Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Wednesday signed three energy bills passed by the Legislature in response to looming energy shortages and delivery problems in the state’s most populous region.

Dunleavy said the bills are part of a wider strategy of modernizing Alaska’s energy portfolio and systems of delivery, making them more diverse and dependable.

“Over the past two years, we’ve passed several bills that will transform Alaska’s ability to tap into its world-class energy for decades to come,” the governor said at the signing ceremony, held at the Alaska Energy Authority office in Anchorage.

The first measure he signed into law on Wednesday was House Bill 50, which started out as legislation authorizing the state to make money by capturing, storing and sequestering carbon gases but was expanded as elements of other energy bills were added.

The carbon-capture section of the bill creates a regulatory framework for that enterprise, and the mature Cook Inlet oil and gas basin, in Southcentral Alaska, is the region most likely to first serve that purpose, Dunleavy said.

Another part of the bill concerns the Regulatory Commission of Alaska. That section expands the commission’s jurisdiction to include natural gas storage. The bill also authorizes a system of reserve-based lending, through which the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority would be able to help finance known natural gas fields in Cook Inlet that currently lack the investment they need to be developed. The bill also modifies the state’s geothermal leasing program, allowing for larger total lease holdings and making other changes intended to induce more development.

The newly signed bill largely focuses on Southcentral Alaska’s Cook Inlet, with good reason, Dunleavy said. Alaska’s oldest producing oil and gas region, with its towering volcanoes, dramatic tides and other natural resources, is teeming with renewable and traditional fossil fuel potential, he said.

“This Cook Inlet probably is the most energy-rich basin on the planet. Within 50 miles you have gas, oil, geothermal, tidal, coal, onshore wind, offshore wind. It’s tremendous,” he said.

The second bill Dunleavy signed on Wednesday, House Bill 307, consolidates management of the energy transmission system that serves Alaska’s Railbelt, the corridor that runs from Fairbanks to the Kenai Peninsula. The bill eliminates “wheeling rates,” the charges added for energy as it is transported between segments of the system. Through an expanded tax exemption and other provisions, it also aims to open access to the system to energy produced by independent producers like solar farms.

Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, said energy experts have been hoping since the mid-20th century to establish such a unified system for the Railbelt.

“Here we are, 70 years later, and we’re finally accomplishing something,” said Giessel, who was one of the legislators speaking at the bill-signing ceremony.

The bill “represents unity,” she said, reflecting interests, concerns and recommendations from a widely diverse group of energy producers, utilities, consumer advocates, labor advocates and others. 

“Alaskans have to come together to unify in our vision, or we’re not going to get things accomplished,” she said.

The third energy measure that Dunleavy signed on Wednesday was House Bill 273, which creates an energy fund as a subsidiary of the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. The Alaska Energy Independence Fund is intended to help finance sustainable energy to benefit homeowners and businesses and attract federal money available through the Inflation Reduction Act.

Fifty-one years ago, I landed in Anchorage, a midwestern lad who grew up in the shadow of political giants. They were men of integrity — Eugene McCarthy, Hubert Humphrey, Gaylord Nelson, George McGovern, Fritz Mondale — trustworthy and committed to the common good. Alaska, my chosen state, seemed brimming with optimism and possibility, firmly grounded under the governance of a state constitution the envy of the other 49 states, truly echoing Abraham Lincoln: “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Today, those very ideals and lofty vision are vanishing just like our beloved glaciers.

About 2,500 years ago Aristotle, a brilliant Greek philosopher for the ages, proffered his thoughts on the soul. From the soul emanates truthfulness, reason and morality. “The good life is the highest good, flourishing and achieved by people of exceptional character and virtue. In moral law, the man who possesses character excellence will tend to do the good and right thing, at the right time, and in the right way”. Likewise, so true of government and our leaders. Conversely, “a person without soul, like government, is an empty being, fallacious, ethically oblivious, without courage, feeling, historically blind, and uncomprehending of moral law.”

“Only by connecting with the soul can good government be exposed. Government is more than a legal structure; it is a manner of life, a moral spirit. By exercising virtue it enables its citizens to flourish. The highest good is the happiness and virtue of every citizen.” What does this say about Alaska today?

I grieve for the demise of our former Alaska — a vision for the common good, for community, civility and civic responsibility; in essence, the vision in our constitution. Today, the soul of Alaska languishes, the sinister effect of our governor — devoid of trust and transparency, rewarding loyalty above merit, sharply restricting freedom of speech and public participation, and employing creative abuses of power against opponents and dissenters. Alas, it is we the electorate who have abetted and created this vanishing soul of our Alaska. Those we have elected are in thrall to duplicitous multinational corporations and the usual panoply of laughably impossible promises: the Permanent Fund dividend, no individual taxes, endless schemes and schemers — bamboozlers all, as Carl Sagan would say.

Regrettably, the Alaska framers established one glaring oversight: a strong executive, which became a liability with a governor bereft of any Aristotelean character such as virtue and truthfulness, clueless of any concept enabling Alaskans to flourish. He has weaponized the line-item veto against his critics, common sense and the greater good. Meanwhile his main “act” is performative auditioning for Trump’s starting lineup. And with a second term, this governor is freer from constraints, be they ethical, moral or legal, and unchecked by a complicit Legislature, attorney general and dedicated PFD vassals. His and others’ view of the PFD as sacrosanct continues to beggar Alaska and shutter buildings and schools, opportunities and aspirations.

The PFD is, ironically and hypocritically, “libertarian socialism,” as Ethan Berkowitz once said. Imagine if the $23 billion paid via dividends to date had instead enriched every Alaskan with the finest schools and educators, the entire University of Alaska system, infrastructure, early childhood education and childhood, welcoming parks and recreation, a world class marine highway system, and so much more. Imagine. And the consequent outmigration abates not. Yet the obscenely profitable drillers and extractors continue to receive billions in tax cuts, subsidies and credits, compliments of standard industry coercion — that old saw, that without such Alaskan largesse, jobs and taxes will evaporate.

The former freed slave, Frederick Douglass, said that reading and education is freedom, and its absence is enslavement. Contrast that with the irreconcilable words and actions — vetoes — of this “education governor,” a virtual condemnation of public education.

He has, thankfully, failed to reshape the Alaska judiciary in his warped image. His parade of unqualified appointments goes on, unimpeded.

The previous sordid behaviors by attorneys general were kept hush-hush until journalists found them out. With little to no public notice or comment allowed, his Department of Transportation, Department of Natural Resources and Department of Fish and Game operate carte blanche, in flagrant defiance of democratic norms. The Permanent Fund trustees, all of whom are his appointees, continue to debase the goal of achieving the greatest return on investment in favor of personal and dubious strategies. So also the board of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, having squandered many state billions with almost no return to the state, and with almost no official Legislature oversight, a constitutional surrender to the executive branch. This disgraceful Alaskan epoch proceeds unimpeded.

Must we, as Alaskans of conscience, accept this unholy, ruthless, soulless state? Surely the optimism, promise and possibility we knew not so long ago is not irretrievable — Aristotle’s government with soul, whose citizenry is enabled to flourish, find happiness, find satisfaction in life and embrace trust in our government. Lincoln said, “The noblest work of God is an honest man.” May we, blessed with an abundance of honest, good, valorous and true women and men, reestablish the honor and soul of our Alaska.

Peter Mjos is a retired Anchorage physician.

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