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The heaviest polar ice in more than a decade could postpone the start of offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean until the beginning of August, a delay of up to two weeks, Shell Alaska officials said. Unveiling a newly refurbished ice-class rig that is poised to begin drilling two exploratory wells this summer in the Beaufort Sea, Shell executives said Friday that the unusually robust sea ice would further narrow what already is a tight window for operations. The company's $4-billion program is designed to measure the extent of what could be the United States' most important new inventory...

The Alaska Business Report Card was released today and not surprisingly, the group gave the Senate Majority an 'F'. The ABRC, which includes the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce, the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, Prosperity Alaska and the Resource Development Council, gave the Senate failing marks for its failure to move on the groups' legislative priorities of fiscal responsibility, oil tax reform, regulatory efficiency, litigation reform, general business climate and strategic infrastructure. The House Majority received an A-, the House Minority a D, and the four-member minority of the Senate an 'A', Gov. Sean Parnell got a 'B'. Read the...

He's not the Thrilla From Wasilla anymore. Bristol Palin's baby-daddy, Levi Johnston, is now penniless and living in his mother's Alaska home, a source tells Us Weekly. "Levi made more than $1 million and squandered it on guns, boats and four-wheelers," the source says of Playgirl's winter 2010 cover model, 22.

This column originally appeared in THE DAILY BEAST. In looking ahead toward the November election, Republican strategists should take proactive steps to avoid a damaging, dangerous conclusion to the presidential race and to prevent the very real chance that Mitt Romney will win the Electoral College even while losing the popular vote badly to Barack Obama. The problem stems from the lopsided margins President Obama will surely pile up in a few uncontested states with big populations, including California, New York, Illinois and Massachusetts. Mr. Romney, meanwhile, will prevail by comparable margins in only relatively small states: Utah, Idaho, the...

Scientists have identified thousands of sites in the Arctic where methane that has been stored for many millennia is bubbling into the atmosphere. The methane has been trapped by ice, but is able to escape as the ice melts. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this ancient gas could have a significant impact on climate change. Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 and levels are rising after a few years of stability. There are many sources of the gas around the world, some natural and some man-made, such as landfill waste disposal sites...

Anchorage-area firearms dealers are being invited to a June 5 seminar by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives nearly two months after a controversy erupted that set off alarms among Northwest gun rights activists and got the attention of Alaska Congressman Don Young. The ATF field office in Anchorage takes direction from the Seattle Field Division office, and in January, an agent in Anchorage approached several local gun shops including Great Northern Guns, asking for their bound books, containing information on all gun transactions, so he could make copies. Great Northern Guns, as this column noted, refused. The...

Wonder Park Elementary School was briefly on lockdown Thursday morning because a neighbor was acting suspiciously, police said. At 9:52 a.m. a neighbor of the East Anchorage elementary school called to complain that another neighbor was making threats over construction in the neighborhood, said Anchorage Police Department spokeswoman Anita Shell. The man was seen putting guns in his vehicle. "His behavior was questionable," Shell said. Because children were playing out at recess in close proximity, the school went into lockdown for about 45 minutes, she said. Police visited the man at his home. He was cooperative and voluntarily gave up...

OMAHA, Neb. - The Associated Press has projected Deb Fischer as the winner of the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate. Most of the evening, Jon Bruning maintained a lead over Fischer; however, during the 9 p.m. hour, the lead switched in favor of Fischer. Just under 6,000 votes separated the top two candidates when the Associated Press called the race.

North Dakota passed Alaska in March to become the second-leading state in crude oil production, trailing only Texas, according to preliminary figures released Monday. North Dakota produced an average of 575,490 barrels of crude oil every day in March, another record, according to Lynn Helms, director of the state’s Department of Mineral Resources. The crude is coming from a record 6,636 wells. In February, the state produced 558,255 barrels and had 6,450 wells. The number of rigs drilling in the state was at 208 on Monday, about where it has been for eight months, including a record 212 drilling for...

Rick Santorum Backs Richard Mourdock in Indiana Senate Race By Shushannah Walshe | ABC OTUS News Rick Santorum has weighed in on the fierce primary battle in the Indiana senate race. The former presidential candidate tweeted his support of State Treasurer Richard Mourdock over longtime Sen. Dick Lugar. @RickSantorum: I encourage Hoosiers to help GOTV for @RichardMourdock. If I lived in Indiana he'd have my vote in Tuesday's #INSen race. Lugar has held the seat since 1976, but Tea Party favorite Richard Mourdock is waging a serious challenge and is leading in state polls. Mourdock also has the backing of...

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ANCHORAGE AK 215 PM AKDT THU MAY 3 2012 ...RECORD SEA ICE AT PRIBILOF ISLANDS... THIS HAS BEEN AN EXTREME WINTER FOR SEA ICE IN THE BERING SEA AND NOW WE HAVE BROKEN THE RECORDS FOR MOST NUMBER OF DAYS WITH ICE AT BOTH SAINT PAUL ISLAND AND SAINT GEORGE ISLAND. AS OF TODAY SEA ICE HAS BEEN AT SAINT PAUL ISLAND FOR 103 DAYS THIS WINTER BREAKING THE PREVIOUS RECORD OF 100 DAYS SET IN 2010. THE NUMBER OF DAYS WITH SEA ICE AT SAINT GEORGE ISLAND TOTALED 79 WHEN THE ICE RETREATED...

Alaska Congressman Don Young today demanded to know why agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been asking gun shop owners in the 49th State for copies of their gun sales records. As this column reported, ATF agents had contacted gun shops in Anchorage for the bound books which contain information on gun buyers. Federal law prohibits federal agents from doing that, and they know it. Gun rights activists across the Northwest are furious. The situation has caused an uproar in the firearms community, and Young – a member of the National Rifle Association Board of...

Rocker and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent pleaded guilty Tuesday to transporting a black bear he illegally killed in Alaska. With his plea, Nugent followed through with a signed agreement he made with federal prosecutors earlier this month. A judge approved the deal at a U.S. District Court hearing in the southeast Alaska town of Ketchikan. Nugent and his attorney participated by telephone. Asked by Magistrate Judge Michael Thompson if the agreement was clear, Nugent responded: "It is with me, your honor." The guitarist and singer, who also is an avid hunter, later apologized for his actions and said he...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Rocker Ted Nugent is scheduled for a court hearing in Alaska on Tuesday, when he is expected to plead guilty to transporting a black bear he illegally killed. The conservative activist and gun rights advocate signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that was filed Friday in U.S. District Court. Nugent was set to participate by telephone in Tuesday's U.S. District Court proceeding in the southeast Alaska town of Ketchikan, his attorney said. The plea agreement says Nugent illegally shot and killed the bear in May 2009 on Sukkwan Island in southeast Alaska days after he...

AI member Tyler relays a tale of wanton death and destruction that was only narrowly averted by the vigilance of our friends who work for the Transportation Safety Administration. We’re not sure what Tyler was thinking – trying to carry such a dangerous item on board a commercial aircraft – but here’s his story . . . I had the friendly people at TSA notify me when I tried to get on a flight to Alaska (where I work around bears) this morning that a disassembled bolt for a Ruger m77 is not, in fact, a nicely machined paper weight...

The Alaska Senate on Saturday passed a bill intended to encourage new field oil production, just days after an overhaul of Alaska's oil tax structure stalled in the Senate's bipartisan majority caucus. A piece of that overhaul was a tax break for oil production in new fields. On Saturday morning the Senate Finance Committee grafted a version of that from the stalled SB192 onto a House bill intended to encourage more oil and gas drilling in select basins around the state. The bill, which passed 17-3, must go back to the House, which would have to agree to the changes...

As the Alaska Legislature moves toward an April 15 adjournment, a bill basically two years in the making is finally moving to its first floor vote. Senate Bill 192 began life in the Senate Resources Committee earlier this session after the Senate refused to consider the governor’s tax change bill, House Bill 110, which the House passed last year. Senators said at the time that they needed more information before making any changes to the production tax system initially crafted as the Petroleum Profits Tax, or PPT, in 2006 under Gov. Frank Murkowski, and then rewritten in 2007 as ACES...

Charlotte, NC --(Ammoland.com)- House Bill 80, critical self-defense legislation, passed in the state House at the end of last session, and was reported by the state Senate Judiciary Committee on March 23. This bill has since been languishing in the Senate Finance Committee. With only three days left in this legislative session, it is imperative that HB 80 be heard in committee immediately. Introduced by state Representative Mark Neuman (R-15), HB 80 is important self-defense legislation that would provide that a law-abiding person, who is justified in using deadly force in self-defense, has “no duty-to-retreat” from an attack if the...

KODIAK, Alaska — Two Coast Guard members were fatally shot at a communications station on an island off Alaska, officials said today. Officials said it remained unclear if the deaths at the Coast Guard Station on Kodiak Island were a double homicide or a murder-suicide. Capt. Jesse Moore said it was “possible that the suspect remains at large.” The communications station has 59 staff members, and people who want to enter must show identification, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Charly Hengen. “They do have secure front doors,” she said. The station serves as the “ears in the sky” for radio...

Flint Hills Resources announced plans Tuesday to idle one of its two operating refinery units in North Pole, a move that will result in layoffs for roughly a quarter of its local employees. In a news release, the company blamed the move on “challenging economics and rising crude prices.” The process of idling the No. 1 crude unit will lead to a gradual reduction of 35 to 40 workers at the refinery during the next five months. Flint Hills has struggled with high costs at its North Pole location for years, saying the refinery’s dependence on crude oil as a...

Driving snow didn't seem to dampen the spirit of a rally in downtown Anchorage Saturday demanding justice for Trayvon Martin, a teenager shot and killed thousands of miles away in Florida. Similar protests were held around the country. "This is kind of a sick and tired of being sick and tired moment," said Wanda Greene, president of the Anchorage chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Martin, 17, was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., while Martin was unarmed. Zimmerman told police he fired in self-defense. He has not been...

Voters in Anchorage, Alaska, overwhelmingly voted in favor of the natural family by rejecting Proposition 5, a measure that would have given special rights based on lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual behavior. Proposition 5 would have given special rights to sexual behavior and would have been used as a club to silence dissent of the faith community. Alaska voters sent a loud and clear statement to the rest of the country that forcing people to provide special privileges based on sexual behavior is unwise. The measure was put on the ballot and supported by a consortium of LGBT groups, called...

In a new study reported in Nature, climate scientist Rob DeConto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues elsewhere propose a simple new mechanism to explain the source of carbon that fed a series of extreme warming events about 55 million years ago, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), and a sequence of similar, smaller warming events afterward. "The standard hypothesis has been that the source of carbon was in the ocean, in the form of frozen methane gas in ocean-floor sediments," DeConto says. "We are instead ascribing the carbon source to the continents, in polar latitudes where permafrost can...

WOW. Look, I respect that Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski values her moderate reputation, that she’s a kind person who seeks to facilitate conversation across the aisle, that she doesn’t want to offend her friends who are Democrats, but c’mon. She’s going to provide cover for Democratic rhetoric that Republicans are waging a “war on women”? Oh, I’m sorry, excuse me. Murkowski didn’t say Republicans are “waging a war.” She said they’re “making an attack.” Honestly, I can’t even figure out who she’s pandering to, other than to Democrats. From HuffPo:

The U.S. Coast Guard unleashed cannon fire Thursday at a Japanese vessel set adrift by last year's tsunami, stopping the ship's long, lonely voyage across the Pacific Ocean. A Coast Guard cutter fired on the abandoned 164-foot Ryou-Un Maru in the waters of the Gulf of Alaska and more than 150 miles from land, spokesman Paul Webb said. Soon after the cannon fire started, the ship burst into flames, began to take on water and list, Chief Petty Officer Kip Wadlow said. About two hours later, the vessel hadn't sunk and the cutter resumed shelling, Lt. Veronica Colbath said. The...

US to sink ghost ship dislodged by Japan tsunami The U.S. Coast Guard plans to use explosives to sink a derelict Japanese ship dislodged by last year's massive tsunami. The shrimping vessel, which has no lights or communications systems, was floating about 195 miles south of Sitka in the Gulf of Alaska on Thursday morning, traveling about 1 mile per hour. The ship holds more than 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel and authorities are concerned it could interfere with the course of other vessels as it drifts through shipping lanes. A Coast Guard cutter was headed out to the ship...

A Bush-era federal law that protects gun dealers from being liable for murders committed with guns from their shops is under fire in an Alaska court case that has led the Justice Department and gun-control activists to intervene. At issue is whether a Juneau gun dealer is liable for letting a disheveled homeless felon leave his store with a rifle he used to murder a total stranger. The family of the murder victim, Anchorage contractor Simone Kim, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit that has made it to the Alaska Supreme Court.

Levi Johnston appears not to have learned any lessons about birth control after impregnating Bristol Palin at age 18. Johnston's girlfriend of a year and a half, 20-year-old preschool teacher Sunny Oglesby, is pregnant, his rep has confirmed. Sources tell TMZ that Oglesby is less than three months along and thus has not widely announced the news. Johnston is reported to be "so excited" about becoming a father for the second time. Johnston's rep confirmed the report to The Post this afternoon.

Anchorage, AK --(Ammoland.com)- BATFE is violating the law again. Anchorage gun shops are being visited by BATFE agents that are requesting the shops 4473 forms as far back as 2007. They claim they want to make copies of the “book”. This is defacto registration, against the law, and BATFE knows it. Please inform everyone you know about this and notify any gun dealers you know that they don’t have to comply. Contact your congressman and senators and demand a full investigation. Don Young and our Senators have been informed about what is happening. Congressman Young is acutely interested but our...

JUNEAU -- Two years ago, when the Legislature was debating the first incarnation of "stand your ground" legislation, then-Attorney General Dan Sullivan decried the bill as an invitation to violence. Covering a broad swath of beliefs from religion to atheism, from conservatism to liberalism, Sullivan's unequivocal letter to the House Judiciary Committee, written by a subordinate, said the bill had no place in the statute books. "Whatever source one thinks our laws should be drawn from -- the ten commandments which say 'thou shalt not kill,' simple morality, utilitarianism principles of the greater good, or simply the concept that life...

... At the grocery store, it's $39.25 for a 12-roll package of paper towels. Toilet paper costs $37.85 for a 36-roll package. Want a 2-liter of Diet Pepsi? It's on sale this week for $4.49. At a restaurant, breakfast for one will run about $16. And the price for a gallon of gas is well above the national average, at $5.96 a gallon. If there's any good news for the 3,500 residents of Nome, it's that gas is cheap compared to what it could have been.

Sarah Palin says when she heard about Rick’s comment, she said ‘good on ya’ and was glad he called out the liberal leftist media. She also says it reveals good, strong character in Santorum:

A federal agency is holding public "scoping" meetings this week for a large hydroelectric dam project proposed for the Susitna River. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was to take public testimony about the Susitna dam project starting Monday evening in Anchorage. The public meetings are the first step for a required federal Environmental Impact Statement. Through the environmental review, the federal government determines whether and under what conditions to issue a license for the project. The latest cost estimate to build the dam is $4.3 billion, but some legislators think that is on the low side. The Legislature last year...

Whoever chooses to merely dismiss the significance of today’s exchange between our President and Russia’s President should have their intelligence and patriotism questioned. Let this exchange be a warning to voters: President Obama will have “more flexibility” to weaken us if he’s re-elected in November. He was caught speaking candidly to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev before a “hot mic” today (and surely one must believe he didn’t know the mics were still on; surely he’s not so audacious as to purposefully broadcast his intentions), as reported by ABC’s Jake Tapper. Here’s the exchange: President Obama: On all these issues, but...

When a film producer called up CH2M Hill’s area manager Tom Maloney a few weeks ago to ask if the company’s empty fabrication shop could be used as space for film production, it was the last straw. Maloney’s job includes keeping the shop full and its people working. “I was tempted – it was revenue – but I just couldn’t let it happen on the odd chance that we might get some work into the shop,” Maloney said. Alaska’s once-bustling oilfield fabrication shops are now empty, CH2M Hill’s among them. ASRC Energy, which also operates a fabrication shop in south...

A fishing boat lost in the massive Japanese tsunami a year ago has turned up off Canada's west coast... The 65-meter (210-foot) vessel was spotted Tuesday by a Canadian Forces aircraft on a routine surveillance patrol, and its Japanese owner has been notified, said Transport Canada. A military photo shows the ship, streaked with rust but intact, floating 278 kilometers (150 nautical miles) off the southern coast of Haida Gwaii islands, some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) north of Vancouver. "The vessel is considered an obstruction to navigation," ... Near Midway Atoll in the deep Pacific, a Russian ship spotted an...

BP, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are in discussions about a $40bn project to export liquefied natural gas from Alaska to Asia, potentially opening up large but stranded reserves that currently have no route to market. According to people close to the negotiations, the three companies and state authorities hope to reach agreement next week over a long-running lease dispute at Point Thomson, a large oil and gas field on Alaska’s North Slope. A settlement would clear the way for the companies to hasten their commercial assessment of a large gas pipeline to Alaska’s southern coast, from where LNG could be shipped...

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Monday she wished her female colleagues from across the aisle had lobbied her to vote against the Blunt amendment, legislation that would have enabled employers to opt out of providing health insurance that covered medicine or procedures they morally objected to. Murkowski, who voted for the GOP-backed bill, has since said that she regretted her vote.

The major producers on Alaska’s North Slope have said that with meaningful changes in the state’s oil and gas production tax there are some $5 billion in projects which could become economic. Projects discussed by BP Exploration (Alaska) and ConocoPhillips Alaska are in the major producing fields, Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk. What about $9 billion in projects on currently undeveloped state land if the state makes meaningful changes in production tax on lands not currently producing? That was the carrot Bill Armstrong, president of Armstrong Oil & Gas and 70 & 148 LLC, held out to legislators in a March...

Excerpt A court-appointed special prosecutor has determined that serious misconduct by Justice Department prosecutors tainted the federal investigation and trial of former Sen. Ted Stevens, according to a report released Thursday. *snip* "The government introduced false business records to boost the value of renovations on the Senator's Alaska home. It also hid from the defense the evidence needed to show that the value was much less than the government claimed, including evidence that its key witness disagreed with the government about the value of the renovations," Stevens defense lawyers Brendan Sullivan and Robert Cary said in a statement. *snip*...

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A bill that would expand the right to use lethal force as a means of self-defense is dangerous, without support in the prosecutorial community, and rife with potential unintended consequences, an Anchorage prosecutor said Friday. James Fayette, an assistant district attorney, took a day off work to fly to Juneau on his own dime to speak out against HB80 during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake, would allow Alaskans to use lethal force in self-defense anywhere they are legally allowed. Current law explicitly affords that right only when...

A court-appointed special prosecutor's report made public on Thursday details findings that U.S. Justice Department attorneys intentionally withheld information from the defense in the bungled prosecution of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. The Stevens investigation and prosecution "were permeated by the systematic concealment" of key evidence that would have been beneficial to his defense and "seriously damaged the testimony and credibility" of the government's key witness, former Veco chief Bill Allen, the report said. The 514-page report, by Washington lawyer Henry Schuelke, was released Thursday by order of U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who presided over Stevens' 2008 trial and...

<p>The U.S. Senate on Tuesday resoundingly rejected a sweeping measure to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other protected areas to drilling as well as approve construction of the Keystone pipeline project.</p> <p>The vote was the first time in four years the Senate has voted on a measure including ANWR drilling, and it failed miserably. The proposal needed 60 votes to pass and avoid a filibuster. It received only 41 votes in favor, with 57 senators against.</p>

“That black stuff is hurting us.” ---Sen. John Kerry on oil (Greenwire) Washington, DC – U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) is quoted in today’s edition of Greenwire as saying, “that black stuff is hurting us,” with regard to oil. Members of the House Committee on Resources found the Senator’s comment absurd. “John Kerry is dead wrong,” Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) said. “Oil doesn’t hurt Americans; John Kerry’s anti-energy policies hurt Americans. In fact, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric and bad policy that has led to the outsourcing of good American energy jobs. Last year alone, the United...

As the U.S. Senate prepared Wednesday to debate the nation's energy needs, environmental groups blasted the Republican plan to drill for oil in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and said the White House lacked enough votes to win Senate passage of the measure. The ANWR drilling provision appeared headed for passage in the Senate Energy Committee earlier this month until Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) yanked the entire bill from the committee and moved it directly to the Senate floor. At the time, Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Energy panel, said he had "never seen ...

Monday, October 11, 2004 Out Of Energy   OUT OF ENERGYKerry's Energy PlanIndependent Of Reality______________________________________________________KERRY'S OWN ADVISERS SCOFF AT KERRY'S IDEAS ON ENERGY INDEPENDENCEKerry Energy Advisers Believe Kerry's Energy Plan Is "Unrealistic And Misleading."  "The idea of a United States independent of Middle East oil is a touchstone of Senator John Kerry's campaign and a huge crowd pleaser, but has divided and exasperated many of his most experienced energy advisers.  Some advisers say they worry that Mr. Kerry's focus on freeing the United States from reliance on oil from the Persian Gulf, the linchpin of the energy plan he released...

<p>Democrats are so confident that Big Labor is in their pocket they often forget what it is unions need most -- jobs.</p> <p>Sometimes even labor leaders forget that, as they blindly sign on to a job-killing agenda of high taxes, big spending and excessive regulation.</p>

  "I am committed to preserving Florida's natural beauty … There is no ambiguity in my position on drilling off the coast of Florida." - President Bush, 4/23/04 Kerry Supports Offshore Drilling In Florida Kerry Says He Favors Drilling Off The Coast Of Florida. "But Kerry said he would be in favor of drilling off the coast of Florida. 'I support oil drilling in the right places,' Kerry said. 'There is a capacity to protect what we have today - the protections for the coast of Florida - and still be able to drill in those locations where they're already...

Sarah Palin with her husband Todd spoke to a tea party crowd Monday in New Hampshire. From her Facebook page: In my speech on Saturday in Iowa, I said: “Between bailouts for Wall Street cronies and stimulus projects for union bosses’ security and ‘green energy’ giveaways, [Barack Obama] took care of his friends. And now they’re on course to raise a billion dollars for his re-election bid so that they can do it all over again.” This was shamefully on display yesterday at President Obama’s taxpayer-funded campaign rally in Detroit. In introducing the President, Teamsters President James Hoffa represented precisely...

Teamsters President James Hoffa said on Friday he would ask the 500,000 truck operators covered by his union to take part in a grass-roots homeland security effort looking for suspicious activity on the roads. Talking to reporters on the White House driveway, Hoffa said he had pitched the idea to President Bush's director of homeland security, Tom Ridge. His comments came shortly before an FBI warning that terrorists may use fuel tanker trucks for attacks in the United States -- possibly on fuel depots, Jewish schools or synagogues -- or on U.S. interests overseas. Hoffa was among a group of...