C.G. Renames Anchorage Sector
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- Category: State News
- Created on Friday, 26 July 2024 14:54
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By YERETH ROSEN
Alaska Beacon
The U.S. Coast Guard Alaska sector previously named for the state’s largest city now has a new name: Sector Western Alaska and U.S. Arctic.
While the sector remains located in Anchorage, with a headquarters at the Alaska National Guard Armory on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, the new name reflects the increasing responsibilities in Arctic and near-Arctic waters that are becoming more trafficked as sea ice diminishes, the Coast Guard said. Additionally, the sector serves Interior Alaska.
The change was made in April, but Coast Guard officials last week issued a statement reminding the public of the reason for it.
Capt. Christopher Culpepper, commander of Sector Western Alaska and U. S. Arctic, said in a July 17 statement that the sector carries out Coast Guard missions throughout the state, including the Aleutian Islands, the North Slope, the Interior, and at the borders with Russia and Canada.
“By updating the name, the Coast Guard clarifies that the unit serves a broader public beyond the Anchorage bowl and the change better aligns with the Captain of the Port zone as outlined in the Code of Federal Regulations,” he said in the statement.
That area of responsibility is the largest geographically of all U.S. Coast Guard sectors.
Increased ship traffic in Arctic and near-Arctic waters includes military vessels. Earlier this month, the Coast Guard encountered four Chinese naval vessels that were transiting waters near the Aleutian Islands. Those waters are international, but within the U.S. exclusive economic zone.
A key part of the Coast Guard’s Arctic work is its annual Operation Arctic Shield, in which crews are posted and ships and aircraft deployed in the Arctic region from midsummer through the end of October. The seasonal Coast Guard Arctic base is usually Kotzebue.
In Operation Arctic Shield, Coast Guard members, ships and aircraft are available for search-and-rescue missions. In past years, the Kotzebue-stationed crews have conducted several such missions. One example was the rescue last September of a hunter reported missing near the Chukchi Sea community of Wales.
Crews working in Operation Arctic Shield also provide services in communities like northern and Western Alaska, including small villages. Those services include boating safety education and, at times, safety inspections of vessels and inspections of fuel tanks and other facilities that might pose environmental problems. General presence in the northern Bering Sea and north of the Bering Strait adds to what Coast Guard calls “domain awareness,” and helps build community relationships, including with tribal governments.
Annual Coast Guard Arctic operations are also highlighted by the research cruises conducted by the cutter Healy, one of only two polar-class icebreakers in the fleet.
The Sector Western Alaska and U.S. Arctic operations are in line with the Coast Guard’s national Arctic strategy, released in 2019, and its implementation plan, released last year.
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https://alaskabeacon.com/yereth-rosen
Ranked Choice Repeal Qualifies for the Ballot
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- Category: State News
- Created on Thursday, 25 July 2024 15:25
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By CLAIRE STREMPLE
Alaska Beacon
Alaska voters are slated to have an opportunity this year to affirm or repeal the state’s use of ranked choice voting, Division of Elections officials confirmed on Wednesday.
The news comes after Superior Court Judge Christina Rankin disqualified some of the signatures gathered by a repeal effort on Friday because the gathering process was not carried out in accordance with state law.
Whether there would be enough total signatures was not in question, but rather whether there would be enough to meet the requirement for a certain number of signatures from at least 30 of 40 state House districts.
Officials with the state’s Division of Elections confirmed the repeal effort gathered enough signatures in the requisite number of districts and filed their findings with the court.
Former Alaska Attorney General Kevin Clarkson represented repeal supporters in the case and predicted the outcome would be favorable for the repeal initiative last Friday.
Attorney Scott Kendall wrote the 2020 ballot measure that led to the use of ranked choice voting and represented the plaintiffs in court. He said he expects to file an appeal with the state’s Supreme Court this week.
Alaskans first used ranked choice voting in the 2022 election. It will be used in the general election this November.
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https://alaskabeacon.com/claire-stremple
Peltola Weighs Harris’s Support of Oil Energy
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- Category: State News
- Created on Wednesday, 24 July 2024 15:22
- Hits: 2
By YERETH ROSEN
Alaska Beacon
Alaska’s highest-ranking Democratic officeholder said Tuesday she has not decided whether to back the party’s likely candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Rep. Mary Peltola broke with other state Democrats, who quickly gave their support and their party convention delegates’ votes to Harris just hours after President Joe Biden announced that he was ending his campaign for re-election.
Peltola, in an online news conference, said she is still weighing her decision about whether to vote for Harris and is “keeping an open mind.”
“We still have 105 days until Election Day, and just like many other Alaskans and like a lot of other Americans, I’m going to be really looking at her policy positions, specifically on energy,” she said.
While she appreciates Harris’ position on women’s reproductive rights, Social Security, voting rights and other issues, “as the representative for Alaska, my number one job is looking at our economy and our energy situation,” and which candidate would be better for the oil-dependent state, Peltola said.
“I am not being coy. I am really going to lean in and be looking at where Kamala Harris is coming from, in energy and other issues that are important to Alaska,” she said.
Peltola said she has never endorsed anyone, and does not intend to start. As Alaska’s sole U.S. House member, she is “overtly choosing governing over politicking,” trying to ensure that the state has a good working relationship with whomever occupies the White House.
That responsibility affects the way she is viewing the presidential race, she said.
“As the representative for all of Alaska, I have to put Alaska and Alaska issues before my own personal preferences,” she said. “And this is a very uncomfortable place to be.”
In a follow-up post put on social media after the news conference, Peltola clarified that she will not vote for the former president, who is now the official Republican nominee.
“I’m not voting for Trump & I’m not endorsing anyone else either. The media won’t allow us to engage in nuanced conversation because it doesn’t sell clicks. I won’t vote for a candidate who’s not pro-choice. I can’t ask Alaskans to vote for a candidate who’s not pro-energy,” she wrote in a post on the site formerly known as Twitter and now called X.
Peltola is not planning to attend the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago, even though she is included in the list of the party’s delegation, a campaign spokesperson said after the news conference.
“She’s going to be campaigning in-state, so she won’t be able to go,” spokesperson Shannon Mason said, adding that Peltola has never been to a national party convention.
A fellow Alaska congressional delegation member, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, has shown no such reluctance about supporting his party’s presidential candidate.
Sullivan, a Trump loyalist, attended the recent Republican National Convention and has endorsed the former president.
Alaska’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, has been undecided, however. One of the few Republicans in Congress to support Trump’s impeachment, Murkowski has said in the past that she does not intend to vote for either the former president or Biden. When Biden announced his decision to drop from the race, Murkowski posted a brief but supportive message on social media: I respect President Biden’s decision to act in the best interest of the country by stepping aside in the 2024 presidential election.”
Peltola has been attacked in the past for expressing support for Biden, a fellow Democrat, and those attacks continue. A new digital advertisement from the National Republican Congressional Committee accuses her of “betraying Alaskans to back Biden.”
In a social media post on Monday, Peltola, who is Yup’ik and from Western Alaska’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, invoked her Native values as part of her reasons for refraining from attacks, including in the presidential campaign.
“I’m not interested in criticizing either President. That’s not who I am. It’s not very Yupik – and any cheap political shot that might benefit my campaign would only hurt my ability to bring home wins for Alaska,” she said in the post.
While she has praised Biden’s acuity in the past, Peltola said in the news conference that the president has slipped noticeably in recent months because of his advanced age.
She said she was surprised at his poor performance in last month’s televised debate against Trump.
“I think that just like kids have growth spurts, I think that we have age spurts, and it was very apparent that there had been quite a bit of aging that has gone on in, in recent months,” she said.
Peltola said she has sometimes disagreed with Biden’s decisions about policies that affect Alaska, but she still praised his public service.
“It reminds me a lot of the lifetime commitment that Ted Stevens gave to Alaska, the lifetime commitment that Don Young gave to Alaska, and I really appreciate his commitment to public service,” she said, naming the late Republican senator and late Republican U.S. House member who were among the longest-serving members in the nation’s history.
Peltola now holds the House seat that Young held for 49 years.
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https://alaskabeacon.com/yereth-rosen
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The high sockeye returns at Redoubt Bay and Lake have prompted the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to raise daily bag limits to six for sport fishers and to 25 for subsistence fishers.
50 YEARS AGO
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