July 23, 2025 — Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy vetoed a bill that would help provide lower interest loans to commercial fishers, claiming the state could not afford to pay for the investment amidst what he called a revenue crisis.
Alaska Senate Bill 156 would have provided USD 3.7 million (EUR 3.1 million) to the Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank (CFAB) to offer low interest rates on commercial fishing loans. The legislation was recommended by the Joint Legislative Taskforce Evaluating Alaska’s Seafood Industry, which claimed that the CFAB had lost loan volume due to low interest commercial fishing loans created by the state government in 2024. SB 156 would fix that by providing funding to help CFAB match those low interest rates and then pay back the investment at a later date.