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Todd Barton
Support for Alaska Public Media on demand comes from Alaska Pipeline Service Co. Marking nearly 50 years of commitment to
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Casey Grove
operating the Trans Alaska Pipeline system.
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Todd Barton
More@alyeskapipeline.com.
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Casey Grove
It pays for everything that has meaning in our lifestyle and protection and safety. A planned oil and gas lease sale for ANWR draws praise from some North Slope communities and scrutiny from others from Alaska Public Media. This is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Wednesday, April 22nd. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, one Anchorage high school is losing its band director amid hundreds of layoffs and transfers.
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Todd Barton
Right after I told my kids we had class, while they're in tears, we played because that's what we do. We make music.
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Casey Grove
Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. The state Senate Finance Committee released its first revision of the state's operating budget today, including a $1,000 permanent fund dividend and a $150 energy relief check. It comes about a week after the state House passed a budget with a $1,500 dividend. The the Senate Finance Committee's version is quite a bit smaller than the version that passed the House, in part because of a more conservative assumption about oil prices. The Senate's budget also leaves more room for capital projects around the state. The House's operating budget left little to none without drawing from savings. Senator Jesse Keel, a Juneau Democrat who serves on the Finance Committee, says he'd rather see more money go to Alaskans facing high energy costs and struggling to make ends meet. He says it's a compromise.
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Eric Glatt
We're determined to meet Alaska's needs and balance Alaska's budget on current revenues, and we're not going to dip into savings when revenues are high. You know, it doesn't have everything that I want to see in it or everything that anybody wants to see in it. But there's only so many dollars.
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Casey Grove
As public schools across the state continue to face serious financial trouble, school districts could receive up to $100 million in one time funding under the Senate's plan, and but only if oil prices remain high. The Senate's draft budget omits a number of priorities that pass the House, like extra transportation funding for schools and the revival of a dormant state funded heating assistance program. Senator Mike Cronk, a Tok Republican and the Senate minority leader, says he'd like to see state spending trimmed back further. I've always been a staunch person of keeping the budget as low as possible and making sure we're not adding to programs that add to the budget all the time. So I think I'm going to be focusing on that. Proposed budget amendments are due Friday. Legislators have until mid May to pass the budget, and it's typically one of the last items passed before the end of the legislative session. The Trump administration is proposing steep cuts to the National Park Service and plans to cut nearly 3,000 more positions from the payroll. U.S. senators of both parties told Interior Secretary Doug Burgum they don't like the idea. At a hearing today, Washington Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said the budget and personnel cuts would further degrade the Park Service.
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Kimberly Strong
You're proposing a 38% cut to parks, facilities, operation and maintenance. These are the road crews, things like that. A 35% cut for support staff and over 50% of funding for resource stewardship. To me, that is just a recipe for disaster for our parks.
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Casey Grove
The Appropriations subcommittee hearing comes after a tumultuous year for the National Park Service. The agency is estimated to have already lost a quarter of its workforce since the start of the second Trump administration. In Alaska, according to advocacy groups, the Park Service lost about a third of its regional office staff last year. Senator Lisa Murkowski says she's concerned about personnel cuts to the Park Service and to other agencies within Interior, like the Bureau of Land Management. She praised the interior secretary for the administration's initiatives to develop energy projects on Alaska's federal land. But she says none of it's possible without proper staffing.
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Kimberly Strong
We can't manage these unless we have the people there. It just takes a lot of good people doing good things to turn it into sustained success.
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Casey Grove
While they decried cuts, senators also criticized a big increase in one part of the proposed national parks budget, $10 billion for presidential beautification projects. In Washington, D.C. senator Jeff Merkeley, a Democrat from Oregon, called it a slush fund. Vanity projects to promote the current president are better suited to a regime than to a republic. Merkley says the fund would be larger than what the president proposes to spend on annual maintenance for national parks nationwide. The president's budget is just a request. Congress is supposed to control the purse strings by passing appropriation bills, but it over several decades ceded a lot of authority to the executive branch. An oil and gas lease sale is scheduled in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for June. The auction of drilling rights is mandated in federal law but also reflects the Trump administration's commitment to promoting energy development in the state. The response from indigenous residents that live in or near the refuge is mixed. Alyona Nydin with the Alaska Desk reports
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Alyona Knighton
the federal Bureau of Land Management announced this month it will hold a lease sale in the nation's largest wildlife refuge in the northeastern corner of Alaska. The piece of the Arctic refuge that's been the subject of passionate dispute for decades is the Coastal Plain, a swath along the Beaufort Sea that potentially has oil and gas reserves. The only community within the refuge is Kaktorovik and the Nupiak village of about 300 people located on the coast east of Prudho Bay. Kaktochoevik mayor Nathan Gordon Jr says resource development in the refuge means economic opportunity because the regional government, the North Slope Borough taxes, oil and gas companies.
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Casey Grove
It would benefit us because the taxes that come from the development pay for
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Kimberly Strong
our schools, our water system, our sewer system.
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Casey Grove
It pays for everything that has meaning in our lifestyle and protection and safety and health.
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Alyona Knighton
The Arctic Refuge provides habitat for migratory birds and polar bears, and the Coastal Plain specifically is the calving grounds for the porcupine caribou herd. That herd was considered healthy until new data this year pointed to its decline. Gordon says he believes development within the refuge won't interfere with wildlife. He says he has seen resource development companies pause or adjust their activities if polar bears den in the area or or when caribou are migrating through.
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Casey Grove
It cannot interrupt any polar bear activity with restrictions in place. It's already set in stone for us to have safe development with our animals.
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Alyona Knighton
But opponents of the project are concerned that gravel roads, drilling and seismic exploration can harm caribou, especially during their vulnerable Calvin period. Previous studies pointed to only minor effects of low traffic roads like Dalton highway on caribou. But recent research shows that roads can significantly change caribou migration patterns both in western Alaska and on the North Slope. The Gwichin community of Arctic Village is located right outside of the Arctic Refuge to the south. Residents there have long advocated against development within the refuge, specifically because the caribou they rely on give birth on that land. Faith Gimmel lives in Fairbanks but is from Arctic Village and has family there.
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Kimberly Strong
Imagine oil development in their core calving area. It's going to devastate the herd. Any type of oil extraction in the Arctic Refuge is going to devastate our herd, gimmel says.
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Alyona Knighton
Caribou support food, security, culture, spirituality and economy for Gwich' in people, including the future generations.
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Kimberly Strong
Our way of life is reliant on the caribou. So in my opinion, Trump's incessant drive to drill in this area is a form of cultural genocide of the gwich'. In.
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Alyona Knighton
The June 5 auction of drilling rights will be the third since 2017 when Congress passed a bill requiring them. The first lease sale drew bids, but the only oil company to win a lease relinquished it. Later. The second sale drew no bids. If the upcoming lease sale is successful, it could still take years for a project to break ground. With reporting help from Liz Ruskin in Anchorage, I am Aluna Knighton.
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Casey Grove
Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, a national environmental advocacy group adds a southeast river to a list of endangered waterways.
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Kimberly Strong
There are things happening in the Chilicap Valley that can endanger the river.
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Casey Grove
That's ahead. Stay with us. Civil rights advocates are suing over Alaska's decision last year to share confidential voter data, including home addresses, dates of birth and partial Social Security numbers, with the federal government. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in Alaska's Superior Court in Anchorage today on behalf of the League of Women Voters and the Alaska Black Caucus. The group say in the lawsuit that turning over the state's full voter rolls to the Justice Department violated the privacy clause of the Alaska Constitution. And they say an agreement to purge voters from Alaska's rolls if the federal government identifies them as ineligible violates due process and voting rights protections. ACLU of Alaska legal director Eric Glatt says the state has its own process for removing voters identified as ineligible.
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Eric Glatt
It's a detailed process. We don't think there's anything wrong with that process. And there's no need for the federal government to insist on who or who who should and should not be eligible to vote in Alaska.
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Casey Grove
Experts have raised concerns that the database the federal government is using to identify ineligible voters is flawed and frequently flags VOT voters who are, in fact, eligible. The Department of Law says it has yet to be served with the lawsuit, but it says the complaint ignores a state law that explicitly allows the state to share confidential information with other governments for legitimate purposes authorized by law. The state has said it would still follow its established procedures for removing ineligible voters from the rolls. Glatt, with the aclu, says the groups are seeking a court order to make that promise binding.
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Eric Glatt
Unfortunately, I think the only way Alaskans can be assured that they will not be disenfranchised from voting is by making sure that the Division of Elections and the state of Alaska commit to doing what's required of them in court.
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Casey Grove
The plaintiffs are also seeking a permanent injunction barring the state from turning over additional confidential voter data and ruling that the decision to turn over voter data violated the state Constitution. For now, though, the plaintiffs are not seeking faster action through a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction. So it could be months or years before there's a ruling on the issue. A bill that would ban Alaska restaurants from providing food in styrofoam containers passed the state House of Representatives Tuesday, as reported by the Alaska Beacon. Anchorage Democratic Representative Andy Josephson introduced the bill to address what he called an alarming problem of plastic pollution. Styrofoam is a form of expanded polystyrene foam, which itself is a kind of non biodegradable plastic. The plastic contributes to environmental pollution and contains chemicals that can be harmful when heated. The bill would also prohibit the state from using or purchasing polystyrene foam disposable packaging and would instruct the Department of Environmental Conservation to recommend that restaurants reuse containers instead of using disposable packaging. Opponents of the bill included Katie Kaposi, president and CEO of the Alaska Chamber, which represents hundreds of businesses across the state. Capozzi says the bill would impose financial burdens on restaurants and other businesses. If the bill becomes law, Alaska would become the 13th state to ban polystyrene containers. The cities of Bethel, Cordova and Seward have already enacted bans on polystyrene food containers. Facing a massive budget deficit, Anchorage School District officials announced last week they were laying off or transferring more than 250 teachers. That was after voters narrowly opted against a one year tax increase that would have kept many teachers and programs in place. But how do you measure the impact of one teacher? Alaska Public Media's Hannah Flor takes a look at what it means at Bette Davis East Anchorage High School, where students are losing their band director.
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Hannah Flor
At East High, students are just starting their wind ensemble class.
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Todd Barton
Let's turn you up. We need to be checked.
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Hannah Flor
That is Todd Barton, their band director. He decided he wanted to teach music when he was in seventh grade. That was nearly half a century ago.
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Todd Barton
Boy, I love teaching. Seeing kids grow both mentally and emotionally and taking them through that journey is really rewarding.
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Hannah Flor
He's been at Bette Davis East Anchorage High School for the last two years. He says the kids there are some of the hardest working he's ever seen.
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Todd Barton
It's magic. What's happening in east is magic. They're awesome. They're incredible. I am daily proud of them.
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Hannah Flor
But Barton won't be teaching East High students next year. In mid April, he got the news that he'll be transferred to a different Anchorage school. The district is cutting nearly 500 people, staff, aides, administration, all to reduce expenses, and they're moving more than 200 teachers around to fill the gaps. Barton is the sole band director at East High. Without him, there won't be anyone to teach the five band classes, effectively killing the program. Barton says East High administrators faced an impossible choice. The school district required them to eliminate 13 positions next year. The the school is losing teachers in every subject, not just electives like band. Barton says the news is still devastating.
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Todd Barton
I had students walking up to me and just grabbing onto me and sobbing into my shoulder for three to five minutes that I just couldn't let go, that they would not let go. And it just went like that for a long time.
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Hannah Flor
For the cuts, more than 100 students had signed up for band classes next year. Barton says for a lot of them, those classes are a reason to come to school. Senior Kenneth Glass plays flute and guitar. He says he didn't feel like he had a place at school until he found band. And he says band and Mr. Barton helped him through the hardest parts of his life.
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Eric Glatt
Mr. Barton has been one of the greatest father figures in my life, and he's shown me so much on how to be a better person, how to be a better friend.
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Hannah Flor
He's worried about what will happen to students who have to go through school without the program. In coming years, there will still be some music classes at east, choir and orchestra and ukulele. But Glass says it's not like students can just switch from, say, trombone to violin. That's years of work invested. They're more likely to just quit music.
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Eric Glatt
I feel like there will be a lot more kids that are suffering from depression or anxiety and just like how I was when I first started high school, they don't feel like they have a place.
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Hannah Flor
Senior Maximus Sonoa plays drums. He says band classes have changed him. Before, he never felt comfortable asking for help, relying on people, or having people rely on him.
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Eric Glatt
I was able to open up and think to myself that reaching out to them isn't weakness. It's just me getting out of my comfort zone and me facing my fears.
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Hannah Flor
Now he's the drum major, leading the marching band and encouraging them. He says he Learned how from Mr. Barton.
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Eric Glatt
He was the reason why I got inspired to become the drum major, and then I was able to do what he does, inspire other people and everybody else around me.
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Hannah Flor
Barton says music classes motivate kids to come to school, to show up on time. He says the data is clear. Great attendance, top grades, high graduation rates. He says. A lot of times people think of music as just fun and games, but he says, really, it should be a core part of the curriculum. Barton says these students at east are coming to terms with the news. But they're pushing back, too. They're writing essays and letters and contacting lawmakers. They're determined, he says.
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Todd Barton
Right after I told my kids we had class, while they're in tears, we played because that's what we do. We make music and we play.
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Hannah Flor
Barton says he doesn't know where he'll go next year, but no matter what, he'll keep teaching. He just hopes his students find a way to keep playing. In Anchorage, I'm Hannah Fluor.
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Casey Grove
An Anchorage man who exchanged gunfire with a police officer before a police dog helped subdue him now faces charges of assault. 24 year old Kamehameha Patterson is alleged to have choked his wife twice in their home in the city's Russian Jack neighborhood on April 7, according to a charging document filed a week later. The assault is alleged to have occurred in the presence of the woman's five month old child, charges say. Patterson's wife told officers that he would, quote, change like a switch when he drank and would abuse her, according to the charges. Police responded at about 3am and set up a perimeter. Police say Patterson fled on foot about three hours later and officers chased after him. Police say Patterson and an officer later identified as Maxwell Horowitz exchanged gunfire during the chase and no one was injured by the gunfire. But police say Patterson was hospitalized after a police dog injured him during the arrest. Patterson pleaded not guilty to three felony assault charges. His next court appearance in the case is set for May 14. The state office of Special Prosecutions will review the incident to see if Officer Horowitz was legally justified in using deadly force by shooting at Patterson. Patterson is the second of three people shot or shot at by Anchorage police so far in 2026. A union that represents workers for one of Skagway's largest employers is growing by about 40 members. That's after employees for the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad voted to unionize earlier this month. The railroad employs 180 people, the vast majority of which are based in Skagway, according to a railroad spokesperson. They make it possible for the train to carry hundreds of thousands of passengers each year from the small tourist town to a range of destinations along the scenic route. Those include two glaciers, the summit of White Pass and Canada. Three union contracts currently cover nearly half of the company's employees. Two of those contracts are with Teamsters and Teamsters Canada. They represent coach, cleaner and maintenance workers on both sides of the border. The other contract is with SmartTD, which has about 35 local members, says James Ogden an engineer and the local chapter's general chairman. Now that number stands to double. In early April, employees who work with guests more directly voted to join SmartTD's local chapter. Ogden says the vote happened on April 8. Moving forward, a negotiating team will work with the railroad to write a tentative agreement that would then go to a vote. A majority vote would finalize the contract. Ogden says the eventual agreement will determine what the new members get out of the deal. Overall, he adds, the union has had a positive relationship with the company and he does not expect that to change. A spokesperson for the railroad said in a statement that it has a proud union history and that it looks forward to working with its onboard staff in this new capacity. End quote Last week, the state owned Alaska Aerospace Corporation formally committed to work with an Israeli startup. As KMXT's Davis Hovey reports, the agreement aims to send more payloads into space at a cheaper cost.
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Davis Hovey
According to an Alaska Aerospace press release, the corporation signed a memorandum of understanding with Moonshot Space during the annual space symposium in Colorado Springs earlier this month. Moonshot Space was founded in 2024 by three individuals who have former ties to the Israeli government, as well as the software and artificial intellig industries, respectively. Just like the name implies, the Israeli company is working on an electromagnetic launcher that it says will send payloads into space without relying on the traditional chemicals used for rocket launches, such as liquid oxygen and hydrogen, according to a reporting from the Jerusalem Post. The company claims that by using electricity instead of chemical propellants, it can increase the carrying capacity the traditional rocket has for payloads by 40% and reduce costs. Moonshot Space's team is based in Caesarea, Israel. However, one of the co founders told the Jerusalem Post that the physical launcher will be built in Alaska, but did not give a timeline. Alaska Aerospace Corporation's CEO and president John Oberst told KMXT in a brief phone interview that Moonshot Space has not decided on a final location for the launcher yet, but the company is considering the Poker Flat research range north of Fairbanks. Ober says the corporation is currently in the process of licensing that launch site to do vertical orbital launches, and Moonshot could be an anchor tenant as part of that license. The new partnership comes as Alaska Aerospace is set to upgrade its facilities at the Pacific Spaceport Complex, Alaska, which it owns and operates on Kodiak Island. The state owned corporation is also competing for billions of dollars in government contracts to support the Trump administration's push to build a Golden Dome missile defense system. Ober says he expects to sign an official contract between Alaska Aerospace and Moonshot Space in the coming months. Reporting in Kodiak, I'm Davis Hovey.
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Casey Grove
The Chilkat river in Haines has been named one of the top endangered rivers in America for the third time in less than a decade. That's according to an environmental advocacy group focused on the country's waterways. The Alaska Desk's Avery Elfeldt reports.
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Avery Elfeldt
Each year a national environmental advocacy group called American Rivers publishes a list of 10 waterways it says are under threat. Just one Alaska river made the group's list this year, the Chilkat in Southeast. The river supports runs of all five species of Pacific salmon and serves as a crucial subsistence habitat for the native village of Kluquan and the broader community. Kimberly Strong is the president of the Chilkat Indian Village, which nominated the river through its advocacy campaign Chilkat Forever.
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Kimberly Strong
We're just trying to get exposure to the fact that there are things happening in the Chilkat Valley that can endanger the river and the viability of the biodiversity of our community.
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Avery Elfeldt
American Rivers lists a proposed copper, gold, silver and barite exploration site as the Chilkats main threat. The proposed mine, known as the Palmer Project, is located near a creek that flows into the Chilkat watershed. Palmer is a controversial project that has been around for decades and is still in the exploration phase. But Strong says the Trump administration's focus on Alaska's natural resources creates more urgency. She also noted that Governor Mike Dunleavy sent the project's owner a formal letter of support earlier this year.
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Kimberly Strong
That is really the biggest, probably endangering thing that we've got now is Governor Dan Lavy's getting on board with President Trump.
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Avery Elfeldt
Sarah Dardahl is American River's Northwest Region director. She says the organization received dozens of nominations this year and that they chose just 10 rivers using three key criteria. The first is a river's significance to to people, wildlife and nature. The second is the magnitude of the threat to the river and the communities that rely on it. The third is upcoming decisions or actions that may impact the river's fate. Dardahl says, you know, in terms of
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Kimberly Strong
this particular listing, we it is our
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Hannah Flor
understanding and expectation that there may be
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Kimberly Strong
permit applications in the coming year.
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Avery Elfeldt
Dardahl deferred follow up questions about the potential permitting to the tribe and Chilkat Forever. The advocacy campaign. Strong, the tribe's president, said in a follow up text that she was unaware of a potential permitting. She added that Dunleavy's letter to the company was the, quote, true catalyst. A spokesperson for British Columbia based Vizsla Copper, the project's current owner, declined to comment on any potential permit applications or the American Rivers listing. More broadly, Vizsla recently released details about its plans for this year. The company said in a statement earlier this month that its board approved a nearly $14 million budget for the year. The priority will be a diamond drilling campaign between June and September. Reporting in Hanes, I'm Avery Elphelt.
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Casey Grove
And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you missed any of tonight's stories, we're online@alaskapublic.org wherever you get your podcast. We had reports tonight from Eric Stone in Juneau, Liz Ruskin in Washington, D.C. alyona Knighton, Wesley early and Hannah Floor in Anchorage, Davis Hovey in Kodiak and Avery Elfelt in Haines. Our audio engineer is Crystal Hyde, Kirsten Dobroth is our producer. And I'm Casey Grove. Good night. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.