rine Highway System. It is not the Federal Marine Highway System.” Murkowski, the senior member of Alaska’s three-member congressio- nal delegation, cited outmigration, and Alaska’s poor economic per- formance — at or near the bottom among U.S. states — as major prob- lems that demand “big visions.” “Alaska cannot settle for being 49th in anything but statehood,” she said in her first speech to the Leg - islature since winning reelection last year. The solution, she said, requires lawmakers to look past the size of the Permanent Fund dividend, which has preoccupied legislators for years and sometimes prevented them from taking on more ambitious policy ideas. “If this Legislature spends the whole 33rd legislative agenda fo- cusing on how much Alaskans are going to be getting for a Permanent Fund dividend, we miss everything,” Murkowski told reporters after her speech. Dunleavy, the conservative gover- nor who has in the past championed cuts to state spending, proposed
“We’ve got good projects at risk of not being able to get off the ground because we still can’t move our stuff. We need to be thinking big about how we move our people, our resources, our freight, our trash. Let’s not lower our sights here.”
this year paying out a full statuto- ry $3,900 dividend — which would make it the largest in state history and cost over $2 billion — while in- cluding a $400 million deficit in his proposed budget and adding no new funding to the state’s ailing public education system. Those “big visions” that Mur - kowski alluded to for solving the state’s ailing economy and shrinking population could include an exten- sion of Alaska’s railway to Canada, a plan first promoted by her father, Frank Murkowski, who served in the U.S. Senate and as governor. A 2006 study of such a project found it would
cost $11 billion. “We’ve got good projects at risk of not being able to get off the ground because we still can’t move our stuff. We need to be thinking big about how we move our people, our resources, our freight, our trash. Let’s not low- er our sights here,” Murkowski told lawmakers. She acknowledged that such grand plans have largely stalled amid an onslaught of litigation and environmental objections that have halted several proposed projects in recent years. Another factor has been CONTINUED on PAGE 36
Simulations: See what you need to avoid operational bottlenecks. .com
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Spring 2023
The Alaska Miner
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