Alaska lawmakers passed a bill last week that adds several Indigenous languages to Alaska’s official list of languages.

A version of the bill, sponsored by Juneau Rep. Andi Story, was approved by the Senate and then OK’d by the House last week. It was originally passed in the House last year. Now it heads to the governor.

Earlier this year, Story, a Democrat, called the changes included in the bill an important step in recognizing all of the 23 distinct Alaska Native languages in the state. 

“This reflects the goal of sustaining and reinvigorating Alaska Native languages, a concept that goes beyond preservation,” she said. 

The languages that the bill adds to the official list are Cup’ig, Middle Tanana, Lower Tanana and Wetał. Middle and Lower Tanana were previously classified as just one language. 

According to a recent report from the council, there are currently no high-proficiency speakers of the Wetał language. It comes from the Portland Canal region of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia.

The bill also expands and renames the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council. The council advocates to promote the survival and revitalization of Indigenous languages in the state. It will now be called the Council for Alaska Native Language. 

The bill adds two seats to the council and moves it from the Department of Commerce to the Department of Education and Early Development to better emphasize the council’s focus on education. 

In testimony earlier this year, the chairman of the council, X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell, said he supports the bill and argued Indigenous languages need to be a bigger priority for the state. Twichell teaches Alaska Native languages at the University of Alaska Southeast. 

“Alaska Native languages are the oldest living resource in Alaska,” he said. “These languages are older than the trees, they’re older than some of the rocks, and none of us are qualified to make the decision that they should not exist anymore.”

He said it’s crucial that these languages are recognized as the valuable and historic resources that they are.  

“Every single Alaska Native language is sacred and irreplaceable,” he said. “It contains concepts that cannot be translated, it contains things that cannot be replaced, and that give a sense of fulfillment and wholeness and health to Alaska Natives and to non-natives in Alaska.”

The bill passed unanimously in the Senate. In the House, only Rep. David Eastman, a Wasilla Republican, voted against it. He argued some of the languages proposed, like Wetał, are not spoken regularly and should not be added to the official list.

A spokesperson for Gov. Mike Dunleavy did not directly respond to questions asking whether the governor plans to sign the bill.

As time runs out for Alaska lawmakers to address a recent court ruling that rattled the state’s correspondence education programs, a proposal has emerged for state officials to track their spending for the first time in a decade.

The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development does not track whether or not correspondence school allotment money is spent constitutionally. That duty falls to districts, said Commissioner Deena Bishop.

“That is not a function of the Department of Education,” she said, adding that there are no regulations or statutory requirements that it do so.

Bishop said there are no reporting requirements, either, so districts do not have to give an account of the spending back to the state. That means the education department does not have a tally of how much state money has gone to materials from private organizations in the last decade.

That could change if lawmakers adopt a proposal aimed at stabilizing the programs in the wake of a Superior Court ruling that threw out two provisions of the law that governs the program. House Bill 400, a proposal from the House Education Committee, would temporarily set guidelines for the programs that allow two key components of the correspondence program, individualized learning plans and allotments of state money for educational materials, to continue.

House Education Committee Co-Chair Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, said his intent is that it would also establish parameters to conduct audits. “DEED used to perform audits — regularly, actually — of correspondence programs,” he said, and added that the requirement was taken out of statute in 2014.

Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman ruled that state allotment money could not be used to pay for private school tuition, a growing practice following changes to state law that green-lit spending at private and religious institutions. The ruling raised the question of how much state allotment money went to private school tuition.

Ruffridge’s office could only come up with an anecdotal answer in the absence of state oversight. “We’ve done a lot of phone calls with different programs. They don’t think it’s a large sum. But it’s more than zero. So, more than zero is — needs to be looked at,” he said.

It is now up to the Supreme Court to decide what kind of spending is constitutional for these programs in Alaska. The language in HB 400 is such that the law would be relevant even if a constitutional amendment to allow allotment spending on religious materials, which has been proposed by members of the House, were approved. The legislation would sunset at the beginning of next July.

The Senate has also proposed a solution, Senate Bill 266, which would also preserve allotments and learning plans. It differs from the House proposal in that it proposes additional student testing requirements and allotment spending restrictions.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Bishop have indicated they favor the House version. Bishop praised its “simple language” and said she has been in communication with the state’s correspondence program principals to keep them apprised of the potential changes and the department’s position.

The Supreme Court has scheduled a June 25 court date to hear the state’s appeal to the ruling, five days before Zeman’s ruling would take effect. Dunleavy has indicated he may call a special session of the Legislature after the ruling to make clear what is available through correspondence programs.

JUNEAU — The final hours of Alaska’s legislative sessions are often dedicated almost entirely to budget negotiations. Not this year.

With under 60 hours remaining until the Alaska Legislature must adjourn its session, lawmakers on Monday appeared to focus their attention on energy bills.

Legislators began the session declaring that they would focus on policies to address a looming shortage of Cook Inlet natural gas, but with hours remaining in the session, no significant energy legislation had passed both chambers, and the possibility of agreement between Gov. Mike Dunleavy, the House and the Senate on key measures appeared to be slipping away.

Disagreements over key bills could mean lawmakers fail to adopt them before Wednesday’s end-of-session deadline — potentially compelling Dunleavy to call lawmakers into a special session to continue working on the bills.

Senate President Gary Stevens, a Kodiak Republican, said that the House and Senate had struck an agreement under which the Senate would pass a carbon sequestration bill and the House would pass a bill that creates an integrated energy transmission system — potentially allowing both policy pieces to be adopted this year.

Neither had happened as of 5 p.m. on Monday, when the House concluded a two-hour debate on a lengthy list of amendments to the transmission bill.

“We’re waiting for that,” said Stevens, adding that senators “hesitate to send” the carbon storage bill to the House until the House makes “some progress” on their side of the bargain.

The two energy bills — carbon sequestration and transmission — are second only to the budget in importance this session, according to Stevens.

Stevens said the governor may call lawmakers into a 30-day special session if they don’t pass the energy-related bills by Wednesday.

“He’d be right to do that, because it’s really crucial. The problem we’re having with the House is — they can’t move very fast, so they can’t get that energy (transmission) bill to us,” said Stevens. “What happens if we just don’t do it? Well, I would guess the governor would call us into a special session.”

When asked if Dunleavy was prepared to call the Legislature into a special session if the two major energy bills failed to pass, Jeff Turner, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said on Monday that “there is time remaining in the session to pass both bills.”

The House was expected to have its final vote on the transmission bill on Tuesday.

Lawmakers repeatedly delayed floor sessions on Monday as they met behind closed doors to discuss the energy provisions. The crush of bills gumming up the process was exacerbated by the House’s 12-hour debate on Saturday over a divisive transgender sports ban, which left a feeling of acrimony among legislators.

The House was scheduled to hear House Bill 307, meant to modernize the Railbelt electric grid, on Sunday. The bill was ultimately rescheduled for Monday.

Rep. Will Stapp, a Fairbanks Republican, said the bill was focused on “addressing and eliminating wheeling and pancaking rates, and creating a more equitable system for energy across the Railbelt.” Stapp called the current system of regional utilities “geographic fiefdoms.”

“It has been very challenging to be able to get all the different organizations and stakeholders in a room to agree on something,” said Stapp, adding that “time and inertia” would not help the bill.

Several Republicans representing districts in the Kenai Peninsula raised concerns about the measure, mirroring the opposition of the Homer Electric Association.

Rep. Justin Ruffridge, a Soldotna Republican, said part of his concern was because Cook Inlet natural gas was in his “backyard” and he was worried the bill would encourage a move away from that natural gas and toward renewable energy production, including from wind and solar projects.

“No internal resource production statewide. No Cook Inlet natural gas, no gas pipeline, no anything. We will be a resource state that essentially imports our energy needs,” said Ruffridge.

The proposal for an integrated transmission system has divided Railbelt utilities. The bill is seen as a priority for Dunleavy, whose energy policy adviser Andrew Jensen discussed the measure with lawmakers in the Capitol Sunday after 10 p.m. Jensen was back in the House gallery when debate began around 3 p.m. Monday. Jensen declined an interview request on Monday.

House Speaker Cathy Tilton, a Wasilla Republican, said that lawmakers could “absolutely” pass the necessary bills by the Wednesday deadline.

“It’s an ever-moving target, though,” she added. “At this point in time, I think that we can. But, like I say, it’s always fluid around here.”

Tilton said the transmission bill and carbon storage bill are “high priorities” for the House “because it’s important to help with the cost of energy.”

Meanwhile, the Senate was scheduled on Tuesday to pass House Bill 50, which would develop a statutory framework for the state to lease depleted gas reservoirs to store carbon dioxide deep underground.

Once pitched as a way to generate significant new state revenue, a carbon storage bill is now being supported as a way to boost oil and gas industry investment in the state. It’s unclear how much carbon sequestration could cost or benefit Alaska. The Department of Revenue stated that “the tax revenue potential of the bill is uncertain at this stage.”

The House was also expected to take a final vote Monday on House Bill 223, which would provide royalty relief to natural gas producers. However, even if the bill passes the chamber, key Senate members have raised concerns over the prospect of forgoing state revenue without the guarantee of increased production.

Stevens said the most important task of the session remains passing the budget. Lawmakers have yet to agree on what is seen as one of the most critical — and contentious — parts of the budget, the size of the Permanent Fund dividend. The Senate favors a payout of roughly $1,600 to eligible Alaskans, while the House proposal — which would require a sizable draw from already-depleted state savings — called for a nearly $2,300 dividend.

Stevens said the Senate was “having trouble getting meetings with the House” to discuss the budget. “But now they have agreed to meet with us,” he said Monday afternoon.

Sen. Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican who is one of the chief budget negotiators, said Monday afternoon that the budget negotiations would need to be completed by 9 a.m. on Tuesday.

If the conference committee does not complete its work by early Tuesday morning, it will become increasingly difficult to complete the task of approving the spending plan in both the House and Senate before the Wednesday night deadline.

“People don’t like to be here until midnight, but if we have to be, we’ll do that,” said Stevens.

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