Free Republic

ANCHORAGE – Government business in Alaska is pretty much open to the public, except when it comes to natural gas. Lawmakers gathered at the Legislative Information Office in downtown Anchorage Friday, discussing information on the proposed Alaska liquified natural gas project. The public was not invited. Lawmakers who attended the hearing defended the action. “We have an ongoing project that is closer that ever before at bringing the necessary parties together to make an Alaska North Slope pipeline happen,” said Rep. Mike Hawker. Gov.-elect Bill Walker discussed the secret session with KTVA as the meeting took place. “Public money is...

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from taking action against a massive Alaska mining project that the agency says could be catastrophic for the best run of wild salmon remaining on the planet.

On-again, off-again plans for the world's largest gold and copper mine could be back on again, after a federal judge in Alaska issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from its ongoing efforts to bury the project. Pebble Partnership, the Canadian company behind the project, which would take place near Anchorage, claims the regulatory agency has conspired illegally with opponents of the mine to devise scientific and environmental justifications for blocking it. Salmon fishermen in Washington state and Alaska, Native American groups and environmental organizations have opposed the massive project for several years, and had appeared to have...

FAIRBANKS — Former Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Jim Whitaker has been picked by Gov.-elect Bill Walker as his chief of staff, according to a news release sent out by Walker’s campaign Wednesday night. The former mayor’s selection is one of the first official positions to be announced as the independent candidate begins the transition to the governor’s office after Republican Gov. Sean Parnell conceded defeat during the weekend.

The Senate narrowly rejected legislation to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday, handing a defeat to the oil industry and dealing a major blow to Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, who staked her political career on the outcome. The Senate voted 59-41 for the legislation, falling one vote shy of the 60 needed for passage under the deal bringing it to the floor. But Keystone supporters insisted the defeat would be short-lived. Republican leaders are vowing to try again after they take over the chamber in January — when they will have more than enough votes to get a measure...

ANCHORAGE — First-term Democratic Sen. Mark Begich has conceded his race against Republican challenger Dan Sullivan, the former Alaska natural resources commissioner who has led in his first run at elected office since Election Day on Nov. 4. According to a Division of Elections update Monday afternoon, Begich trailed Sullivan by more than 6,200 votes, about 2.2 percent. Spokespersons for the Begich campaign had said repeatedly since Election Day that every vote deserved to be counted and hinted that uncounted votes from rural Alaska might put Begich ahead. The Associated Press called the election for Sullivan on Nov. 11. Nearly...

Finally. An additional 7,286 votes were added to the Alaska Senate totals today so far. And while Begich received almost 58% of those votes, Sullivan still leads by 6,211 votes. It is believed there will no more than 3,000 additional ballots to count by this Wednesday (Nov 19).

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell conceded the gubernatorial race Saturday, issuing a statement a day after independent challenger Bill Walker was declared the winner. […] Parnell has served as governor since July 2009, when Sarah Palin resigned. He won election in his own right in 2010. Palin had endorsed Walker. …

Airplanes are being warned to avoid airspace near an erupting Alaska volcano as it spews ash 30,000 feet above sea level. The National Weather Service said Saturday ash is being blown to the west and northwest of Pavlof Volcano. Pavlof began erupting three days ago, pushing lava out from a vent near its summit. On Friday, the ash cloud reached 16,000 feet. Alaska Volcano Observatory Geophysicist Dave Schneider says the eruption intensified at 6 a.m. Saturday, sending the ash cloud higher.

Howeird Dean-- once chair of the DNC, once Governor of Vermont, who grew up at the Maidstone Golf Club in the Hamptons, attended prep school both in the US and in the UK, went to Yale, dodged the draft-- is having a meltdown again.Once famous for melting down on the air after coming in third in the Iowa caucuses, thereby ensuring he won nothing else, Dean is complaining that Obamacare was written by a bunch of elitists who don’t understand Americans.Well, duh: They’re Democrats. “The core problem under this damn law is that it was put together by a bunch...

Independent Walker Ousts Parnell In Close Alaska Governor's Race By Sara Fischer, CNN November 15, 2014 Walker is the first independent to win the seat in Alaska's statehood He ran as independent after Parnell beat him in the 2010 GOP primary for governor. Democrat Byron Mallott will be lieutenant governor (CNN) -- CNN projects independent candidate Bill Walker has won the Alaska gubernatorial race, defeating Republican incumbent Sean Parnell. Walker, a lawyer and local politician, is the first independent to win the seat in Alaska's statehood. The former Valdez mayor and city councilor announced that he would run as an...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Independent candidate Bill Walker has won the Alaska governor's race, following an aggressive challenge to Republican Gov. Sean Parnell that included joining campaigns with a Democratic rival. "I am beyond myself with excitement," Walker said Friday evening. "It has been a long, long journey with a whole lot of Alaskans at my side."(continued)

With many stakeholders, several major interrelated components and an aggressive timescale, the Interior Energy Project presents something of a challenge. The project, with funding support from AIDEA, or the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, is designed to bring affordable natural gas to Fairbanks and the Alaska Interior via a to-be-constructed liquefied natural gas plant on the North Slope and an LNG trucking operation on the North Slope Haul Road. AIDEA has commissioned engineering firm MWH to manage the construction of the LNG plant. The Interior Gas Utility and Fairbanks Natural Gas, the two Fairbanks gas utilities, will arrange the...

Alaska updated their 2014 election results web site about 25 minutes ago. An additional 7,100 votes were added in to the race for Senator. Begich got 55.0% of those votes, while Sullivan got 37.3%. Sullivan's lead dropped from 7,911 to 6,651 votes. At that pace, if an additional 30,000 votes are counted, Begich would close to within 1,300 votes of Sullivan and within the 0.5% margin for a recount (I assume it's 0.5% for Alaska).

Federal regulators slapped a six-month ban on most cod fishing off New England this week and are threatening to cut next year’s catch by up to 75 percent, in a move some say will destroy the livelihoods of fishermen across the region. ... NOAA announced several measures, including the ban which expands no-fishing zones, on Monday. But fishermen whose livelihoods rely on catching cod, as well as the coastal communities that depend on money coming in from that industry, worry the new regulations will devastate them.

Russia has announced plans to build a drone base for military reconnaissance in a town just 420 miles off mainland Alaska and just over 300 miles off the US state’s St Lawrence Island, Russia’s state news agency reported on Thursday. "The command of the eastern military district in charge of the military development of the Arctic zone has moved forward with plans to form an unmanned aerial vehicle division,” Alexandr Gordeev, spokesperson for the district said.

Does anyone have any idea why the election results for the Alaska Senate race (and all other races in that state) haven't been updated since Tuesday night? They managed to go through a little over 20,000 ballots on Tuesday, but nothing else since. It sounds like they have anywhere from 20,000 to 35,000 more ballots to count. Did they announce they would continue the counting at a later date?

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Republican Dan Sullivan won Alaska's U.S. Senate race, defeating first-term incumbent Democrat Mark Begich. Sullivan led Begich by about 8,100 votes on Election Night last week and held a comparable edge after election workers had counted about 20,000 absentee, early-voted and questioned ballots late Tuesday. Thousands more ballots remained to be counted, but the results indicated that Begich could not overcome Sullivan's lead. The Alaska seat was initially considered key to the Republicans' hopes of taking control of the U.S. Senate, but that goal was accomplished before the Alaska race was decided. Sullivan, in a statement,...

(Reuters) - Moves by some U.S. states to legalize marijuana are not in line with international drugs conventions, the U.N. anti-narcotics chief said on Wednesday, adding he would discuss the issue in Washington next week. Residents of Oregon, Alaska, and the U.S. capital voted this month to allow the use of marijuana, boosting the legalization movement as cannabis usage is increasingly recognized by the American mainstream. "I don't see how (the new laws) can be compatible with existing conventions," Yury Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told reporters. Asked whether there was anything...

<p>Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan defeated Sen. Mark Begich, the Democratic incumbent, in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race Wednesday – a win that gives the GOP eight Senate pickups in the midterm elections.</p> <p>The Republican Party also is seeking a ninth seat in Louisiana’s runoff in December.</p>