Not all attention is good attention, and when it comes to Joe Biden and Alaska, the attention we get is anything but good. The Biden Administration makes so many trips to our state that perhaps it’s time we tell them we just want to be friends.
This begs the obvious question: Why so much attention being shown to our state? A simple answer would be the wooing of moderate U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has shown a willingness to work across the aisle. However, there could be another reason altogether. Since taking office, Biden and his team have amassed a list of nearly 60 executive orders and actions targeting Alaska’s resource development industries, including over a dozen in 2023 alone.
In March, the Department of Interior pulled back from a land exchange that would have allowed a road to be built – and lives to be saved in emergency situations – between the Native villages of King Cove and Cold Bay. This followed Haaland’s visits to both communities in April of 2022, where she voiced understanding for the communities’ full-throated support for the road, agreeing to ‘find a way to proceed.