Senate Majority Coalition Website

State Senator District E

Senate Majority Leader

Senator Cathy Giessel Newsletter

UPDATES

Issues affecting

your family, community and jobs.

August 17, 2023

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Photo - Farmer's Market on Saturday. Celebrating our special asset of local grown foods!

Items in this Newsletter:

· Nuclear Energy - MARVEL

· ACEP Energy Symposiums

· Alaska Performance Scholarship Press Release

· ALPAR Awards

· AK Legislative Ethics Public Member opening

· Alaska Trails August Newsletter

· Current Topics, Economy, Health Care, Energy

· Alaska History

· Resource Values, Permanent Fund

Email me

Alaska Nuclear Energy Working Group

This group meets monthly. Below is the link to the August meeting last week. Guest speakers, John Jackson and Yasir Arafat, gave a very interesting overview of the Department Of Energy's Microreactor Program and the MARVEL project.

If you are interested in watching a recording of the meeting/presentation a link to the recording is below.

Link: https://alaska.zoom.us/rec/share/tI6M6pPWUQNEwzzutDvJoCyWYmu1czzEd2LC9lCVgBNL4tkJg1wL1bvFz5TBGAnR.RAOX39eLOKxte7y5?startTime=1691522121000

Passcode: ?Ju0gMN2

Next Meeting: The September AKNEWG meeting will be on September 12th from 11:30 to 1:00 pm AKT. Our guest speaker will be Dr. Caleb Brooks with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Caleb is the lead coordinator of the Illinois Microreactor Project.

Join us for a series of symposiums on energy issues in Alaska. Learn about the challenges, opportunities, and other factors that Alaska Energy Security Task Force members must consider as part of the development of a statewide energy plan.

Symposium presentations will be virtual, with a panel of task force members and members of the public participating.

The next two symposiums will be:

Topic: Alaska Energy Statistics & Economics

When: Thursday, Aug. 17, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. AKDT

Topic: Emerging Technologies and Opportunities for Alaska

When: Thursday, Aug. 24, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. AKDT

Join the symposiums on Zoom.

For more information on the symposiums, please email Brittany Smart.

ALPAR awards

New in 2023: cash grants to community award winners, submit by Sept. 1

ALPAR’s annual awards recognize companies, organizations or individuals that have made significant impact in litter prevention and recycling. They are intended to celebrate their achievements and commitment as well as provide inspiration for others.

NEW THIS YEAR: Thanks to Weaver Brothers, Inc. winners under the Community section will receive a $500 grant to the nonprofit associated with their effort (four $500 grants in total will be awarded in 2023).

Nominations must be received by ALPAR by Sept. 1st to be eligible. Download the nomination form here.

Select Committee on Legislative Ethics

Current Topics

Anchorage School District announces new safety upgrades as schools prepare to welcome students. Alaska Public Media

Over the summer, six Anchorage School District elementary schools had security vestibules installed, adding an extra set of doors at the main entrance. District Security and Emergency Management Senior Director Ashley Lally said the vestibules can slow down a potential attack, to allow law enforcement time to arrive.

Alaska sees worst school attendance as rates tank nationwide. Alaska Public Media

All told, an estimated 6.5 million additional students became chronically absent, according to the data, which was compiled by Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee in partnership with The Associated Press. Taken together, the data from 40 states and Washington, D.C., provides the most comprehensive accounting of absenteeism nationwide. Absences were more prevalent among Latino, Black and low-income students. The absences come on top of time students missed during school closures and pandemic disruptions. They cost crucial classroom time as schools work to recover from massive learning setbacks.

U.S. Navy to name ship after Metlakatla veteran Solomon Atkinson. Alaska Beacon

The U.S. Navy will name a new oceangoing tugboat after Solomon “Sol” Atkinson, a Metlakatla man who was a member of the Navy’s first SEAL team and trained astronauts for their return to Earth.

Fisheries

Trident Seafoods drops salmon prices due to flooding global markets. Alaska Public Media

Trident Seafoods dropped the price for Alaska chum salmon this weekend, from 60 cents to 20 cents per pound for all fisheries. The company also announced a plan to drop pink salmon prices. Trident says Russian pink salmon harvests are affecting demand for all kinds of salmon.

Trooper citations for salmon discards add grist to regional Alaska fishery dispute. Alaska Beacon

For years, residents along the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers have accused fishers operating in marine waters north of the Alaska Peninsula of intercepting too many river-bound salmon, sometimes in hidden ways. Now a trooper enforcement campaign by the Alaska State Troopers wildlife division gives some credence to those accusations. The campaign, carried out in June and July in the region known as Area M, resulted in nine citations issued to captains and crew members for allegedly dumping unwanted salmon overboard, the Alaska State Troopers said in a statement issued Thursday. The species of discarded salmon was not disclosed, but it was potentially chum salmon bound for the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, where there have been devastating chum crashes in recent years.

Economy

Alaska's state-owned investment bank files suit against owners of defunct Yukon mine. Alaska Beacon

The bankruptcy of Yukon’s Minto Metals Corp. spilled across the Alaska border last week as Alaska’s state-owned investment bank filed suit against the defunct mining company, joining a long list of creditors seeking repayment. In a lawsuit filed July 31 in Anchorage District Court, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority claims Minto Metals failed to pay user fees for AIDEA’s Skagway ore terminal, used to ship mining concentrates out of the Yukon.

Card delinquencies are back up. Axios

The rate of new credit card delinquencies has surpassed its pre-COVID level, clocking in at 7.2% in the second quarter, per a report out this month from the New York Fed.

Politics

Nearshoring is all the rage. Axios

Nearshoring, or moving production closer to the end consumer, is now a bigger priority as many executives try to be more prepared for the unexpected — and as geopolitical tensions rise, Enno de Boer, senior partner at McKinsey, tells Axios.

The Victory Retreat: George Washington and the Art of Leadership. NCSL Summit

As a general and a president, George Washington’s most brilliant moments often came from a deep understanding of what was at stake, the concerns of those around him and a willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. Come learn about these moments in Washington’s life to better understand how a good retreat can ultimately be crucial to a leader's overall success.

Annual roundtable to discuss king salmon, energy development, federal funding. Peninsula Clarion

The Kenai River Sportfishing Association’s annual Kenai Classic Roundtable on Fisheries will be held next week, on Aug. 23, from noon to 3 p.m. at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex.

Health Care

Suicides in the U.S. hit an all-time high last year, government data shows. ADN

About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever recorded, according to new government data posted Thursday.

Rural Kids' Dental Care is Suffering Under Medicaid Policies, Dentists Say. The Nome Nugget

Pediatric dentists in Alaska say they are facing serious problems with Medicaid paperwork since the state changed its policies on service authorizations last year. Those providers are worried that kids in rural Alaska are losing access to care.

“It’s worse than we would have even been capable of imagining,” said Meghan Foster, of Denali Pediatric Dentistry in Anchorage.

In December 2022 the Alaska Department of Health, or DOH, introduced new regulations for Medicaid coverage. As part of those changes, dentists must now seek prior authorization for pediatric procedures under certain conditions—for example, when a child needs three or more teeth to be extracted or crowned in a single appointment, or when a kid needs more than four extractions or four or more crowns in a single year.

Congress vs. PBMs. Axios

The three biggest PBMs — CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx — manage about 80% of prescriptions and are integrated with the health insurers Aetna, Cigna and United Healthcare, respectively. Frustration with PBMs has grown over complaints that they keep too much of the discounts they negotiate with drug companies, or that they steer patients to costlier drugs to benefit their own bottom lines.

Pioneering study links testicular cancer among military personnel to 'Forever Chemicals'. Alaska Beacon

The link between PFAS and testicular cancer among service members was never directly proven — until now.

Alaska History

· 1880, Aug 17. Joe Juneau & Richard Harris discovered gold near Juneau

· 1930, Aug 13. First flight over Denali by Matt Nieminen

· 1935, Aug 15. Will Rogers & Wiley Post lost en route Fairbanks to Barrow

· 1967, Aug 15. Chena River flooded Fairbanks (I was there. Our family had to evacuate to the University of Alaska dorms)

· 1997, Aug. 12. 15,000th tanker, loaded with Alaska North Slope crude, departed Valdez

Alaska Oil Resource Values

Alaska North Slope crude oil price (8/16/23): $86.04

FY24 budget (beginning 7/1) is fully funded at forecast $73/barrel oil.

Price on 9/30/22: $86.91

Price on 6/29/22: $116.84

Price on 3/8/22: $125.44

Price on 12/22/21: $75.55

ANS production (7/26/23): 422,042 bpd

Nuclear power no solution for the N.W.T., some experts suggest. Eye on the Arctic

“Nuclear powered aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, Russian nuclear icebreakers … have been using small reactors for decades,” he said in an interview. The core of the reactor in an SMR isn’t much bigger than an office desk, he said, and it’s sealed in a stainless steel container that is transported to a community and installed underground.

LNG Japan agrees $880 million deal to join Giant Gas Project. Energy Connects

LNG Japan Corp. has agreed to a deal worth as much as $880 million for a stake in a giant natural gas project off Australia, a new step to secure supply of a fossil fuel that the nation expects to retain a key role in its energy mix. The joint venture of Sumitomo Corp. and Sojitz Corp. will acquire a 10% interest in the Scarborough project from Woodside Energy Group. It also struck a pact for 12 cargoes — or about 900,000 tonnes — of liquefied natural gas from the project each year for a decade beginning with production start-up in 2026, Woodside said Aug. 8. (Japan is betting on Australia natural gas, not Alaska.)

Stat du jour: U.S.-China breakup. Axios

Chinese goods made up 13% of U.S. imports during the first six months of this year — the lowest level since 2003. The peak was nearly 22% in 2017.

(My comment: link to the opinion piece)

The power grid needs technology to handle an all-electric future. Governing

“EVs are flexible load. And because they are flexible load, they have the ability to improve grid resilience,” said Chanel Parson, director of electrification at Southern California Edison, another of the large California electric utilities.

(My comment: Our transmission system needs big upgrades to be prepared for EVs. That’s under consideration and planning now. It will cost billions but will be a long-term investment that Alaska needs.)

Zoom in: EV batteries and the climate law. Axios

See the chart on select metal requirements for EV batteries in vehicles sold in the U.S..

Alaska Permanent Fund

Alaska Permanent Fund (August 9, 2023)

Fund's total value was $77,878,700,000.

Preliminary 6-30-23 unaudited values

The Principal total includes:

• $56.4 billion in permanent savings contributions

• $11.5 billion in unrealized gains

The Earnings Reserve Account total includes:

• $5.2 billion of uncommitted realized earnings

• $3.5 billion for the FY24 POMV draw