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EPA chief criticized for remarks about Interior Alaska By Weston Morrow FAIRBANKS—Environmental Protection Agency Chief Gina McCarthy is being criticized by Alaska officials for two disparaging comments she made about Interior Alaska in a recent Wall Street Journal article. The Journal article, “Rare Detente: New EPA Chief and Industry,” focused mostly on McCarthy’s ability to find relative harmon... Read more »

EPA administrator McCarthy unites Alaskans -- in anger By Staff Alaskans have been buzzing -- and griping -- this week about remarks made by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy. While it's not unusual for pro-development residents of the 49th state to complain about the EPA, this time it's personal, and it's got Alaskans of all political stripes giving McCarthy the evil eye... Read more »

Young works to secure USF dollars for rural Alaska By Amanda Coyne I haven’t written about Rep. Don Young for a while, and don’t have much of an idea what he’s up to. He did send a press release out today about meeting with the FCC chairman. The meeting, according to a press release issued by his office, “focused around finding new ways to serve rural and tribal areas across the country. The conve... Read more »

Washington, D.C. – Alaska Congressman Don Young today issued the following statement after the House passage of H.R. 4015, the SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act by a vote of 237–182. “Today, I voted to protect senior citizens’ healthcare access by preventing a crippling 24% cut to their Medicare doctors’ rates,” said Congressman Don Young. “This much-needed legislation wou... Read more »

Washington, D.C. – Alaskan Congressman Don Young met with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler this week to discuss communication issues facing both rural Alaska and rural America, particularly the development of 21st Century broadband infrastructure in remote and isolated communities. “Chairman Wheeler and I had a very productive meeting to discuss many infrastructure conc... Read more »

Report: No laws broken in federal raids on Fortymile placer miners By Matt Buxton JUNEAU—A state-sponsored investigation into last year’s federal and state law enforcement raid on placer mines in the Fortymile mining district found a lack of communication and that the criminal investigation may have been overkill. But it ultimately found that agents acted appropriately during the investigation and... Read more »

Probe into raid of Chicken miners by gun-toting EPA investigators finds no laws broken By Sean Doogan Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell questions Ken Fisher, EPA deputy director for Alaska, at a meeting in the Chicken community hall on Sept 14, 2013. Approximately 40 miners, congressional aides and the governor were questioning Fisher and BLM officials about August raids where teams of EPA agents, armed an... Read more »

Washington, D.C. – In a push by Congress to restore balance to the separation of powers set forth by the Constitution and rein in overreach by the Executive Branch, the House of Representatives passed two pieces of legislation this week – the ENFORCE the Law Act and the Faithful Execution of the Law Act. “An issue of great concern is President Obama’s blatant disregard for the laws of the United S... Read more »

Washington, D.C. – Alaskan Congressman Don Young today released this statement following Governor Sean Parnell’s release of a special counsel report on the law enforcement raids of the Fortymile Mining District. “I commend the efforts of Governor Parnell in seeking answers to the EPA’s aggressive show of force and tactics used in the Fortymile Mining District last September. The special counsel re... Read more »

EPA action to block Pebble project spotlights unprecedented use of Clean Water Act powers By Elwood Brehmer The Environmental Protection Agency set a potentially unprecedented process in motion when it began work on Feb. 28 to preemptively block Pebble mine as an effort to protect Bristol Bay fisheries. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a formal statement the agency was initiating action to ... Read more »