Internet users in Alaska who are low income or who lost wages during the pandemic are eligible for an internet subsidy of up to $75 per month under a new federal program.

A household is eligible if someone qualifies for the Lifeline program, receives assistance such as free and reduced-price school lunches or a Pell Grant, or experienced a substantial loss of income due to pandemic. Households that make less than 135% of the federal poverty designation per household also apply.

Eligibility is defined on the website for the program, getemergencybroadband.org. There are also special terms for Tribal residents.

The program is set up to give eligible households a $50 per month discount, but some Alaskans could get $75.

“I think that’s one important thing for Alaska listeners to know, the benefit is up to $75 a month for those households, as opposed to the $50 a month discount,” said Ed Bartholme, the Deputy Chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau.

It’s called the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, but it’s not just broadband.

“There’s a variety of service types that are included in the program — there’s fixed wireless, there’s wired for homes that have wired connectivity as an option, there is mobile which is much more akin to cell phone service,” said Bartholme.

The money came out of the huge Consolidated Appropriations Act passed by Congress in December. One aspect was focused on how much families relied on internet connectivity while staying apart from others to prevent from spreading disease.

Bartholme said it took a while to stand up the program, but for his agency, it was record time.

“Congress instructed the FCC to stand up a completely new program that is critically important, critically timely to the current environment and the current situation, but making it live and real where people can actually start to collect benefits from it.”

It won’t pay fees that are already owed, but discounts start this week.

The pandemic-related program will continue until the $3.2 billion in federal funding runs out or six months after the Department of Health and Human Services declares an end to the pandemic. 

The FCC website shows all the Alaska providers who are participating: Larger ones like GCI, Alaska Communications, and MTA, but also Cordova, Copper Valley, Ketchikan and Cricket, a total of 26 across the state. It shows three providers are also giving discounts on devices as part of the program.

Bartholme says there are consumer protections built into the program.

“One of the big things we wanted to prevent and make sure it didn’t happen, was that people who needed this sort of assistance weren’t stuck with sort of an episode of ‘bill shock’ when the money runs out,” he said.

Customers can sign up by contacting a participating provider, enroll online at https://getemergencybroadband.org/, mail in an application, or call (833) 511-0311.

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The Alaska Legislature on Tuesday confirmed Attorney General Treg Taylor and other members of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Cabinet.

Taylor was the only Cabinet-level appointee who generated debate among lawmakers meeting to consider Dunleavy’s nominees to lead state departments and other appointments to boards and commissions. Taylor was confirmed 35-24.

Several lawmakers said Taylor was qualified for the post. But Rep. Matt Claman, an Anchorage Democrat, said he would prefer an attorney general with experience, in particular, in criminal law.

Rep. Andy Josephson, an Anchorage Democrat, said he was concerned with Taylor’s handling of a waiver under state ethics law for former Dunleavy chief of staff Ben Stevens, who resigned earlier this year to work for ConocoPhillips. The Alaska Public Interest Research Group raised similar concerns ahead of the vote and said Taylor had not been forthcoming with lawmakers about Stevens’ request for a waiver.

Under ethics rules, public employees who leave their jobs are not allowed to provide advice or work for pay for two years on matters they were substantially involved with while working for the state. The prohibition can be waived if it’s deemed to be “not adverse” to the public interest.

Taylor, during the confirmation process, said he expected to receive waiver requests specific to certain job duties that Stevens has. He said he’s taken the approach of looking at matters on a “case-by-case basis,” rather than providing a blanket waiver.

Veri di Suvero, executive director of the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, recently said in an email that Taylor failed to tell lawmakers during confirmation hearings that Stevens had submitted a waiver request in March related to the Willow oil project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Dunleavy and Taylor signed off on the request in April, di Suvero said.

Charlotte Rand, a Department of Law spokesperson, said it was understood Stevens “would seek a waiver when a specific matter arose” and that he “eventually asked for ethics advice regarding a waiver to work on issues related to the Willow Project.”

At that point in the process, “that advice is confidential,” Rand said by email Monday.

The waiver request was reviewed by Taylor and Dunleavy and it was determined to be in the public interest since the state and ConocoPhillips “remain aligned on wanting the Willow Project to move forward,” Rand said.

“The department has to look at the specific facts and circumstances to determine whether a waiver should be granted and how broad that waiver should be. Attorney General Taylor has not acted differently than any attorney general under any other administration,” Rand said.

As for other Cabinet appointments, James “Jim” Cockrell was confirmed as Department of Public Safety commissioner, and Lucinda Mahoney was confirmed as Department of Revenue commissioner.

Mahoney was appointed commissioner in February 2020 but lawmakers did not meet last year to consider appointments.

In a statement, Dunleavy thanked lawmakers for confirming Taylor, Cockrell and Mahoney.

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The Alaska House of Representatives passed the state’s operating budget bill on Monday. 

The budget includes most of what Gov. Mike Dunleavy proposed for state agencies. But it doesn’t include funding for permanent fund dividends. 

Members of the mostly Democratic House majority caucus say they expect to fund PFDs in a separate bill. 

Nome Democratic Rep. Neal Foster said he’s comfortable working out any remaining budget issues with senators. 

“This is largely a flat budget compared to last year,” he said. “It seeks to protect and enhance some important public services like transportation, like education. And at the same time, we’ve taken advantage of the American Rescue Plan funds that are coming to the state. That’ll help Alaskans deal with this global pandemic.”

The 23 to 16 vote to approve the budget came the same day that news from the federal government raised a new potential budget problem. 

It appears that Alaska will receive roughly $200 million less in COVID-19 relief this year than House members planned. That’s because it appears that Alaska will be among the states that will have half of their American Rescue Plan Act money withheld for a year. 

A draft of long-awaited federal guidance on how states can spend the money was released on Monday. 

Big Lake Republican Rep. Kevin McCabe voted no on the budget, citing the inclusion of the federal money as one reason. He said it’s unsound, and that the Legislature should have followed more of the administration’s recommendations. 

“Structurally, this budget has a number of problems, in addition to the sort of emotional amendments for some projects that we have added to it,” he said.

Nikiski Republican Rep. Ben Carpenter also voted no.

“I think we missed an opportunity to address our savings,” he said. “We missed an opportunity to use the federal dollars to help us with making those structural changes. We missed the opportunity to help reduce our budget.”

But Anchorage Democratic Rep. Geran Tarr said the minority caucus offered few amendments that would have significantly reduced spending. 

“I think we’re responding to the public’s demand for the services they value,” she said. “And we’re trying to do the best we can.”

The House amended the budget bill, House Bill 69, to say that the state’s Medicaid program wouldn’t pay for abortions. The state supreme court has ruled similar laws unconstitutional in the past, because they violate the Alaska Constitution’s equal protection clause.

The House spent most of the day debating more than 30 other proposed budget amendments. 

Including two earlier days of debate, the House passed 18 amendments and turned down 38. 

The largest change that passed added $3.5 million to fund public assistance workers. Dunleavy’s administration anticipates eliminating the positions due to a shift to online applications for public benefits. But that shift may not happen in time to save the money in the next year.  

Other amendments that passed say that it’s the Legislature’s intent that the state government shouldn’t keep any data that can be used in facial recognition software, or to provide driver’s license information to foreign-owned corporations or foreign governments. But this intent language isn’t binding on the government. 

The House also voted to pass the Alaska Mental Health Trust budget, which is in a separate bill, House Bill 71. 

The votes are just one step before the budget is finalized. It now goes to the Senate, where the Finance Committee is working on a somewhat different version of the budget bill. 

The two chambers usually work out their differences in a conference committee. 

Neither chamber has passed a capital budget to fund roads and other projects. 

The legislative session is scheduled to end on May 19. 

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As 18-year-old Allysa Wesierski thinks back to first meeting her friend, Jessica Woo, she recalled Woo was an ambitious student, even in elementary school.

“We met in second grade, and I remember that she wanted, very proudly, to be the first female president of the United States,” said Wesierski.

Woo jokingly rolled her eyes at the comment but conversation between herself, Wesierski, and their friend Andrés Arias is easy as they call up memories and exchange knowing glances about the difficulties of their AP English Literature class.

The trio will be graduating from Anchorage’s Bartlett High School this year, each of them at the top of their class. Wesierski is Bartlett’s salutatorian, and Woo will share the title of valedictorian with Arias. This is the first time Bartlett will have co-valedictorians. Bartlett Principal Sean Prince says their transcripts are virtually identical.

The friends have no qualms about sharing the title. They’ve done almost everything together, from taking classes to becoming Eagle Scouts — the highest ranking one can get in the Boys Scouts program.

Wesierski and Woo are part of the first class of girls to join the Boy Scouts and are believed to be the first two girls in Alaska to reach Eagle Scout status. It was an achievement they had to make quickly since the organization only officially began allowing girls to earn the ranking in 2019.

They all have a deep passion for hiking and camping and the outdoors, Wesierski said. Woo said they have similar humor. But Arias said the motivation and drive to achieve is what makes them such good friends. They supported each other when they decided to sign up for their first advanced placement courses.

“We had never taken something like this. And we didn’t really have that information from our parents of what it takes to get on a college readiness track,” Arias said. “So I think we learned a lot of things together. We entered a lot of uncharted territory together.”

Each of the students come from different and diverse backgrounds: Weiserski was adopted from the Philippines, Arias’ parents immigrated from Mexico and Woo’s family is from Brazil.

While their parents continually pushed them to do their best academically, they didn’t always know the ins and outs of college preparation. The students figured it out together. That alone would be a feat, but adding a pandemic on top of it just made that challenge even greater.

Wesierski said she hit one of her lowest moments right around the time she was applying to college.

“I remember genuinely being worried that I wasn’t going to get into anywhere. And that, alongside the stressors of the change and the new platform, that became really stressful,” Wesierski said. “I was like, ‘Maybe it was just a fluke. Maybe everything has just been easy for me in the past. So I don’t know if I deserve to be where I am’.”

But it wasn’t a fluke.

Wesierski and her friends are moving on to attend some of the country’s most prestigious universities: Wesierski will be attending Stanford, and after deliberating between six different Ivy League acceptance letters, Arias chose Yale. Woo is going to NYU.

It’s not just a big deal for them and their families but also the Bartlett community. Woo said Bartlett often gets overlooked in terms of producing high-achieving students.

“I think that’s part of the reason why we push so hard — because we’re proud to be from Bartlett, and we’re really proud to represent that. Diversity does equal strength, it does equal success,” said Woo.

This year’s graduation ceremonies will look a bit more traditional than last year’s virtual ceremonies, car parades, and socially-distant celebrations. Many Anchorage high schools will be hosting graduation outdoors in their respective football stadiums, and students will be able to have a few guests.

In their student speeches, Woo, Arias, and Wesierski each plan to highlight the resiliency and adaptability of their class after a year of drastic changes.

They didn’t get to attend traditional events like prom, and Wesierski said initially she felt robbed of a typical senior year experience. But she said what they lost shouldn’t overshadow what her class has accomplished.

“I wanted to emphasize and implore everybody to kind of take a pause and recognize graduating from high school as the great achievement that it is,” Wesierski said. “And also recognizing the people that have helped us here because Bartlett is a community but more than that, it’s a family.”

Despite moving on to different schools for the first time in years, the students say their bond will carry them through this next period of change.

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Businesses in Alaska complain they’re having a hard time finding workers as pandemic restrictions ease. Some say generous unemployment benefits are to blame.

Montana’s governor announced this week the state would end the enhanced unemployment payments — seen by many as an incentive not to work — and instead offer a one-time bonus to people reentering the workforce.

So is it true that bigger unemployment payments have caused people to stay home?

Research suggests no, at least not entirely, says Nolan Klouda, director of the University of Alaska Anchorage Center for Economic Development.

But, as Klouda told Alaska Public Media’s Casey Grove, he’s still hearing from many Alaska business owners who believe that’s the problem.

Read a full transcript of the interview with minor edits for clarity.

Nolan Klouda: That’s a widespread belief — that the reason why people aren’t applying or coming back to work is because the benefits are so generous — so lucrative — that it’s an incentive for people not to go to work when jobs are available. That is definitely the claim. And that’s disputed by a lot of academic research.

Casey Grove: So tell me about that. How do you even look at this sort of thing? And what have you seen in the research?

Nolan Klouda: There’s been quite a body of research now that looked specifically at the issue of the $600 increase in unemployment benefits that happened following the CARES Act last year in 2020. Economists tracked the workers who received those benefits to look at whether they took work when offered compared with people that weren’t on unemployment and they tended to take jobs when offered at similar rates.

When economists looked at when the overall benefits expired at the end of the summer, at the end of July of 2020 — you didn’t see any kind of spike in employment happening at that point. If when the generous benefits expired — if those payments were keeping people home, then you’d expect people to suddenly go back to work in droves after that.

That really didn’t happen. There are plenty of differences between states and how much they pay: more generous states versus less generous states. And yet, you see similar labor market dynamics happening in all those places. Also, these studies were mostly looking at the $600 increase. Right now, the extra benefit is $300 per week. So it’s generous, but it’s less generous. So if people weren’t staying home because of the $600, why would they be staying home because of a smaller amount of $300? So there’s just a lot of complications around that story.

Casey Grove: If we can’t explain it with maybe just this one simple idea, then what is going on? I mean, what are the different factors that you think may have led to this problem with finding workers?

Nolan Klouda: There are a couple of ideas that have been offered by economists.

One is that there are still people who are caretaking for others, like a young child. Daycare capacity is still not back to 100% here in Alaska, and really anywhere else. So you may have situations where people are not able to go back into the labor force because they’re taking care of children or have elderly parents or so forth.

You also still have people that have more sensitive health conditions. A lot of the businesses that are saying they’re not getting workers are businesses like restaurants that have higher exposure risk. As more people get vaccinated, I would expect that to be less of a concern. But as of you know, in the most recent data, there are still quite a few people at least nationally saying that they’re not willing to return to work because of the risk of getting sick.

Another factor that is maybe more Alaska-specific is that we depend on a large seasonal influx of workers from out of state every summer. Think about hospitality, seafood processing, think about construction — there are workers who are nonresidents who come to work in Alaska every summer and right now is when businesses that hire seasonally are ramping up. So if people are less willing to travel to Alaska, then it’s possible that we have a bit of a shortage from that. So there are various kinds of ideas out there about why workers are staying home and I think it’s probably some combination of factors.

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A Yup’ik college student won an international award for finding a way to extract rare earth metals without hurting the environment. Michael Martinez is a University of Alaska Anchorage science student whose mother’s family hails from Kotlik.

Martinez discovered a way to use microbes to extract rare earth metals without creating toxic byproducts. He created the company Arctic Biotech Oath to develop and market the technology. The High North Dialogue Conference in Norway gave Martinez the High North Young Entrepreneur Award.

“This is a Yup’ik and Indigenous people’s win up here in Alaska,” said Martinez. “This not only shows we’re capable of doing the basic research, but this shows that we can impact a great sector. Not only of upcoming technology, but something people are looking forward to in the future.”

The system Martinez designed of using microbes to extract rare earth metals is cleaner than other methods. Rare earth metals are increasingly needed in the construction of computers and other electronic equipment, including cellphones.

Martinez attended the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program in Anchorage.

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Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings announced Tuesday that it’s donating $10 million across six Alaska port towns: Ketchikan, Juneau, Hoonah, Sitka, Skagway and Seward. 

In its written announcement, the company said it’s making the donation offers directly to each port community to provide humanitarian relief from the ongoing cruise suspension. 

“My heart breaks for Alaska and its wonderful people as we face a potential second year of zero cruise operations during the all-important summer tourism season, bringing yet another blow to Alaska’s tourism economy,” CEO Frank Del Rio said in the statement. “Alaska is one of our guests’ most popular cruise destinations and we are doing everything in our power to safely resume operations in the U.S. which will provide much needed relief to the families, communities and small businesses who rely on cruise tourism for their livelihoods.”

The announcement didn’t include the specific dollar figures for each community, and a company representative could not immediately be reached for comment. 

But the Sitka Assembly took action last week to accept an offer for $1 million. And Juneau City Manager Rorie Watt said the capital city will be offered $2 million. 

“I’m just taking it as a, just sincere good faith effort to try to be helpful,” Watt said. “You know, I think it gets really good symbolic value for them, as well.” 

Watt said NCL officials began discussing the donations with him in the fall, well before news broke that some locals were trying to limit cruise ship traffic in Juneau through ballot initiatives. 

Watt said there are no strings attached, but the Juneau Assembly will have to accept the money.

The cruise industry as a whole has been mostly unable to sail during the pandemic. But pandemic aside, NCL has been making big infrastructure investments in Southeast Alaska. That includes in Hoonah, Ketchikan and Juneau. 

“You know, they’re definitely taking the long view, and they’re trying to develop a system,” Watt said.  

The holding company operates Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises. 

The company said it is working through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s process to resume cruises by July 4. It said mandatory vaccinations of all guests and crew are the cornerstone of its plan. 

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A booming Canadian mining area known as the Golden Triangle is key to northwest British Columbia’s economy. But Southeast Alaska tribes, fishermen and other concerned citizens say that the Canadian mining sector enjoys all the economic benefits, while those downstream bear much of the ecological risks.

Efforts to elevate the issue to the international level have had some successes. And recently, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights informed a coalition of 15 tribes that it had agreed to take up the matter.

The Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission’s Tis Peterman told lawmakers at an April 27 meeting of the Alaska House Fisheries Committee that its most recent petition was submitted “which basically stated that the transboundary mining will have devastating effects on our way of life and downstream communities.”

The Washington D.C.-based IACHR is an arm of the 35-member Organization of American States, which Canada joined in 1990. 

Formal cross-border efforts at the state and provincial level have been in place since 2015 when both sides signed an agreement pledging cooperation on transboundary resources.

But tribes have complained that progress has slowed. And there’s been little to no consultation with tribes since the state’s political transition following the election of Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

Ray Paddock of the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska told lawmakers that tribes on both sides of the border have taken to doing their own environmental work independent of state and provincial regulators. 

“Our way of life depends upon our health of the transboundary waters, and it’s important for Alaska tribes and B.C. First Nations to be fully engaged for to collaboration to exist,” he said.

Commercial fishing groups have raised concerns about poor salmon returns in transboundary rivers like Taku and Stikine, which are some of the largest salmon-producing systems in the region. 

United Fishermen of Alaska’s Executive Director Frances Leach says salmon runs — particularly chinook — have been falling off in transboundary watersheds.

“UFA is increasingly concerned with the potential impacts to fish habitat and water resources from at least 12 large-scale, open pit and underground metal mines in British Columbia that are abandoned, permitted or operating in the headwaters of transboundary rivers,” Leach said.

But there was skepticism from at least one member of the House Fisheries Committee.

“I grew up in northern Minnesota, and I used to swim in the tailings ponds — and look at me,” quipped Mat-Su Republican Rep. Kevin McCabe.

“So my point is, I think there’s all sorts of different tailings and tailings ponds, and some of them are toxic. Some of them are not, we’ve had six years now to study Mount Polley and I’m interested,” he continued, “really interested to see how it’s affected us in the the lake and the fish and that sort of stuff.”

He also asked why mining interests weren’t more represented in transboundary discussions during the House Fisheries Committee meeting.

“It seems like we’ve heard from a whole bunch of fish people here today. I’m concerned that there’s no balance in this hearing today,” he added.

The Dunleavy administration recently announced it had wrapped up its joint monitoring with B.C. after collecting two years of data. Both sides argued that in-stream surveys by the federal governments as well as samples being collected by tribes made the state and provincial project duplicative. 

Chris Sergeant of the Flathead Lake Biological Station has been tracking efforts to date. The university researcher told the House Fisheries Committee that key questions remain: are the overall conditions of transboundary rivers changing over time? And how are polluting legacy mines such as the long-closed Tulsequah Chief affecting the environment downstream?

“To date, no monitoring efforts in transboundary watersheds have been designed to answer both of these questions,” Sergeant said.

Congress appropriated more than $3 million last year for renewed stream monitoring at border stream gauges operated by the U.S. Geological Survey. And a cross-border group of resource agency officials from both Alaska and B.C. continues to meet at least twice a year on transboundary issues.

The tribes’ human rights petition says upstream mine pollution from British Columbia could harm salmon and hooligan runs on the Taku, Stikine and Unuk watersheds.

It asks the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to hold a hearing and investigate these concerns. The Canadian government has three to four months to respond.

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The odds of getting attacked by a bear are one in over two million. That’s why Sarah Wallner, who was mauled by a grizzly in 2007, could not believe her misfortune when she and two friends ended up in a standoff with a black bear at Tonsina Creek, near Seward, on Thursday. 

“Oh, not again. This is not happening,” Wallner remembers thinking. “Like, this is not supposed to happen again.”

All three were OK, as was the bear, who just suffered from some mace in the face. But the hikers said for the two-ish minutes the standoff lasted, they weren’t so sure what was going to happen.

It wasn’t an isolated incident. Alaska State Parks Ranger Jack Ransom said his department got three separate reports Thursday and Friday about a large, aggressive black bear on the Tonsina Creek Trail. 

Regina Green, Niels Green and Wallner, who have a cabin at Lowell Point, said they’ve heard of more bear encounters in that area in the last two years than ever before. 

They’ve been hesitant about hiking there for that reason. But on Thursday, they decided to try the Tonsina Creek Trail anyway.

Regina said they were crossing the Tonsina Bridge on their way back when their dog came running toward them.

“I was turned back around and I heard this super loud thundering,” she said. “And I thought Niels was playing around.”

That’s when Wallner saw a black bear had followed the dog onto the bridge. She and Regina jumped away, to the other side of the railing. But Niels, who was standing in the middle of the bridge, was facing the other way and didn’t see it.

“And I’m like, ‘Niels! Bear!’” Regina said.

But ‘Bear’ has also been Wallner’s nickname, since she was attacked.

“So he was like, ‘What?’”

When Niels turned around, he was just two feet away from the bear. He had a beach ball he’d picked up on the beach and stuck it between him and the bear as a buffer.

Every time Niels tried to back away, the bear came closer. He thinks they stood like that for two minutes.

“And I was talking to it, going, ‘Bear, don’t try nothing, you need to go, bear,’” he said.

“And I thought in that situation I’d be more helpful, but I jumped away over the bridge,” Regina said. “And our bear spray was in the backpack in the side pocket.”

Regina grabbed the bear spray out of her backpack and handed it to Niels, who sprayed the bear.

“And then it just walked away,” Regina said. ‘But if we didn’t have the spray — it wasn’t leaving.” 

Wallner said she wishes she and Regina had gotten big behind Niels.

“You know all of what you’re supposed to do but it’s very hard to do it in those moments,” she said.

They didn’t report it to the Alaska Department of Fish &Game but did immediately post about the incident in Seward community groups on Facebook to warn others who were thinking of hiking in the area.

Ransom, the park ranger, said he’s posted signs at the trailhead and his department will consider closing the trail if the bear keeps bothering hikers. He said one couple reported being chased by the bear. Another group had to throw rocks at it to scare it away.

He said run-ins of that sort are not entirely rare for this time of year. Nick Fowler, area wildlife biologist for Fish & Game, said recreationists should be bear aware as bears start emerging from their dens.

“The best thing that we can do is to stop conflicts from happening in the first place,” he said. “And our best tool against that is to manage our attractants that are going to potentially bring bears into close proximity with people.”

He said that means securing trash and any other attractants. He also said people should make sure they have control of their pets.

“And that’s a concern for pet safety as well as animal safety,” he said. “We don’t want wildlife being attracted to an area because pets are off-leash and we also don’t want dogs chasing wildlife, as well.”

Wallner and the Greens said they recommend keeping dogs on leashes in the area, since their dog seemed to bring the bear to them. They also said having bear spray is a lifesaver. 

Though they’re physically fine, the three are a rattled after their run-in.

“So now we’re just sitting in front of the cabin painting rocks,” Regina said, laughing.

“’Cause we don’t want to go hiking today,” Wallner added. “We’re going to take up more kayaking this year.”

You can report wildlife encounters on the Fish & Game website or through the Soldotna office, at 907-262-9368.

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The U.S. Senate on Thursday blocked consideration of a waiver that would have allowed foreign-flagged cruise ships to visit Alaska ports this summer. 

The Passenger Vessel Services Act, a 19th-century law that aims to protect the domestic shipping industry, requires Alaska-bound foreign-flagged cruise ships to stop in Canada. With Canada’s ports closed to cruise ships though next February due to COVID-19 concerns, the law effectively prevents Alaska’s cruise season from going forward.

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski asked the Senate to fast-track a short-term waiver of the law for voyages between Washington and Alaska. She said hope for a 2021 season was fading in Alaska.

“Back home right now, people are not talking about the season for 2021 coming up. The motto is: ‘Get through to ‘22,’” Murkowski said on the Senate floor. “That’s an awful way to be approaching our situation, and so they have asked for help. They realize that anything that we can do to try to salvage even a few weeks of a tourist season is going to be important to us.”

She offered an amendment to the waiver bill, dubbed the Alaska Tourism Recovery Act, that would require cruise lines to carry defibrillators, provide passengers with a bill of rights and ask regulators to draw up new rules for cruise lines to return human remains when a passenger dies at sea. She said the amendment had been negotiated with two Democratic colleagues: Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell. Blumenthal described the amendment as a “negotiated compromise” with Alaska’s Senate delegation.

“These are simple, common-sense changes that ensure cruising is safe for passengers and for crew,” Murkowski said. 

She said the industry already adhered to two of the three provisions, though she did not specify which.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah objected, stalling the bill. He said he was amenable to waiving the Passenger Vessel Services Act — he said he’d like to see it repealed entirely — but the amendment was unacceptable.

“Unfortunately the bill that’s now before us has deviated from that purpose. It now has poison pill provisions that add duplicative, unnecessary and unrelated regulations that will harm, not help the cruise industry,” Lee said.

Because Murkowski’s fast-track maneuver required consent from all present senators, Lee’s objection was enough to derail the waiver for the time being. But Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who co-sponsored the waiver, said he’s optimistic.

“Here on the Senate floor, despite what you’ve seen, there’s actually been momentum and movement, and I’m confident we can get there,” Sullivan said.

Federal maritime law is only one barrier to a summer 2021 Alaska cruise season. Orders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have prevented large cruise ships from sailing since last March. 

The CDC’s No-Sail Order was instituted after COVID-19 outbreaks aboard cruise ships spread rapidly in the early months of the pandemic. A 2020 Miami Herald analysis linked cruise ship outbreaks to more than 100 deaths among nearly 4,000 cases.

Last year, after pressure from the White House, the CDC replaced that blanket ban with what it calls the Conditional Sail Order, billed as a way to resume cruises safely. It requires that cruise companies submit detailed COVID-19 mitigation plans and conduct training and drills before sailing. But the CDC has yet to tell cruise lines what those should look like. So, progress towards the resumption of U.S.-based cruises has been slow. 

Last week, Sullivan and Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott asked to fast-track the CRUISE Act, which would require the CDC to lift its order by July 4. Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray objected, blocking its passage. Murray said she was concerned that lifting the CDC rules would risk lives.

But there’s a ray of hope from the CDC. A letter sent to cruise industry figures said the agency “remain[s] committed to the resumption of passenger operations in the United States following the requirements in the CSO [the Conditional Sail Order] by mid-summer, which aligns with the goals announced by many major cruise lines.” The letter clarified guidance issued by the CDC in April regarding crew testing, vaccination and pandemic preparedness measures at ports that receive ships.

A CDC spokesperson told USA Today that if cruise lines submit their port plans promptly, passenger voyages could resume in mid-July. 

When the CDC issued updated rules for cruise ship sailings in early April, the mayor of the small Southeast cruise port of Skagway said he was concerned that some CDC rules on medical capacity at ports would leave small towns without a chance to receive ships.

Alaska’s cruise season generally runs from about May through September.

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