Creating an economic plan for Alaska

As a candidate for governor, my economic plan has a simple bottom line: I'm sick and tired of exporting Alaskan jobs.

We need to bring jobs home from China and Texas, Russia and Seattle. Power and decision-making over Alaska lands must come home from Washington, D.C. And let's bring our kids home from Outside where they go to get jobs because they can't find them here.

As I look at Alaska's economy, I'm angry to see jobs going elsewhere – not because companies make the wrong decisions, but because we set the wrong incentives. Here are some examples:

Anchorage International Airport is the fifth-largest cargo airport in the world, and aviation supports almost 40,000 Alaska jobs. But when the fuel for those widebody jets is imported from Singapore, sailing right past Alaska refineries, we should ask what we could do better.

It's great to see "fresh frozen" Alaska salmon in supermarkets across the country. But much of our salmon makes a round trip to China for processing, in part due to federal labor policies and our own power costs. We should fix our problem and demand that those in Washington, D.C., fix theirs.

Our neighbors in the state of Washington see the potential for $10 billion of new shipyard work over the next few years recapitalizing the Alaska offshore fishing industry. If we can build ferries and tour boats in Ketchikan, Sitka and Seward, why not fishing boats? Naknek kept more boats in town for maintenance just by tweaking its property tax — let's learn from them and keep jobs here.

We've been single-minded about a gas pipeline so long we've ignored the fact the Arctic Ocean is opening up. Alaska used to have an active Royalty Oil and Gas Advisory Board, whose job was leveraging our oil and gas, taken in-kind, to get refineries, fertilizer plants and factories built. Let's bring it back and see where we can process resources available today in the Arctic, with or without a pipeline.

To get more oil and gas jobs back, we need to be known as a state that keeps its word. Our investors, inside and outside Alaska, don't trust a government that doesn't pay its bills. We've lost four drilling seasons under Gov. Bill Walker. Our incentives worked to find new oil, but smaller oil companies have waited years to be paid what we promised.

Russia is cleaning our clock, and not just by taking the markets for natural gas in China and Korea (and sailing right past us in the Bering Strait). They also have a monopoly in serving Arctic shipping, a potential billion-dollar business. Alaskans need to break that stranglehold, not just for the jobs in port services, salvage and icebreaking, but to avoid a national security problem in which Russia dominates the ocean. I've fought for years to protect the food security of Western Alaska fishers, seal and walrus hunters, and whalers; we can't ignore the potential dangers of a new stream of foreign tankers.

Alaska is already in new energy markets. A global mining boom is coming, spurred by growth of electric cars and solar power. Alaska produces most of America's silver — and the market for silver isn't just silverware or coins, it's solar cells. For the growing battery market, China controls 75 percent of the world's graphite supply, but we have a graphite deposit near Nome that could meet almost all global demand. If we also process that graphite here, the value rises tenfold, meaning more high-paying jobs.

The federal government and Native corporations are the major landowners of Alaska; we must work together. After four trips to the White House since President Donald Trump took office, I know we can work with this administration to bring more land, power and control home. Alaska is key to our national goals of balancing trade and producing more energy and strategic minerals.

Economic development means knowing how to be competitive. After serving as lieutenant governor, I worked in the private sector to bring new investment capital to Alaska and the emerging market of the Arctic. Across the North Slope, projects worth $13 billion are looking for backing. We send $100 billion or so in investments around the world with our Alaska Permanent Fund and pension accounts, it's time we ask our global managers to help deals here get financing, too.

Balancing our budget depends on taking people off assistance and putting them to work. Our state must pay our bills, including the full permanent fund dividend. We must fight crime, opioids, domestic violence, and sexual assault. Government should protect our freedom, not take it away. We should lead America in economic growth again, not lag.

That's my campaign in a nutshell. We start by restoring trust. Three years of whacking the dividend without cutting other spending hit Alaska families hard, and few people trust the government anymore. I will keep our word. As a businessman, I know how crucial that is, and I want to see it restored in Alaska.

Mead Treadwell served as lieutenant governor under former Gov. Sean Parnell. He is running for the Republican nomination for governor.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser.