Investing in Alaska is a strong vote for our future

Alaska needs infrastructure, investment and jobs to help us address the serious challenges we face.

Climate change is affecting everything from our roads and bridges to our economy and families. Erosion is threatening whole communities and thawing permafrost is undermining critical infrastructure across our state. Energy transitions and dynamic markets are demanding innovation and job creation in new, cleaner energy sources. The fish, game and subsistence resources that Alaskans depend upon are changing migration patterns, shrinking or disappearing altogether, threatening the very fabric of our families and cultures.

The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act delivers solutions on all fronts. If enacted, it would give Alaskans the tools to reinvigorate our struggling economy, combat climate change, and begin building the Alaska for the future.

The infrastructure bill’s benefits to Alaska shouldn’t be a surprise, given the vision, collaboration and inclusive approach that our own Sen. Lisa Murkowski showed in developing it and the understanding of the unique challenges facing Alaskans that Sen. Dan Sullivan brought to key sections.

Specifically, the bill would bring hundreds of millions of dollars annually to improve highways and bridges, which you might expect from an infrastructure bill. But it goes far beyond that.

It includes critical reforms to make infrastructure more resilient and ensure new investments rightly include nature-based solutions, such as forests and floodplains, as a type of infrastructure. The bill also helps new infrastructure better protect fish and game with support for wildlife crossings and culvert removal and restoration to support fish passage.

Importantly, local communities play a leading role in the bill too — a critical element for Alaska. It focuses on connecting rural communities with support for small airports, rural barge landings and improvements to allow the Army Corps of Engineers to better serve small ports and harbors. It recognizes that Alaska’s marine highway is the highway for so many of our coastal communities, providing new resources and programs to spur innovation by investing in electric or low-emission ferries. And, it reinvigorates the Denali Commission to fill gaps left by federal programs and to support stronger coordination between the state, federal, local and tribal governments.

The bill delivers the resources necessary to bring real, affordable broadband to communities and finally bridge the digital divide. It devotes resources to water and wastewater systems, especially in rural communities, to address the systemic inequities facing far too many Alaskans when it comes to access to clean water. It increases investment in energy efficiency, weatherization and other programs that will support improving residential, commercial and other properties across the state.

With investments in renewables like wind, hydro, solar and the modern transmission infrastructure needed to store and deliver them, the bill creates the opportunity to drive down Alaska’s high energy costs while combatting climate change. Major support for innovation will also drive Alaska’s emerging energy technology sector and ensure our leadership in microgrids and associated technologies can continue.

A focus on carbon capture and other technologies also creates opportunities to reduce emissions in Alaska’s legacy oil fields while the bill also invests in remediating abandoned and orphan wells.

The bill puts new resources behind cleaning up marine debris, fostering coastal resilience and mitigating wildfires with forest management and innovative, community-based partnerships to restore landscapes and improve ecosystems.

As Alaskans, Sens. Murkowski and Sullivan know the role healthy forests, clean water, clean air and healthy habitats play in fostering resilience. We can see that perspective woven throughout the bill. Add that to their focus on helping vulnerable, rural communities and the systemic inequities that exacerbate the impacts of climate change, and the impact grows from what could simply be transactional into something truly transformative..

Now that the bill has passed the Senate, Rep. Don Young is in position to deliver for Alaska next by supporting the bill as passed by the Senate in the upcoming U.S. House of Representatives vote. Given his record and the abundant benefits for his home state, he should be able to proudly add to the bipartisan support for this bill and help ensure it is enacted into law.

Cathy Giessel is a lifelong Alaskan, former state senator and former chair of the Senate Resources Committee for 6 years. She lives in Anchorage and is a nurse practitioner.

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