BRADNERS' ALASKA LEGISLATIVE DIGEST

Temporary win, health care providers Health providers won a round against Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s effort to use emergency powers to cut state Medicaid payments. A settlement in lawsuit brought against the state administration by the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association, or ASHNHA would restore cuts in payments ordered this spring and provide for retroactive payments. However, the state is proceeding under normal regulatory procedures to enact a permanent cut in payments. Dunleavy had proposed the reductions last spring…

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Utilities yet to assess fire damage Southcentral electric utility managers have yet to be able to get surface access to Kenai Peninsula transmission lines damaged in the big Swan Lake wildfire. Preliminary surveys to date have been by air, so a realistic damage assessment has not been made. Meanwhile, the continued shutdown of the line that transmits Bradley Lake hydro power north is costing regional utilities because they use more natural gas to replace inexpensive hydro. Utilities briefed the Alaska…

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Long-term melt threat to infrastructure; “good engineers” needed North Slope oil operators face a long-term, existential threat to infrastructure for which there is no easy solution – thawing permafrost. It’s a challenge but it will also stimulate a lot of thinking about essentially rebuilding parts of the slope into what could be more like an offshore field. Scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ have been taking deep temperature measurements in permafrost soils underlying the producing oilfields on the slope…

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BLM sets 2019 NPRA lease sale The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will hold its annual lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on Dec. 11. Three hundred and fifty tracts covering 3.98 million acres will be offered for competitive bid. High-potential coastal areas, which are also ecologically-sensitive, are excluded from the sale. This could change in next year’s sale. BLM told us a draft of its revised NPR-A land management plan will be released later this month. That is…

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Ambler road approval next year? Trilogy Metals hopes for federal approvals in mid-2020 on a proposed 211-mile industrial road from the Dalton Highway to the Ambler Mining District, where Trilogy is working on its Arctic high-grade copper project. If developed, Arctic could ship 40 trucks a day, or 300 sealed containers a week, of concentrates by road to Fairbanks and then rail to the Port of Alaska in Anchorage. Kensington: 10 more years Coeur Alaska is finalizing a plan to…

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Setback: Tongass sale delayed More headaches for the state’s small timber industry. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason halted a planned federal timber sale on Prince of Wales Island in southern Southeast Alaska. Environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service claiming an inadequate environmental review. Gleason ordered an injunction, blocking the forest service from opening bids or taking other actions until the merits of the lawsuit were considered. Gleason acknowledged the delay could hurt local sawmills which need more timber…

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Great year for sockeye fishers Harvesters with 43 million sockeyes caught from a 56-million-fish run. The initial ex-vessel value estimate (what fishermen are paid) is $306.5 mil- lion, but this is based on a “base” sockeye price of $1.35 per pound. This will increase later in the fall as supplemental bonus payments are made, such as for iced fish. A final figure will be published next spring by state fish and game officials. The total sockeye harvest is now estimated…

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Oct. 15 decision, oil tax initiative Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer will decide Oct. 15 whether a proposed citizen ballot initiative to raise taxes on oil and gas can go forward to the signature-gathering stage. Tens of thousands of signatures will be needed for the proposal to make it to the 2020 election ballot. The tax increases would be very damaging to the industry, companies say, dampen- ing efforts to develop new discoveries. BP confident, Hilcorp at Prudhoe BP senior managers,…

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Cruise tourism expected to increase 6 percent in 2020 Cruise tourism to Alaska, will jump 6 percent next year, an industry trade group told Southeast Conference delegates at the regional development group’s annual meeting in Sitka. Cruise passengers increased 200,000 between 2018 and 2019 and are projected to reach a record 1.44 million in 2020, said Cruise Lines International Association. Tourists are expected to spend $793 million just in Southeast Alaska next summer. CLIA is the industry trade group that…

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Legislature funded budget at $570 million above Dunleavy request The Legislative Finance Division, the state Legislature’s non-partisan finance group, is finalizing its reports for actions on the state budget, at least year-to-date. Here are some highlights: Total Unrestricted General Fund (UGF) spending for Fiscal 2020, the current budget year, is $4.18 billion. That’s $462.7 million below the $4.643 billion approved for FY 2019, the budget year that ended June 30. This amounts to a 10 percent reduction Within the UGF…

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