Updated: 16 minutes ago Published: 16 minutes ago

Two years ago this week, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed, marking a generational investment in energy and climate infrastructure. This funding is now beginning to flow into Alaska, benefitting our homes and communities in myriad ways. With numerous new tax credit programs, financing tools, and grant funding opportunities, the IRA has created so many funding opportunities that people are beginning to take advantage of all across our great state.

Alaskans are starting to benefit from the IRA through a wide variety of programs, including rebates on new efficient appliances such as stoves, dryers, heat pumps and water heaters; tax credits for home energy efficiency improvements; and expanded tax benefits for installing renewable energy and battery energy storage on homes. These new programs help keep money in Alaskans’ pockets, encourage job creation and investment in our homes and businesses, and help reduce energy costs. These direct energy and financial improvements for individuals will be even more important to help mitigate the negative impacts of escalating energy costs on the Railbelt due to the natural gas crisis in Cook Inlet.

Beyond the individual tax credits, the IRA has also established “Direct Pay,” a system for non-taxpaying organizations such as nonprofits, Tribes, local governments and utility cooperatives to benefit from these clean energy tax incentives for the first time ever. By enabling creative financing options like this, we are starting to see movement toward clean energy across sectors.

New financing and grant opportunities have also been secured for Alaskans, with many millions more to come. The Alaska Energy Authority and Tanana Chiefs Conference and their partners Alaska Housing Finance Corporation and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium together received more than $120 million from the IRA’s “Solar for All Program,” which will support rooftop solar, community solar programs and utility-scale solar for communities all around Alaska primarily benefiting low income residents and Tribes over the next five years. Golden Valley Electric Association received $100M from the IRA’s “Powering Affordable Clean Energy” to develop grid infrastructure that will improve reliability and enable development of large scale solar in Nenana. Southeast Conference received nearly $40 million from the IRA’s “Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program” to install thousands of residential heat pumps all over southeast Alaska to reduce energy use and heating costs for residents. These infrastructure projects will reduce energy costs, create thousands of good-paying jobs, and help to improve the resilience of our electrical systems across Alaska. That’s to say nothing of IRA investments in fisheries research and protection, forest fire mitigation programs, transportation infrastructure and much more.

Alaskans are excited to see the investments of the IRA propel Alaska’s transition towards more sustainable, local and clean energy. We look forward to communities and families around the state fully leveraging the IRA. We are thankful to the federal and state agencies working to implement these programs correctly, and to the elected officials, like Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Mary Peltola, who continue to support these smart investments that build the framework for growing our state’s clean energy economy, fighting the impacts of a changing climate, and building a brighter, more resilient future for us all.

Gavin Dixon and Griffin Plush volunteer together as board members of The Alaska Center; they are both lifelong Alaskans who work professionally with energy projects across the state.

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Anchorage police have shot and killed a person in a neighborhood near the Alaska Native Medical Center, police said early Wednesday.

According to a police statement posted at 2:45 a.m. Wednesday, the shooting took place on the 4800 block of East 43rd Avenue, off East Tudor Road. No initial details were provided on the events leading up to the shooting.

“One suspect is deceased,” police said in the statement. “No officers were injured.”

A “large police presence” remained in the area, the statement said, but no road closures were reported.

About half a dozen police vehicles were still at the scene by 5 a.m. Wednesday. Residents were walking dogs and warming up cars, with crime-scene tape securing an area behind several homes.

Police plan to hold a 9 a.m. news conference Wednesday on the shooting.

This is the sixth shooting by Anchorage police since mid-May, and the fourth fatality after the deaths of Kristopher Handy, Tyler May and Lisa Fordyce-Blair. After detailed reviews state prosecutors have declined to file criminal charges against the officers in Handy’s shooting, as well as those who shot May.

Alaska Public Media’s Ava White contributed information to this story.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Chris Klint is a web producer and breaking news reporter at Alaska Public Media. Reach him atcklint@alaskapublic.org.Read more about Chrishere.

WHITTIER, Alaska (KTUU) – An important part of Alaskan history is now back in Alaska.

On Tuesday, the Prince William Sound Museum in Whittier accepted a 1939 Japanese machine gun — called a Nambu — used by Japanese military forces in the World War II Battle of Attu along the Aleutian Islands.

Museum Director Ted Spencer said having the gun displayed at the military museum was a lifelong dream, but getting it there was quite a journey.

It started with Lt. Colonel William Lucas, who led the charge to recapture Attu from the Japanese in 1943, earning a silver star in the process. The battle itself was bloody; the museum has the names of more than 500 American soldiers who died in the only World War II battle to be fought on North American soil.

The Americans prevailed and the Japanese retreated, leaving some of their weapons behind.

That, Spencer said, was how Lucas got the gun. It went with him to his home in Virginia where it stayed in a closet for nearly 80 years until it was eventually passed down to a granddaughter.

“So she contacted us and said, ‘Hey, would you like to have this gun for display?’ And of course, it was a big dream for me to have something from the battle of Attu,” Spencer said.

But there were complications; because the machine gun had never been registered with the federal government, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wanted to melt it down.

Elaina Spraker, a staffer with Sen. Dan Sullivan’s office, worked to convince the agency the gun was a historic relic. It eventually agreed to transfer ownership to the City of Whittier.

On Tuesday, Sullivan toured the Whittier Museum, seeing the gun for the first time in person.

“To be able to have an original machine gun, [a] Japanese machine gun that was in that battle, you know we lost a lot of American service members,” Sullivan said. “To have that as a remembrance of the service and sacrifice — which is really what this museum is all about — it’s really powerful.”

Spencer said he hopes the gun will shed new light on a battle that many Americans are unfamiliar with. He called it an important piece of history in which Alaska played a vital role.

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