In this episode, Murkowski stops in to the Northern Journal podcast. We start by talking about her new book and her style of politics, and then, around 17:55, we get into her 'yes' vote on Trump's legislation.

The episode includes some discussion of an opinion piece by Murkowski's U.S. Senate colleague from Kentucky, Republican Rand Paul; that piece is here.

A reminder: If you like what you hear on the Northern Journal podcast, the best way to support it is through a paid membership; you can sign up at northernjournal.com. We're also always looking for advertisers on the podcast and website — you can reach publisher Nat Herz at nat@northernjournal dot com. Thanks for listening.

Catherine Rocchi is regulatory lead at the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, a watchdog organization that includes the oil and gas industry in its portfolio. Phil Wight is an energy historian and an assistant professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

A new biography, The Wide Wide Sea, recounts the entirety of Cook's expedition that took him to Alaska, and puts the explorer in a new context that I think many Northern Journal listeners will appreciate. In this episode, we hear from the book's author, Hampton Sides, who conducted some of his research in Anchorage. 

As the summer salmon season kicks off, there are some glimmers of hope that things are turning around. But there are also still some big questions and challenges looming over the industry. We break them down here, courtesy of an all-star group of guests:

• Norm Pillen, president of a processing company in Sitka that's cooperatively owned by fishermen, the Seafood Producers Cooperative. (You can buy fish directly from there, here.)

• Erick Sabo, a Bristol Bay skipper and board president of a regional fisheries marketing group called the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association.

• Rachel Sapin, a longtime reporter for industry publication Intrafish who covers Alaska processing businesses and other stories.

Feedback? Email host Nat Herz at nat[at]northernjournal.com. We're also recruiting advertisers for this podcast; if you're interested, drop Nat a line.

If you like what you hear, please consider a paid Northern Journal membership.

Now, for the good stuff:

If you're listening to this podcast, I'm willing to bet you've heard about the Alaska LNG export project — a $44 billion, state-sponsored megadevelopment that would pipe, liquefy and ship natural gas from Alaska's North Slope for customers in Asia. The project has gotten a boost from President Donald Trump, whose administration is pushing Asian allies to sign on, and it's been in the news recently. But it's also been in the news more sporadically for decades...and it's still just a hypothetical project, not a real one. In this episode of the Northern Journal podcast, we dig into the proposal, examine its prospects and break down the obstacles it still faces.

Joining us is Richard Pratt, a veteran LNG industry player who recently analyzed the Alaska LNG project for a trade publication called RBN Energy. Check out his analysis here:

https://rbnenergy.com/road-to-alaska-are-alaska-lng-strengths-enough-to-outweigh-its-costs-challenges-of-construction

There's a little bit of insider lingo and discussion, but if you bear with us, we try to explain most of the concepts and acronyms. To help, here are a few terms you might hear:

LNG: liquefied natural gas, a fuel used mainly by power plants to generate electricity
FEED: front end engineering design, a study phase used to develop and define costs so that investors are more comfortable putting money into a development
AGDC: Alaska Gasline Development Corp., a state-owned agency that, until recently, has led efforts to advance the LNG project
Glenfarne: Glenfarne Group is a privately held developer based in New York and Houston that recently took over efforts to advance the LNG project from AGDC

The team that she's hired so far is a group of technocratic policy nerd all-stars, and their three year term will function as a kind of test: Can an administration rooted in professional competence and policy expertise make meaningful progress in solving some of the deep-rooted, intractable problems facing the city? Namely, its homelessness crisis, but also the housing crunch, a looming spike in energy costs and the always annoying inability of snowplows to clear out streets within 15 minutes of a snowfall.

LaFrance joined the Northern Journal podcast for an hourlong interview on her background and the priorities and vision for her administration.

If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, the best thing you can do is to buy a paid subscription to Northern Journal. I'm also looking for underwriters and advertisers for this show — you can reach me at nat[at]northernjournal[dot]com. Thanks for listening.

To be precise: This episode is about mammoth resurrection. And the possible transplantation and reintroduction of other charismatic megafauna to Alaska on a massive scale.

For this story to make sense, you have to read the original Northern Journal story. We've got a special guest host, Ephraim Froehlich. Apologies in advance for the puns.

If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, the best thing you can do is to buy a paid subscription to Northern Journal. I'm also looking for underwriters and advertisers for this show — you can reach me at nat[at]northernjournal[dot]com. Thanks for listening.

This episode features a rare interview with two officials from Bering Sea trawling-related businesses, Hunter Berns of Bering North and John Henderschedt of Phoenix Processor Limited Partnership. In it, we talk through the industry's history and operations — and the potential impacts of tighter regulations being considered by federal policymakers.

If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, the best thing you can do is to buy a paid subscription to Northern Journal. I'm also looking for underwriters and advertisers for this show — you can reach me at nat[at]northernjournal[dot]com. Thanks for listening.

In this episode of the Northern Journal podcast, we hear from one of the biggest players in the debate about what comes next. John Sims is the president of Enstar, which sells natural gas to households and commercial customers in Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula and the Mat-Su. Enstar is privately owned, which means that some folks have been skeptical about its motives. Sims addresses those questions, plus many more, in this episode about the future of urban Alaska's energy economy.

If you like what you're hearing, the best thing you can do is to buy a paid subscription to Northern Journal. I'm also looking for underwriters and advertisers for this show — you can reach me at nat[at]northernjournal[dot]com. Thanks for listening.

Now, it's time to hear directly from those utilities, which own the project at scenic Eklutna Lake. Guests on this episode include two utility spokespersons, Julie Hasquet from Chugach Electric Association and Julie Estey from Matanuska Electric Association, along with their consultant on the Eklutna project, Samantha Owen. They offer a robust defense of the utilities' study and planning process, and they share more details about why certain ideas for habitat improvements were chosen and others dismissed.

You'll get far more from this episode if you listen to the interview with Meiklejohn and Leggett first. Send your feedback and suggestions to nat [at] northernjournal [dot] com.

The history of Spurr and five other shuttered Cook Inlet platforms are featured in a new story from Nat. It's not a Northern Journal piece — it was produced with Alaska Public Media and APM Reports — but the powers that be signed off on a podcast episode that delves into the details. Curtis Gilbert, Nat's editor at APM Reports, guest hosts.

One with the Whale is a rousing story, a celebration of Indigenous subsistence culture and a rural Alaska coming of age tale. It also raises some interesting questions about storytelling and narrative and ownership. Chelkowski speaks to that and a lot more in this interview.

You can watch One with the Whale for free on PBS, and this High Country News piece by Julia O'Malley also tells Apassingok's backstory.

Send your feedback, criticism and guest suggestions to nat[at]northernjournal.com. If you want to support this podcast, you can purchase a paid subscription to Northern Journal at this site.

This is a complicated story with many different stakeholders. But two people who have been among the most involved are Aaron Leggett, head of Eklutna's tribal government, and Brad Meiklejohn, a longtime environmental advocate whose conservation group led a project to remove a derelict dam near the Eklutna River's mouth. They are featured on this episode; we hope to hear from the utilities that own the hydroelectric project in the coming days.

Feedback? Criticism? Ideas for a future episode? Email nat at northernjournal dot com.

She joins the Northern Journal podcast to share a personal perspective on Yukon River salmon declines, and on management measures to address them. Bathsheba Demuth, the Brown University environmental historian who discussed the same issues on a previous episode, also joins us — if you haven't listened to her interview, it provides context that would be useful before listening to this one.

We've invited representatives of the pollock trawl industry to appear on their own episode of the podcast, and hope that interview materializes soon. Questions, comments or feedback? Email nat [at] northernjournal dot com.

If you like this new show, please share it with others. You can subscribe to the Northern Journal newsletter here.

If you like this new show, please share it with others. You can subscribe to the Northern Journal newsletter here.