Exposing Alaska’s Green New Deal (Part II)

Ed Note: Trump Administration beware! This two-part backgrounder warns DOE Secretary Chris Wright, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin that their June 3, 2025, participation at Governor Mike Dunleavy’s fourth annual Sustainable Energy Conference is a set-up for Alaska’s Green New Deal. A course reversal is in order.

Part II walks through my own testimony (Part I) against Alaska’s proposed Renewable Portfolio Standard; the hoops I had to jump through just to get my written remarks added to the public record; and the telling exchange I had with one of the main activists pushing this nonsense.  Spoiler: there’s been no official response or acknowledgement to the damning context they asked for—just the usual dodge-and-disappear routine.

After checking the Alaska Legislature website under the bill documents, I discovered my testimony was not posted.  This is not the first time I had witnessed this on testimony opposing legislation this session.  I followed up to house.energy@akleg.gov, cc’ing Rep. Ky Holland

May 7th, 2025: Subject: FW Opposition to HB 153

I am writing to respectfully note that my opposition letter does not appear to have been included in the public documents for HB 153. I submitted it on April 12th and would appreciate confirmation that it was received and properly entered into the record.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely, Kassie Andrews

5/7/2025 – Representative Ky Holland responded very quickly, appearing irritated that his legislation was stalling due to economic realities and a lack of immediate support from the co-ops:

I’ve asked the committee aides (Shaina and Ariel) to check to see if this is in the record. As I assume you know we suspended consideration of amendments for HB153 to see if we could get the utilities to go on record with their input on the bills. They are not ready, though a couple have since had some meetings to advance their consideration and feedback. As a result we are going to hold some hearings this summer when the utilities are ready; and I hope when the uncertainty around tariffs on equipment for energy projects, and federal pauses on funding programs and energy credits are sorted out.

I had no idea when we introduced the bill the world would get turned so upside down or that the gasline would get the support of tariff based bargaining and federal mandates for support. Sort of strikes me as another version of federal mandates to incentivize desired outcome, but in this case it’s being used for an alternative outcome. It think it’s just ironic to see folks opposed to government actions to incentive renewables; and then to see the response to be new government actions to force non-renewables…

Are you following the Senate version of the bill? Its the same as our original bill at this point and had its first hearing today. They will also be holding future hearings and advancing their bill to something closer to our current house version that has the changes we’ve developed with the utility advice. Here is a link to today Senate hearing – Alaska State Legislature

5/8/2025 – The Energy Committee Aide, Shaina Kilcoyne—seemingly the brains behind this bill (she presented it to the committee and fielded questions)—responds about the missing testimony:

May 8th, 2025: Subject: RE Opposition to HB 153

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I actually was looking through them just yesterday and saw that it was missing but didn’t see it in our energy folder either. I will make sure this gets fixed today. I apologize for this.

Shaina Kilcoyne Energy Committee Aide [Office of Rep. Holland, House District 9, Office 418]

5/8/2025 – Shaina responds again to let me know that my testimony has been uploaded onto the state website and will be printed for the committee members.  I didn’t know they did that!  Learn something new every day. 

May 8th, 2025: Subject: RE Opposition to HB 153

Your letter is now uploaded in Basis and I will have printed copies for the committee members today.

5/8/2025 – Shaina responds for the third time in about two hours—this time asking for sources on Winter Storm Uri that I referenced in my testimony. Then she offers her two cents on what she thinks happened, likely because it looks terrible to have clear links between renewable mandates, overreliance on intermittent renewables, centralized planning failures, and the very bill they’re scrambling to convince the public to accept—acknowledging that reality would completely undermine the policy they’re pushing.

Could you please share your source on the Texas outage that you reference? There has been substantial review of what caused the outage and I understand it was largely due to a lack of weatherization of gas plants – they were not able to deliver fuel to power the plants and some wells were unable to produce as much natural gas due to the freezing conditions. Here’s an article from the Texas Tribune about the storm.

There’s actually a podcast called the Disconnect: Power, Politics and the Texas Blackout – it offered a deep dive with some heart wrenching stories of people living through the storm.

Thanks for sharing any new resources.

5/8/2025 – My response addresses the ongoing issues with public testimony this session and responds to Shaina’s request for sources on Winter Storm Uri.  Here, I lay out the “why behind the why” – because this isn’t a cut and dry situation, and pretending it is only serves to obscure the bigger picture.  In the end, I requested that my response, along with Shaina’s original question on Uri be attached to the permanent record for sake of transparency.  Will they post it?  That remains to be seen.

Before I begin, I’d like to point out that this is not the first time that testimony in opposition to legislation has failed to appear in the public record this session. My husband’s testimony, and that of several friends, was also not entered into the system on another bill they opposed. It raises a fair question: how does this keep happening? And while no one is making accusations, it is beginning not to feel like a coincidence, especially when many Alaskans assume their input is recorded and don’t have the time to constantly verify it. That kind of inconsistency erodes trust in what is supposed to be an open and accountable process.

Thank you for your question on Winter Storm Uri. It’s a common misconception that natural gas “failed” during Winter Storm Uri simply because of a lack of weatherization. The deeper and more complex issue was how gas was treated in Texas’s market structure.

Natural gas wasn’t prioritized as firm baseload power – it was treated as a backup to heavily subsidized wind and solar. When those intermittent sources collapsed, there wasn’t enough reliable generation online to fill the gap. Gas plants couldn’t ramp up because they weren’t running- they weren’t warm, pressurized or ready. As the supplied FERC/NERC report notes: “Most of the natural gas production and processing facilities surveyed were not identified as critical loads or otherwise protected from manual load shedding.”

Yes, frozen equipment was a factor, but why was the system so compromised? It’s because of how distorted the ERCOT market has become. Wind and solar, through federal production tax credits, can bid negative prices into the market and still profit. This undercuts gas, coal and nuclear, draining margins and making it unprofitable to build or maintain firm capacity. And worse: Revenues are siphoned off by unreliable generation schemes rather than invested in resilient, baseload infrastructure. The co-ops are expected to make up the difference—we will be paying more, while being told that these unreliable sources are somehow “cheap.” That is the “why behind the why.” In Texas, resource adequacy was hollowed out long before the storm hit.

Add to that the flawed assumption from climate models that Texas winters would trend warmer—not colder. Relying on these forecasts, ERCOT did not mandate proper winterization or spinning reserve planning. When reality hit, the system collapsed.

This wasn’t a natural gas failure—it was policy failure, compounded by the failure of centralized planning. A politically micromanaged grid, riddled with subsides, mandates, and misaligned incentives cannot respond to real world stress. At the core of that failure was the Renewable Portfolio Standard, which artificially accelerated the build out of wind and solar without requiring firm backup, reliability standards, or adequate storage. It distorted the market, hollowed out dispatchable capacity, and left the system vulnerable, as if it was intended sabotage. That’s exactly why we must not replicate this in Alaska. Resilient energy policy starts with prioritizing reliability, not ideological agendas or top-down energy experiments.

For transparency, I would appreciate it if the committee was provided with and reviewed both Shaina’s original question and this full response in context and that it becomes part of the permanent public record for this bill. The back-and-and forth helps illuminate why these issues matter so deeply to Alaskans concerned about grid stability and affordability.

Sources:

https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-12/Cold%20Weather%20Report_%202021_120821.pdf

https://www.masterresource.org/windpower-problems/texas-windpower-negative-

pricing-neeley/

Prescient warnings back in 2012:

https://www.texastribune.org/2012/09/06/renewable-incentives-spark-debate

I hope this sheds some light on a complex issue and encourages thinking beyond partisan lines.

5/9/2025 – The latest (and so far, final) response thanks me for bringing the missing testimony to their attention and for providing information on the Texas outage.  However, there was no acknowledgement of my request to include my response and Shaina’s question in the permanent record.  Hopefully, the process still works as intended and partisanship takes a back seat; after all, Representative Holland is registered as an “independent.”  

May 9th, 2025 at 10:10 AM: Opposition to HB 153

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. It alerted us to a miscommunication gap in our process, which we are working to fix. Thank you for the information on the Texas outage. I look forward to reviewing this.

Conclusion

Part I and Part II have laid out the political machinery powering Alaska’s “Sustainable Energy” Conference, a carefully curated showcase for the Green New Deal rebranded. Key figures from the Trump Administration (DOE Secretary Chris Wright, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin) are scheduled to take center stage during a June 3rd lunch presentation at Governor Mike Dunleavy’s fourth annual Sustainable Energy Conference. They have some correcting to do to align state energy policy to national policy.

The fix is in regarding this conference, the plan being to showcase the Trump officials and then get down to Green New Deal business. Immediately following their remarks, a “micro networking break” on carbon management and nature based solutions: greenwashed language to push carbon credit schemes, land use restrictions, and bureaucratic control under the guise of sustainable development. 

As for the rest of the conference?  A green parade of panels on financing wind and solar, advancing carbon capture, integrating renewables, and sustainable aviation fuels.  Meanwhile, just 75 minutes out of a three-day conference are dedicated to the only truly sustainable energy sector in Alaska, oil and gas- with coal not even mentioned once.

It’s worth remembering:  in 2022, Republican Governor Dunleavy introduced a Renewable Portfolio Standard mandating that Alaska generate 80 percent of its energy by 2040—a statist policy that he set in motion, and one that ENGOs and dark-money-funded leftist activists are all now too eager to run with.

This is far from a balanced energy conference.  It’s a soft rollout of a climate agenda most Alaskan’s never voted for.  One can only hope that Trump’s team does their homework because what is on the agenda doesn’t match what most of us thought we signed up for.

The post Exposing Alaska’s Green New Deal (Part II) appeared first on Master Resource.

Source: https://www.masterresource.org/alaska-policy/exposing-alaska-green-new-deal-ii/