Alaska
Inside the 'titanic' legal case that will help determine Alaska's energy future: an analysis
Should Anchorage residents who consume more electricity, and use up more of the region’s dwindling supplies of natural gas, have to pay a higher price to reflect the steeper cost of the imported fuel that will replace it?
How much will developers of wind and solar projects have to pay to move the electricity they generate across power lines they don’t own?
And how can businesses and residents be encouraged to reduce their energy use and thereby delay the need for expensive gas imports?
All those are questions that now must be answered by the gubernatorially appointed members of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, following the recent conclusion of a month-long public hearing.
Their ruling will help decide the future of Anchorage’s energy supply; the price of electricity for the city’s residents, businesses and other users; and the costs that developers of wind and solar farms could face to connect their projects to the grid.
The wide-ranging hearing addressed a request by Anchorage-based Chugach Electric Association, the state’s largest utility and one of its largest buyers of natural gas, to raise its rates for all types of customers by an average of 5.5%.
The proceeding, known as a rate case, involves a sprawling array of subjects connected to Chugach’s operations and its 90,000 members — including efforts to delay the impending depletion of the region’s natural gas deposits.
That’s where a request from Renewable Energy Alaska Project, or REAP, an advocacy group that intervened in Chugach’s case, comes in.
Citing a state law that calls for the “conservation of resources” in electricity generation, the Anchorage-based advocacy group is making an unprecedented request: that the commissioners force Chugach to create a new payment scheme for its residential customers to reward reduced consumption.
Chugach wants to charge those customers 15 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity, regardless of their total use. REAP, with help from the environmental law firm Earthjustice, is asking for two tiers of charges.
The first tier would charge residential customers 13 cents per kilowatt-hour to use up to 450 kilowatt-hours a month — roughly the same amount that the median Chugach member household now uses.
The second tier would boost rates to 17 cents per kilowatt-hour for each one above 450 — an increase of roughly 30%.
That increase, REAP says, would align the second tier with the higher prices Chugach customers will face once the company fuels its power plants with imported liquefied natural gas, instead of local supplies. REAP says the bump in cost would send “an appropriate price signal to consumers.”
“The gas supply crunch will arrive sooner if the commission does not promote conservation of gas through Chugach’s rates,” Hannah Payne Foster, an Earthjustice attorney working with REAP, said in her closing arguments at the hearing last month. “Our proposal is to send real cost signals to consumers that reflect the true cost of their consumption decisions.”
Chugach’s attorney, Dean Thompson, didn’t directly address REAP’s proposal in his closing arguments, and a spokeswoman for the utility, Julie Hasquet, declined to comment.
But in its final written brief, filed last week, Chugach said that REAP’s expert witness, under cross examination, couldn’t predict just how much gas would be saved by the organization’s “drastic and novel recommendations.” The proposal, Chugach added, would “arbitrarily” boost prices above costs and send “signals to consumers that may not be in the consumer’s best interest.”
A $10,000-an-hour hearing
REAP’s proposal is far from the only one that asks the commissioners to adjust the rate increase requested by Chugach: A dozen other parties, from businesses to utilities to government agencies, also intervened in the case.
Each is asking the commission to adjust the proposed rates that Chugach wants its members to pay.
The monthly checks that those members have to write to the utility are not solely tied to the number of kilowatt-hours of electricity each of them uses. Instead, they hinge on complex formulas that divide up the utility’s different cost categories — like fuel, power plant construction and customer service — and assign shares to different classes of members, like residential customers or large users like hospitals and universities.
Though they have drawn little public attention, the technical arguments over those components, and how they’re divided and assigned in the future, have filled hundreds of pages of written testimony to the commission.
That’s in part because of the huge stakes of the rate case, with commissioners asked to decide how to apportion payments of the roughly $260 million in yearly revenue that Chugach needs to operate.
Some of Anchorage’s biggest power consumers — including the federal government, the University of Alaska Anchorage and JL Properties, a major commercial real estate developer — are participating in the case. At the commission’s month-long hearing, so many attorneys and experts were present that one of them referred to the proceedings as “titanic” and estimated they were costing the parties, collectively, some $10,000 an hour.
Several key areas of dispute have emerged since Chugach initially filed its rate request in June 2023.
One is the profit margin that the commissioners allow for Chugach, calculated using a financial benchmark called “times interest earned ratio,” or TIER. Chugach wants to raise its TIER — a ratio expressing how much the utility’s yearly earnings exceed its required debt payments — to 1.75 from 1.55.
Critics, like JL Properties, say the TIER increase would add $9 million to Chugach’s profit margin and isn’t needed because the utility’s financial health is already sound. Chugach argues that the higher TIER would allow it to borrow money at lower rates, better respond to unexpected costs and emergencies and maximize its options as it brings renewable power projects online and contends with the natural gas shortage.
Another major disagreement is over Chugach’s proposed 19% increase in the rate it charges other utilities to ship electricity across its transmission lines.
Chugach says that hike aligns with inflation over the years since the rate last went up, and would help cover the cost of infrastructure Chugach acquired when it bought Anchorage’s city-owned utility in 2020.
That infrastructure sits between a major power plant on the Kenai Peninsula that sometimes ships power through Anchorage toward Fairbanks.
But the city-owned utility did not previously require payment from the other utilities whose electricity traveled across its lines.That’s one of the objections that those other utilities, including Kenai Peninsula-based Homer Electric Association and Fairbanks-based Golden Valley Electric Association, are making to Chugach’s proposed boost in transmission charges.
The other utilities also argue that higher transmission rates will discourage construction of large-scale renewable power projects, which would face steeper costs to ship their electricity through Chugach’s territory.
REAP targets “gas supply crunch”
The proposal from REAP, meanwhile, is most focused on Chugach’s residential customers, as is a proposal from the Alaska branch of the AARP, a group that advocates for the interests of Americans over 50 years old.
Broadly, the two organizations want Chugach’s rates to be more reflective of the overall amount of electricity used by customers and less influenced by other elements of the cost-setting formula — a structure that would give those customers more ability to control the size of their bills.
If adopted by the commission, they say, their proposals would encourage consumers to use less natural gas. They say their proposals would also give Chugach flexibility to tinker with per-kilowatt-hour rates to help match demand with the variable power supplies generated by wind and solar projects.
One of AARP’s arguments targets Chugach’s request to boost its monthly flat-rate, customer service fee for its pre-existing households — those that were members before the 2020 acquisition.
Those pre-existing households had been charged a flat fee, regardless of the amount of power they used, of $8 a month, in addition to their per-kilowatt-hour bills. Chugach now wants to raise those flat fees to $13.68, to match the higher service fees charged to former members of the city-owned utility who are now Chugach customers .
The AARP’s expert witness, in his written testimony, said that proposal could boost overall monthly bills as much as 16% for the Chugach households that consume the least amount of power. The witness, Ron Nelson, proposes that the flat fees instead be set at $10 for both sets of customers.
Both the AARP and REAP also target substantial charges in Chugach’s current pricing formula, and its proposed new one, that are tied to customers’ highest single hour of electricity use over the course of a year.
Those charges are intended to account for the fact that utilities must build and maintain power plants to meet the peak demand of their entire system — even if far less power is being used during the rest of the year. As a result, rates are often designed to assign the cost of maintaining plants to meet peak demand to customers that contribute to that demand the most.
REAP argues that Chugach has long had more than enough generating capacity to meet peak demand — and that its newest power plants were built not to meet its system’s maximum load, but to boost efficiency and reduce fuel consumption.
As a result, REAP argues, the demand charges should be reduced, since the newest power plants weren’t built to meet the system’s peak load. Instead, the group says, Chugach’s rates should be more tightly linked to the overall amount of electricity each customer consumes. That would give customers even more incentive to reduce their power use — and, consequently, Chugach’s use of natural gas.
“We are in a system with significant excess capacity built primarily not to serve peak demand, but to produce energy more efficiently,” Foster, REAP’s attorney, said in her closing arguments. “And this system runs primarily on natural gas, for which we are facing a major supply crunch within this decade.”
The public hearing on Chugach’s requested rate increase ended July 18.
The commissioners are expected to issue their final ruling within the next two months. Any of the parties involved can appeal the decision to the courts.
Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at natherz@gmail.com or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz. Subscribe at this link.
The Bureau of Land Management on Monday said it approved an updated management plan that opens about 82% of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas leasing.
The agency this winter will also hold the first lease sale in the reserve since 2019, potentially opening the door for expanded oil and gas activity in an area that has seen new interest from oil companies in recent years.
The sale will be the first of five oil and gas lease sales called for in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that passed this summer.
The approval of the plan follow the agency’s withdrawal of the 2024 activity plan for the reserve that was approved under the Biden administration and limited oil and gas drilling in more than half the reserve.
The 23-million-acre reserve is the largest tract of public land in the U.S. It’s home to ConocoPhillips’ giant Willow discovery on its eastern flank.
ConocoPhillips and other companies are increasingly eyeing the reserve for new discoveries. ConocoPhillips has proposed plans for a large exploration season with winter, though an Alaska Native group and conservation groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the effort.
The planned lease sale could open the door for more oil and gas activity deeper into the reserve.
The Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, consisting of elected leaders from Alaska’s North Slope, where the reserve is located, said it supports the reversal of the Biden-era plan. Infrastructure from oil and gas activity provides tax revenues for education, health care and modern services like running water and sewer, the group said.
The decision “is a step in the right direction and lays the foundation for future economic, community, and cultural opportunities across our region — particularly for the communities within the (petroleum reserve),” said Rex Rock Sr., president of the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. representing Alaska Natives from the region, in the statement from the group.
The reserve was established more than a century ago as an energy warehouse for the U.S. Navy. It contains an estimated 8.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
But it’s also home to rich populations of waterfowl and caribou sought by Alaska Native subsistence hunters from the region, as well as threatened polar bears.
The Wilderness Society said the Biden-era plan established science-based management of oil and gas activity and protected “Special Areas” as required by law.
It was developed after years of public meetings and analysis, and its conservation provisions were critical to subsistence users and wildlife, the group said.
The Trump administration “is abandoning balanced management of America’s largest tract of public land and catering to big oil companies at the expense of future generations of Alaskans,” said Matt Jackson, Alaska senior manager for The Wilderness Society. The decision threatens clean air, safe water and wildlife in the region, he said.
The decision returns management of the reserve to the 2020 plan approved during the first Trump administration. It’s part of a broad effort by the administration to increase U.S. oil and gas production.
To update the 2020 plan, the Bureau of Land Management invited consultation with tribes and Alaska Native corporations and held a 14-day public comment period on the draft assessment, the agency said.
“The plan approved today gives us a clear framework and needed certainty to harness the incredible potential of the reserve,” said Kevin Pendergast, state director for the Bureau of Land Management. “We look forward to continuing to work with Alaskans, industry and local partners as we move decisively into the next phase of leasing and development.”
Congress voted to overturn the 2024 plan for the reserve, supporting bills from Alaska’s Republican congressional delegation to prevent a similar plan from being implemented in the future.
A signature drive is underway for a ballot measure formally titled “An Act requiring that only United States citizens may be qualified to vote in Alaska elections,” often referred to by its sponsors as the United States Citizens Voter Act. Supporters say it would “clarify” that only U.S. citizens may vote in Alaska elections. That may sound harmless. But Alaskans should not sign this petition or vote for the measure if it reaches the ballot. The problem it claims to fix is imaginary, and its real intent has nothing to do with election integrity.
Alaska already requires voters to be U.S. citizens. Election officials enforce that rule. There is no bill in Juneau proposing to change it, no court case challenging it and no Alaska municipality contemplating noncitizen voting. Nothing in our election history or law suggests that the state’s citizenship requirement is under threat.
Which raises the real question: If there’s no problem to solve, what is this measure actually for?
The answer has everything to do with election politics. Across the Lower 48, “citizenship voting” drives have been used as turnout engines and list-building operations — reliable ways to galvanize conservative voters, recruit volunteers and gather contact data. These measures typically have no immediate policy impact, but the downstream political payoff is substantial.
Alaska’s effort fits neatly into that pattern. The petition is being circulated by Alaskans for Citizen Voting, whose leading advocates include former legislators John Coghill, Mike Chenault and Josh Revak. The group’s own financial disclaimer identifies a national organization, Americans for Citizen Voting, as its top contributor. The effort isn’t purely local. It is part of a coordinated national campaign.
To understand where this may be headed, look at what Americans for Citizen Voting is doing in other states. In Michigan, the group is backing a constitutional amendment far more sweeping than the petition: It would require documentary proof of citizenship for all voters, eliminate affidavit-based registration, tighten ID requirements even for absentee ballots, and require voter-roll purges tied to citizenship verification. In short, “citizen-only voting” is the opening move — the benign-sounding front door to a much broader effort to make voting more difficult for many eligible Americans.
Across the country, these initiatives rarely stand alone. They serve to establish the narrative that elections are lax or vulnerable, even when they are not. That narrative then becomes the justification for downstream restrictions: stricter ID laws, new documentation burdens for naturalized citizens, more aggressive voter-roll purges and — especially relevant here — new hurdles for absentee and mail-in voters.
In the 2024 general election, the Alaska Division of Elections received more than 55,000 absentee and absentee-equivalent ballots — about 16% of all ballots cast statewide. Many of those ballots came from rural and roadless communities, where as much as 90% of the population lacks road access and depends heavily on mail and air service. Absentee voting is not a convenience in these places; it is how democracy reaches Alaskans who live far from polling stations.
When a national organization that has supported absentee-voting restrictions elsewhere becomes the top financial backer of the petition, Alaskans should ask what comes next.
Supporters say the initiative is common sense. But laws don’t need “clarifying” when they are already explicit, already enforced and already uncontroversial. No one has produced evidence that noncitizen voting is a problem in an Alaska election. We simply don’t have a problem for this measure to solve.
What we do have are real challenges — education, public safety, energy policy, housing, fiscal stability. The petition addresses none of them. It is political theater, an Outside agenda wrapped in Alaska packaging.
If someone with a clipboard asks you to sign the Citizens Voter petition, say no. The problem is fictional, and the risks to our voting system are real. And if the measure makes the ballot, vote no.
Stan Jones is a former award-winning Alaska journalist and environmental advocate. He lives in Anchorage.
• • •
The Anchorage Daily News welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.
ANCHORAGE, AK (Alaska’s News Source) – Overnight lows in Juneau have hit a two streak for breaking records!
Sunday tied the previous record lowest high temperature of 10 degrees set back in 1961, with clear skies and still abnormally cold temperatures to kick off Christmas week. Across the panhandle, clear and cold remains the trend but approaching Christmas Day, snow potential may return to close out the work week.
Download the free Alaska’s News Source Weather App.
In Western Alaska, Winter Storm Warnings are underway beginning as early as tonight for the Seward Peninsula. Between 5 to 10 inches of snow are forecasted across Norton Sound from Monday morning through midnight Monday as wind gusts build to 35 mph. In areas just slightly north, like Kotzebue, a Winter Storm Warning will remain in effect from Monday morning to Wednesday morning. Kotzebue and surrounding areas will brace for 6 to 12 inches of possible snow accumulation over the course of 3 mornings with gusts up to 40 miles per hour.
Southcentral could potentially see record low high temperatures for Monday as highs in Anchorage are forecasted in the negatives. Across the region, clear skies will stick around through Christmas with subsiding winds Monday morning.
Send us your weather photos and videos here!
Interior Alaska is next up on the ‘changing forecast’ list as a Winter Storm Watch will be in effect Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning. With this storm watch, forecasted potential of 5 to 10 inches of snow will coat the North Star Borough. For those in Fairbanks, 1 to 3 inches of snow will likely fall Tuesday night into Wednesday, just in time for Christmas Eve! Until then, mostly sunny skies will dominate the Interior with things looking just a bit cloudier past the Brooks Range. The North Slope will stay mostly cloudy to start the work week with some morning snow likely for Wainwright.
The Aleutian Chain is another overcast region with mostly cloudy skies and light rain for this holiday week. Sustained winds will range from 15 to 20 miles per hour with gusts up to 35 mph in Cold Bay.
24/7 Alaska Weather: Get access to live radar, satellite, weather cameras, current conditions, and the latest weather forecast here. Also available through the Alaska’s News Source streaming app available on Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.
Copyright 2025 Alaska’s News Source. All rights reserved.
Blazers Fall to Detroit Pistons in Beautiful, Ugly Bout
Thousands in one San Francisco neighborhood heading into another day without power
Mavericks vs. Pelicans Final Score: Dallas loses to New Orleans, 119-113
Russian air attack on Ukraine kills three and sparks sweeping outages
Green Line back open after closure to replace 1800s beams – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
20% of NYC mayor-elect Mamdani transition appointees have anti-Zionist ties: ADL
Exclusive: Former MEP Kaili doubles down on ‘Belgiangate’
‘Music makes everything better’: A Texas doctor spins vinyl to give patients relief
Video: Who Is Trying to Replace Planned Parenthood?
Comer summons Minnesota officials as House probes massive social services fraud
-
Iowa1 week agoAddy Brown motivated to step up in Audi Crooks’ absence vs. UNI
-
Iowa1 week agoHow much snow did Iowa get? See Iowa’s latest snowfall totals
-
Maine7 days agoElementary-aged student killed in school bus crash in southern Maine
-
Maryland1 week agoFrigid temperatures to start the week in Maryland
-
New Mexico6 days agoFamily clarifies why they believe missing New Mexico man is dead
-
South Dakota1 week agoNature: Snow in South Dakota
-
Detroit, MI1 week ago‘Love being a pedo’: Metro Detroit doctor, attorney, therapist accused in web of child porn chats
-
Health1 week ago‘Aggressive’ new flu variant sweeps globe as doctors warn of severe symptoms