Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Alaska legislators oppose Governor’s fish farming proposal

February 26, 2025 — Two prominent members of the Alaska House of Representatives have announced their opposition to Governor Mike Dunleavy’s proposal to lift the state’s 35-year old ban on fish farming.

Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, and House Rules Committee Chair Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, issued a joint statement on Monday, voicing their concerns that the bill would not benefit the state’s commercial fishing industry. Without their support, House Bill 111, which seeks to permit the farming of certain types of fish is unlikely to progress through the legislature, according to Alaska Beacon.

“Alaska’s commercial fishing industry, our coastal communities, and fishing families across the state are suffering through historically poor market conditions, inconsistent returns, and unfair trade practices,” the legislators wrote in their statement. “Make no mistake, the industry will recover; however, lifting a ban on freshwater finfish farming sends the wrong signal, at the wrong time. It also erodes the spirit of the current ban and provides a foot in the door for possible salmon farming in Alaska.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Alaska legislators scrutinize Dunleavy’s proposed $2,350 PFD

August 25, 2021 — State legislators are raising questions about whether the state can afford $2,350 permanent fund dividends this year, as pitched by Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

Dunleavy added proposed legislation on Thursday to the special session agenda that would pay for $2,350 PFDs, as well as other programs. If that hadn’t happened, there was a chance Alaskans wouldn’t receive a dividend at all for the first time in 40 years.

State budget director Neil Steininger said Dunleavy still wants the Legislature to pass the constitutional amendments he’s proposed that would enshrine the PFD in the state constitution and lower the state’s spending limit.

“This appropriation bill isn’t … the agenda in and of itself,” he said. “This appropriation bill is there to support the discussions and the decisions that need to be made on those bigger policy issues.”

Steininger testified on the measure, House Bill 3003, to the House Finance Committee on Friday.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Reply All: Bristol Bay associations sign new letter to Dunleavy

October 30, 2020 — We’ll be setting our clocks back this weekend, but a passionate letter-writing exchange in Alaska is making this feel like a moment from the distant past. Unlike your average political correspondence, the parties involved in this exchange are laying pretty plain how they really feel.

This series of missives between Gov. Mike Dunleavy and two state legislators, Reps. Bryce Edgmon and Louise Stutes, is one component of the fallout of the controversial Pebble Tapes, in which activists posed as potential mine investors and recorded Pebble and Northern Dynasty executives Tom Collier and Ronald Thiessen bragging about the mining conglomerate’s use of the governor’s office to launder communications for the White House.

“Your letter does not address Pebble’s blunt characterization of you and others within your administration as acting behind closed doors on Pebble’s compensatory mitigation plan,” Edgmon writes in an Oct. 26 reply to the governor, which started with a September message from Edgmon and Stutes. “Similarly, we note that your letter does not address Tom Collier’s admissions that he interfered in Alaska’s election process. Silence on these points undercuts the integrity of state government in ways that go far beyond Pebble, and we urge you to speak to them.”

The letter recognizes Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan for making direct statements against the project after the Pebble Tapes called attention to their tendency to fade into the background when it came to Pebble.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: In letter, Gov. Dunleavy makes economic case for Pebble mine while still not expressly supporting it

October 7, 2020 — While stopping short of endorsing the controversial project, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Tuesday laid out an economic argument for the Pebble mine and said he would not stand in the way of a rigorous state review of it.

Dunleavy made the case in a letter to two Alaska state lawmakers, House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, and House Majority Whip Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak. Stutes and Edgmon had written a letterasking him to withhold support for the project after the release of secretly recorded videos that showed Pebble executives boasting about their influence over the governor’s office.

The governor in his response said he is committed to a careful analysis of the project. But he emphasized the “generational poverty” and the “chronic lack of economic options” in the Bristol Bay region where the mine would be built.

He pointed out that the wild salmon fishery, which he said he won’t put at risk, does not operate year-round, contributing to high unemployment rates in the offseason and poverty levels more than twice the statewide average.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: State legislative leaders ask Dunleavy not to help Pebble

October 5, 2020 — Two Alaska legislative leaders have called on the state’s governor to stop assisting the development of a proposed copper and gold mine.

House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, an independent, and Republican Rep. Louise Stutes wrote to Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy Tuesday about the Pebble Mine project.

The legislators said the administration should not provide state land for a mitigation plan that developers hope will lead to a federal permit for the proposed open-pit mine about 200 miles (322 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage.

The mine would straddle salmon-producing headwaters of the Bristol Bay fishery.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Alaska lawmakers are moving away from Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s budget proposal

March 4, 2019 — Leaders of the Alaska Senate and the Alaska House of Representatives said Friday it appears there is growing support for state budget proposals that include fewer cuts than proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in February.

Dunleavy’s plan to address a $1.6 billion deficit without new taxes or cuts to the Permanent Fund dividend has drawn opposition from supporters of the state’s public education system and state residents who use government services.

The governor’s proposal must be approved by the legislature to become law, but Senate President Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, and Speaker of the House Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, say that lawmakers in each body are considering smaller cuts to the state budget, even if the Permanent Fund dividend must be reduced in response.

“We are going to cut the budget, but it’s going to look different from what’s been proposed by the governor,” said Rep. Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage and chairman of the House Rules Committee.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

EPA halts plans to lift proposed mine restrictions in Alaska

January 29, 2018 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday halted plans to withdraw proposed restrictions on mining activity near a major Alaska salmon fishery, drawing praise from opponents of the Pebble Mine project.

Last year, in settling a legal dispute with the Pebble Limited Partnership, which wants to build a copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, the EPA agreed to initiate a process to withdraw restrictions proposed during the Obama administration.

But in a release Friday, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said based on comments the agency has received, “it is my judgment at this time that any mining projects in the region likely pose a risk to the abundant natural resources that exist there.”

“Until we know the full extent of that risk, those natural resources and world-class fisheries deserve the utmost protection,” he said.

About half of the world’s sockeye salmon is produced by Bristol Bay, the EPA has said.

Tom Collier, CEO of the Pebble partnership, said the EPA’s announcement does not deter the project. Pebble recently filed a permit application with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which will trigger an environmental review of the project.

“We believe we can demonstrate that we can responsibly construct and operate a mine at the Pebble deposit that meets Alaska’s high environmental standards,” he said in a release. “We will also demonstrate that we can successfully operate a mine without compromising the fish and water resources around the project.”

The restrictions on development proposed under President Barack Obama were never finalized; a judge had ordered the agency to stop work related to that process while the litigation between Pebble and the EPA played out.

The EPA said Friday’s announcement doesn’t derail the permit application process but said the application “must clear a high bar, because EPA believes the risk to Bristol Bay may be unacceptable.”

The agency said it plans to solicit additional public comment.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, said Pruitt is taking a balanced approach that lets Pebble enter the permitting process but also acknowledges EPA’s duty to protect the region’s fisheries.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald