Alaska’s congressional delegation speaks at AFN

The three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation spoke at AFN last weekend with markedly different-sized crowds.
During Senator Dan Sullivan’s speech on Friday, protestors turned their backs to him and attempted to march in front of the stage.
Representative Begich gave a speech on Saturday following the lunch recess. There were noticeable patches of empty seats during both Sullivan and Begich’s remarks.
Senator Lisa Murkowski gave the final speech of the convention to a packed audience. 
In Senator Sullivan’s speech he touted the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, the federal reconciliation bill passed in July, and called it the “Alaska Opportunity Act.”
“No state in the country did as well as we did in this big bill,” he said. 
Meanwhile, around the convention floor, dozens of attendees turned their backs to him. Some held signs proclaiming: “PUBLIC RADIO SAVES LIVES” and “MEDICAID MATTERS.” Some wore clothing protesting the Ambler Road project, and still others brought attention to Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. Sullivan did not address or acknowledge the protestors during his speech.
After his speech, Sullivan spoke to constituents for around 30 minutes but was only available for a few questions from the media before entering an elevator. 
Representative Begich spoke on two house bills that were passed earlier this year, H.R. 42 and H.R. 43. The first, the Alaska Native Settlement Trust Eligibility Act, provides that payments from trusts are not counted as income when determining eligibility for certain federal programs like SNAP.
The second bill, the Alaska Native Village Municipal Lands Restoration Act, removes the requirement in ANCSA that Alaska Native village corporations must convey certain lands to the existing municipality, or, if there is no municipality, to the state in a trust for a municipality that may be developed in the future. 
Begich said that this means that a large number of villages can now use that land for development.
“Over 80 villages can now move forward with building homes, developing infrastructure and growing their local economies with that land,” he said.
Representative Begich also touched on the budget reconciliation bill, saying that many of the effects of the bill will economically benefit Alaska Native communities, specifically referencing how the bill requires nine new oil and gas lease sales that Alaska will receive 70 percent of royalties from.
“This was landmark legislation that secures Alaska’s place at the  center of America’s energy future,” he said.

Murkowski gave her speech to a packed ballroom. In her remarks, she touched on the devastation in Western Alaska and her experiences visiting the village of Kipnuk. Kipnuk was one of the hardest hit villages by ex-typhoon Halong, along with the neighboring village of Kwigillingock.
Kipnuk was to be the recipient of a $20 million grant that would have helped fortify the riverbank against erosion and flooding. The grant was cancelled in May by the Trump administration. Murkowski said that the grant may not have prevented the disaster last week, it may have helped “prevent future disasters.”
Murkowski said that she tried to explain to her colleagues in Congress the importance of rural radio, but she has not been as successful there as she hoped. She is grateful, she said, that one-time funding was secured for 14 stations across the state.
In remarks to members of the press after her speech, Murkowski emphasized that emergency responses to disasters like the one in Western Alaska right now have to come from within the region. 
“This can’t be Washington, DC, telling ‘You, Y-K region. This is what your emergency response is going to look like.’ This has to be developed from within the region,” she said. 
She also touched on the federal reconciliation bill. She said that she does not like parts of the bill, but that she has to weigh the whole impact of it and see which parts will ultimately be better for Alaskans.
“It is not a perfect bill, and I have not made any excuses or pretended that it is,” she said.
Murkowski also said that she is working towards getting funding back for communities like Kipnuk. 
“We’re working to get some portion of that funding to go towards Kipnuk again,” she said. “To recognize that you’ve got a vulnerability to the community and how they’re able to address it.”
Murkowski said that she hasn’t gotten “full fidelity” if cuts to the National Weather Service prevented accurate prediction of the path of Typhoon Halong.
“What I will tell you is that I’ve looked to what the projected forecast was, and then what actual was, and it was off,” she said. She added she wants to make sure that “we’ve got all the resources that we need for better weather prediction.”