying, make sure you leave early because those lines are crucial,” Lamar said.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
Copyright 2024 KTUU. All rights reserved.
Alaska
Hydroponics provide year-round growing for Alaska farmers
On a recent December afternoon, Soldotna farmer Taylor Lewis preps for a day of harvesting crops. She walks to a tray filled with ripe lettuce and snips a head of it by the stem.
It’s just one of about 900 plants that Taylor and her mother-in-law Jayme Lewis will harvest and process this week – despite freezing temperatures and slushy snow outside. That’s because the duo works for Edgy Veggie, an indoor farm that grows produce year round.
“In the summer, a lot of our business drops off because folks are gardening at home. But in the winter, they’re not, because it costs money to heat your greenhouse,” Jayme said. “It costs a lot of money to heat your greenhouse.”
The company is a hydroponic farm, meaning they grow plants without soil. Hydroponic systems recycle and reuse nutrient-filled water, which minimizes waste. Specially made lighting and climate controlled conditions make it possible for Edgy Veggie to grow indoors during the winter months.
Around Thanksgiving, the company harvested 150 pounds of lettuce, enough to make about 800 salads. That took two days and was one of their biggest hauls of the year. Although not a typical harvest for the company, Jayme says she does see an uptick in business during the winter when Alaska’s produce is almost exclusively shipped up from the Lower 48.
“If you go to the grocery store and pick up a head of lettuce right now, by the time you get it home it will be wilted,” Jayme said. “That’s sad. Literally, that’s sad.”
Jayme says some local restaurants have sourced their vegetables from Edgy Veggie because they last longer and are fresher than grocery store produce.
Nestled between two train cars-turned-restaurants on the other side of town, Henry Krull walks inside his shipping container farm. He points to a wall that’s growing hundreds of bunches of butter lettuce.
Krull is the owner of fresh365, another Kenai Peninsula based hydroponic farm. Just like Edgy Veggie, the farm operates entirely indoors.
“The advantage of growing indoors, in a container like we have, is that we can control the environment,” Krull said. “We can grow no matter what’s going on outside. It can be 30 below outside, but it’s always 70 degrees or so inside.”
fresh365 also sees an uptick in direct-to-consumer sales in the winter. Otherwise, most of their sales go to other businesses, like local restaurants.
And while indoor farming means fresh, local produce year-round for Alaskans, it faces a number of challenges. Krull says growing in a hydroponic setting is much more expensive than traditional farming methods. So, to offset his farm’s energy costs, he installed solar panels, which were partially funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP.
But, Krull says the property doesn’t get much sunlight in the winter.
“The sun is a very valuable commodity, it’s valuable for not only producing electricity, but it helps to lower the energy costs,” he said. “And the energy costs of the farm containers we have is actually very, very high, because we can’t take advantage of the sun.”
Edgy Veggie, on the other hand, doesn’t even have solar panels. Jayme says their energy costs are high year round.
“Electricity, especially, is outrageous,” she said. “I wish that the state had some sort of option with the electric companies to help support farming. We’re providing a service to the community, honestly. We’re trying to, but it might run us out of business.”
Other challenges to hydroponics include faulty pumps and timers, ventilation issues and water leaks. Like traditional farming, hydroponic farmers say it’s backbreaking work.
But, for farmers like Taylor Lewis, offering fresh and local produce year round is a labor of love.
“Being able to supply our community with anything fresh is great,” Taylor said. “What we have as options in the grocery store – it’s not cutting it.”
“These belong in every community,” Krull said. “We’ve been able to prove that as a business model, it works. You can make a profit doing it, you can provide a good service to your community, and I think we can really do good for our community by providing something that is not readily available on a year-round basis.”
According to the U.S Department of Agriculture, only 5% of food Alaskans consume is grown locally. The state also has very short growing seasons.
Alaska
Nature: Northern Lights above Alaska
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