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13 hours ago
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Amid gas crunch, Alaska could revoke leases from a company whose drilling has stalled
Natural gas production from offshore platforms in Cook Inlet, outside of Anchorage, has declined over the past several decades. The area's dominant producer, Hilcorp, has warned electric and heating utilities that they should not expect their supply contracts to be renewed when existing ones expire. (Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal) Gov. Mike Dunleavy's administration is threatening to strip a company of oil and gas leases in Cook Inlet outside Anchorage, saying it's sitting on deposits that could delay an impending shortage of gas needed for heating and power generation in urban Alaska. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources recently placed in 'default' the Cosmopolitan Unit, a block leased by Texas-based BlueCrest Energy, saying it hasn't met commitments to drill. The company has held leases at Cosmopolitan for more than a decade. It conducted initial drilling several years ago but has not drilled any new wells since 2019, according to state records. Company executives say that BlueCrest experienced a cash crunch when, amid a budget crisis beginning in 2014, the state of Alaska chose not to pay tax credits to oil firms that had spent money on drilling. BlueCrest has also had to ask Alaska's economic development agency to approve delays in paying back a $30 million state loan. The state's new notice to BlueCrest, signed in May by Commissioner John Boyle, gives the company until Aug. 21 to show proof that it's secured investment to drill a $55 million new oil well, as well as to advance development of a new offshore platform that would target natural gas. That platform could cost $350 million or more, according to BlueCrest officials. 'We want to see aggressive, defined momentum towards putting our resources into active production,' Boyle said in an interview Thursday. 'We need to see some drilling. We need to see some action.' BlueCrest is negotiating with multiple companies about potential investment, Benjy Johnson, its chief executive, said in a phone interview. 'We're hopeful that we'll get it done,' he said. 'I think we will.' Johnson said he understands the state's perspective, but added that defaulting BlueCrest's leases is 'not the solution to the problem.' 'The solution to the problem is helping us get funding to drill these wells, and to get the gas development going,' he said. BlueCrest is one of the smaller companies active in the Cook Inlet basin, where the vast majority of the gas is produced by a large independent oil business, Hilcorp. Hilcorp has warned urban Alaska's heating and electric utilities that they shouldn't expect Hilcorp to renew their gas supply contracts when they expire in the coming years. In response, those utilities are advancing plans to import liquefied natural gas — but they also say that new local gas production could delay the need for imports. The supply crunch is serious enough that utilities and regulators have recently been discussing contingency plans for rolling blackouts. BlueCrest says its leases contain large 'proved reserves' of gas — an industry term meaning that a deposit's flow has been tested and that an engineering firm has validated it can be produced with 90% probability or higher. But building an offshore platform to access the gas would cost some $350 million. One of the other small companies operating in Cook Inlet, HEX, has moved ahead with gas drilling in each of the past two years — with help from a decision by Dunleavy's administration to reduce the royalty payments due from HEX to the state. Boyle, the natural resources commissioner, described the royalty reduction as a 'carrot.' 'But there's also the potential for sticks, if we don't see active movement on developing the rest of (HEX's) leased acreage,' Boyle said. 'And the same for BlueCrest and anyone else that we don't feel is fulfilling their obligations.' The state has a range of options if BlueCrest doesn't advance its drilling program, Boyle said. In his notice to the company, he wrote that his agency could shrink BlueCrest's Cosmopolitan Unit, or 'terminate' it. If the state takes back some of BlueCrest's leased acreage, Boyle said, there are 'definitely companies and entities that are willing to put money there to bring that gas to market.' BlueCrest could also decide to sell its leases to another company, or find a business partner that could help advance development, according to Boyle. BlueCrest and Hilcorp previously discussed a partnership to develop the Cosmopolitan Unit's gas, Northern Journal reported in 2023. But the discussions broke down because the two companies couldn't agree on how to divide potential costs and profits. Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at natherz@ or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz. Subscribe at this link.
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3 days ago
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Fueled by trade tensions and foreign wars, a rush for an obscure mineral heats up in Alaska
A sign warns of a sled dog crossing along Old Murphy Dome Road outside Fairbanks. The road leads to a site where an Australian company called Felix Gold could begin mining antimony. (Max Graham/Northern Journal) Alaska hasn't produced antimony — a shiny mineral used in weapons, flame retardants and solar panels — in almost 40 years. That could change this summer, according to the executives of a Texas company that has snatched up more than 35,000 acres of mining claims in Alaska. Dallas-based U.S. Antimony Corp. is looking to the state as a new source of antimony for its smelter in Montana, the only plant in the United States that refines the mineral. Alaska's antimony, the company says, could help the U.S. overcome a recent ban on exports of the mineral from China, the world's top antimony producer. Antimony is among several minerals — many of which are used in renewable energy — that the U.S. has sourced primarily from China and other countries in recent decades. Efforts to build more mines in the U.S. have accelerated amid worsening trade tensions and growing demand. With no active antimony mines, the U.S. in recent years has imported roughly 60% of its antimony from China. Meanwhile, need for the mineral has surged as antimony-laden arms flow to wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The price of the mineral has quadrupled in the past year, rising from around $13,000 to $55,000 per ton. U.S. Antimony is now expanding its Montana smelter and rushing to find more ore to supply it. Alaska is its 'primary focus' for boosting production, an executive said in an interview last week. In the past eight months, a U.S. Antimony subsidiary, Great Land Minerals, has acquired claims in three different areas of Alaska's Interior: outside Fairbanks; near the small town of Tok; and along the Maclaren River off the Denali Highway, a scenic road that runs outside the national park. U.S. Antimony says it's looking to truck antimony ore some 2,000 miles from Alaska to its processing plant in Montana. That operation could start as soon as September, executives said on a recent call with investors. 'We can't get that antimony from Alaska to Montana fast enough,' Joe Bardswich, U.S. Antimony's chief mining officer, said on the call. The company's plans coincide with a separate effort by an Australian company to start up its own small-scale antimony mine near Fairbanks. Felix Gold is seeking to restart production this year at a long-shuttered antimony mine that sits within a few miles of a residential subdivision, Hattie Creek. The company also is eyeing prospects near the hamlet of Ester on the outskirts of Fairbanks — where U.S. Antimony's subsidiary has claims, too. The potential developments are generating a mix of responses locally. Some residents worry about environmental impacts of mining and its potential to transform tranquil Fairbanks-area neighborhoods into noisy industrial sites. 'I don't want to be all NIMBY. But it literally is my backyard,' said Lisbet Norris, who lives in Hattie Creek, about 10 miles north of downtown Fairbanks. 'It's just so close.' Norris, a dog musher, runs sled tours on trails that cross Felix Gold's claims on state land, and she's concerned that mining might impede her business. She's also worried about heavy industrial use of the dirt road that connects her neighborhood — and Felix Gold's potential operations — to the rest of town. Other Fairbanks residents, however, say they support mining in the area; some cite the town's early history as a gold mining town and the potential economic benefits of new mines. 'It's because of mining that Fairbanks is what it is,' said Roger Burggraf, a local prospector who owns some of the claims that Felix Gold has leased to study the feasibility of antimony mining. Burggraf said he understands the concerns of people who live near gold and antimony prospects. But when they bought their properties, 'they should have realized that if a mine developed, that might change their lifestyle,' he added. Felix Gold has a permit only for mineral exploration, not active mining. The company aims later this year to apply for additional state permits, and to finish studying the profitability of developing a small antimony mine near the Hattie Creek subdivision. U.S. Antimony also has applied only for a permit to search for antimony, though it hopes to apply for more permits and start mining within a year. If its exploration efforts show a mine would be profitable, it would propose an underground operation, said Rodney Blakestad, U.S. Antimony's vice president of mining. The footprint would be small, more similar to the family-run placer mines in the area than to a large-scale hardrock mine, according to Blakestad. 'We're not Fort Knox,' he said, referring to Fairbanks' huge open pit gold mine. But before U.S. Antimony begins mining, it wants to buy antimony ore from existing placer gold mines. Antimony often appears alongside more-valuable gold, and gold miners have typically thrown it aside. Now that antimony prices are surging, though, U.S. Antimony representatives say every little bit is valuable. A 25-ton truck could carry some $600,000 worth of minerals, Bardswich said in an interview. That means small loads of antimony ore from shallow, exploratory trenches that the company intends to dig at its Alaska prospects this summer also could be worth driving 2,000 miles to the Montana smelter, company executives said. In the meantime, they intend to launch an advertising campaign to share their interest in buying the mineral from placer miners. 'People don't realize this: Gold is not the best mineral to be mining, if you're looking for really good value,' said Blakestad. 'Antimony is.' Northern Journal contributor Max Graham can be reached at max@ He's interested in any and all mining related stories, as well as introductory meetings with people in and around the industry. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe at this link.
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29-05-2025
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Coastal Alaskans see commercial fishing limits as a ‘crisis.' Lawmakers don't.
Butch Laiti is president of the Douglas Indian Association, a tribal government in Juneau. The association has purchased a fishing boat and wants to buy a commercial fishing permit for its members to share, but a state law bars it from doing so. (Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal) This story was produced as part of the Pulitzer Center's StoryReach U.S. Fellowship and the Public Media Accountability Initiative, which supports investigative reporting at local media outlets around the country. It was reported and edited by Northern Journaland APM Reports, with support from Alaska Public Media. For decades, an economic catastrophe has been unfolding in the Indigenous villages along the Gulf of Alaska, with lost jobs and the destruction of a traditional way of life: hauling fish from the sea. That destruction is still playing out. More than 80% of people who responded to a recent survey sponsored by an economic development nonprofit said that Southeast Alaska and Kodiak Island villages are in a 'crisis of sustainability' because of lost access to fisheries. Indigenous leaders across the Gulf say it's imperative that Alaska legislators pass reforms to the state law that they blame for the mess: a landmark 1973 statute that effectively prevents many residents of those coastal villages from earning a living by fishing for salmon. New fishermen can only participate in the commercial harvest if they buy or inherit a state permit that, in some cases, can cost upward of $100,000 — putting it out of reach for young rural residents with no credit histories. 'We all have kids and grandkids that want to continue doing what their grandparents were doing a long time ago,' Joe Nelson, a top official with Southeast Alaska regional Native corporation Sealaska, said at a reception for lawmakers in Juneau last month. But just up the street from Sealaska's offices, at the Alaska Capitol, the issue barely registers. Many lawmakers in Juneau represent urban districts or regional population centers and aren't aware of the crisis playing out in the state's rural, coastal communities; instead, they're focused on state schools funding and a widening budget deficit. Those who do represent coastal areas say they have to balance the interests of village constituents with the interests of another, politically connected group: existing fishermen in hub towns and urban areas who depend on their harvests to feed their families — and who could be negatively affected by legislative change. There's also still no consensus among advocates about how, precisely, the law should be adjusted. The result is that despite growing discontent with the 1973 law, and a widening coalition of stakeholders who support changing it, the issue has gone nowhere in Juneau. Advocates hoped for a hearing on the subject during this year's legislative session, but one never materialized, and lawmakers have proposed no bills to address the problem. 'We're operating under a law that's been in place for 52 years, and it's broke — it's not meeting the demands of today,' said Robin Samuelsen, a Native leader from the salmon-rich region of Bristol Bay. The system needs to be changed, he said, or rural Alaska communities 'are not going to survive.' 'One by one, they're going to disappear,' he said. The 1973 law, known as the Limited Entry Act, was designed to make commercial fishing more profitable and sustainable by limiting the number of boats on the water. Skippers who had been operating at the time largely qualified for permits without having to buy them. But a provision called 'free transferability' meant those permits could be sold on the open market. Over the years, rural Native communities have lost hundreds to Alaska's larger population centers and other states as owners sold out or took permits with them when they moved. Earlier this year, Northern Journal sent a survey on limited entry and rural fisheries access to 16 state senators and representatives whose districts border the Gulf of Alaska; none completed it. Approached by a reporter at the Capitol, several lawmakers declined to discuss the issues; some pleaded ignorance. 'We're going to work on it, and we'll try to do all we can,' Senate President Gary Stevens said. 'But I don't see any reason I need to meet with you on this.' Stevens for 25 years has represented Kodiak Island, whose Indigenous villages were once home to proud commercial fishing fleets and a multi-generation heritage of fish-related trade. Those communities have seen some of the state's steepest permit losses since lawmakers approved limited entry more than 50 years ago. One village, Ouzinkie, has a single skipper left in its harbor. 'What's the holdup?' Butch Laiti started in the commercial fishing industry as a teenager in Juneau, where his family was part of a big Native fleet that harvested salmon from the Taku River outside of town. At 76 years old, he's watched for decades as members of his local tribe have sold off their boats and permits — making them largely bystanders as others harvest the salmon once claimed as tribal property. Today, Laiti says he's one of the few Native fishermen left in his area. And the Tlingit elder wants to pass his decades of maritime expertise and knowledge to a new generation. Laiti is the president of a local tribal government, the Douglas Indian Association, and under his leadership, the tribe acquired a parcel of waterfront property in Juneau where it hopes to one day build a communally owned fish processing plant. And, in 2022, the tribe spent $210,000 on a commercial fishing boat: a 42-foot gillnetter, which will double as a marine debris cleanup vessel. Then, Laiti went to the state agency that oversees access to Alaska's commercial fisheries to ask: Could the tribe also buy a permit to harvest salmon? That would give Laiti and other aging skippers the chance to take turns running the vessel and training aspiring young fishermen. But the answer from the agency's chairman was a hard no: The limited entry law only allows ownership by individuals, not by collectives such as companies or tribes. The lawmakers who designed the system in the 1970s wanted to keep fishing from being taken over corporate interests. If the members of Laiti's tribe want to own a permit and operate their boat collectively, they would have to change the law — a daunting proposition for an organization with no lobbyist and little muscle in Alaska's Capitol. But a broader network of advocates has also been readying an organized push for legislative reform. It includes the Indigenous-owned regional corporations for Southeast Alaska, Bristol Bay and Kodiak, along with The Nature Conservancy. Those groups haven't decided on specific legislative changes to push. But Laiti says that tribal ownership would be one straightforward fix to the limited entry law. 'This is ours. It always has been ours, and because we joined the United States of America, somehow we have lost control of everything that has belonged to us,' Laiti said. 'If we've got to buy back our heritage, then so be it.' He added a question for lawmakers: 'What's the holdup?' 'Fiercely' opposed One reason for the holdup: the thousands of commercial fishermen who already own permits entitling them to chase a share of the harvest. One group of such fishermen — a trade organization representing Southeast Alaska's fleet of salmon gillnetters — 'fiercely' opposed a previous legislative proposal to allow community trusts to own permits, according to one of its leaders. In an email, Max Worhatch, executive director of the United Southeast Alaska Gillnetters Association, rejected the idea that lawmakers should change the permit system to boost rural fishermen. Native corporations and a regional fisheries nonprofit in Bristol Bay have plenty of capital, Worhatch said, and both can 'easily afford' to support rural residents seeking state loans that are available to all Alaskans. In fact, that regional fisheries nonprofit, Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., already has a program that subsidizes local permit ownership. But it hasn't stopped permits from leaving the region, and in fact, the losses have still accelerated in recent years, according to state data. 'We don't have enough candidates from our communities stepping forward,' said Samuelsen, who served as the nonprofit's board chair for three decades. 'A lot of them say, 'We don't have the capital or the money to get involved.'' Defenders of the current system say that the decline of the commercial fishing industry in remote villages is less about the limited supply of permits and more about the lack of demand for them. 'There are not tons of folks breaking down the doors to get into fishing,' Jerry McCune, a longtime Cordova-based fisherman and trade group lobbyist, wrote in a response to a Northern Journal survey of industry players. McCune and some other industry veterans argue that factors outside the state's control are at play: closures of processing plants in remote areas, shifts in salmon runs and reduced competition among the seafood companies vying to buy each vessel's catch. They also worry that even small changes to the permit regime risk upending the whole limited entry system — and, potentially, invite legal challenges. 'Limited entry is a very complicated document,' McCune said. 'Change one thing and limited entry could collapse.' Attorneys for the state have raised questions about the constitutionality of ideas like permit trusts. But Jim Brennan, a longtime Alaska attorney who provided legal support to the attempt to create those trusts a decade ago, dismissed McCune's concerns. The overall permit system, he said, has survived previous court challenges. 'I think that's kind of a scare tactic,' he said. 'It's not a house of cards.' 'Does it force the other side down?' Lawmakers say they need to approach the issue of permit access deliberately — balancing the needs of rural communities with those of existing fishermen. Kodiak Rep. Louise Stutes, who chairs the House Fisheries Committee, said in a statement that any legislative proposals would have to accommodate different constituencies. 'I certainly support reducing barriers to accessing fisheries for Alaskans and keeping permits in rural communities,' she said. 'However, I also believe that any potential change to limited entry needs to be the result of a stakeholder-driven process with existing permit holders, rural constituents, affected communities and the Department of Fish and Game.' The Alaska fishing industry's own broader economic crisis is making the policy discussion even more sensitive. Oversupply, flagging demand and growing global competition have depressed prices paid to fishermen in recent years — putting many skippers in the red. Sitka Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, who represents multiple Southeast Alaska fishing hub towns, as well as small Native communities that have seen sharp losses in permit ownership, said that the increasingly tough outlook for the industry has complicated the task for lawmakers. 'It's really hard to say we're going to come in and fix this problem that's been cooking since 1970 — when people in the fishery now can't even make their living,' she said. Nonetheless, Himschoot added, she's alarmed by permit losses in villages in her district and wants to explore ways to restore them without harming current permit owners. But she acknowledged that the issue is politically delicate. 'When we lift up one side, does it force the other side down?' she asked. Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at natherz@ or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz. Subscribe at this link.
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13-05-2025
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Hilcorp already owns most Cook Inlet oil and gas. It just bought out another player.
A drilling rig at a different Hilcorp gas producing property, the Ivan River unit. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal) Hilcorp has bought out one of the last small independent natural gas operators in the Cook Inlet basin outside of Anchorage — furthering consolidation among the companies that supply urban Alaska with the fuel needed for home heating and electricity generation. Subsidiaries of Gardes Holdings, a Louisiana-based oil business, had operated the North Fork unit on the Kenai Peninsula — a small development that produces some 2 million cubic feet of gas a day, or a little more than 1% of the demand of Enstar, urban Alaska's fuel supplier. Gardes had said it was struggling to raise money to drill new wells, and its subsidiary, Vision Resources, sold its leases to Hilcorp in a transaction approved last week, according to documents posted by the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas. Hilcorp affiliates have also acquired a 7-mile pipeline associated with the North Fork unit. A Gardes official, Mark Landt, referred questions to Hilcorp. In a prepared statement, Hilcorp spokesman Matt Shuckerow said the company is looking to drill new wells as soon as this winter. 'Hilcorp is excited about the opportunity to further develop the North Fork Unit — a field that is largely undeveloped but shows potential for new production,' Shuckerow said. 'Hilcorp is optimistic about bringing additional natural gas to market to help meet the energy needs of Southcentral Alaska families, homes, and businesses.' Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at natherz@ or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz. Subscribe at this link. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
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08-05-2025
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Alaska's attorney general flew to South Africa and France. A corporate-funded group paid.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor poses for a photo in his office last month. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal) In the state of Alaska's published travel report for top administration officials, the Department of Law disclosed spending $650 to send Attorney General Treg Taylor to a two-day conference in Colorado last year. Not mentioned in that report, however: at least $20,000 that a corporate-funded group spent on a trip for Taylor and his wife, Jodi, to the Normandy region of France last summer. Attendees stayed at a five-star hotel favored by Hollywood stars and polo players and dined at Le Côté Royal, where patrons can spend 38 euros on braised pork cheeks, according to a schedule obtained by a watchdog group. Roughly half of the country's attorneys general participated, according to the Associated Press. Their schedule called for four hours of business meetings and more than two days of ceremonies and sightseeing, including guided tours of World War II battlegrounds and a centuries-old abbey. Taylor ultimately did report that trip in an unpublished financial disclosure he filed in March that's only released from state regulators upon request. The disclosure also reported a 2023 trip to South Africa, where attorneys general were scheduled to take an 'educational tour' of wine estates and a daylong trip to a game reserve that offers viewing of lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants and buffalo. Participants were accompanied by corporate officials from firms like Uber, TikTok and Albertsons, the parent company of the Safeway grocery store chain, according to reporting by CNN. Taylor's participation underscores watchdogs' growing concerns about the group that paid for the trips, the Attorney General Alliance, or AGA, which has raised millions of dollars from corporations — including some that have had legal disputes with states. Taylor recently assumed the alliance's chairmanship, his department announced earlier this year, and he is holding a cybersecurity-focused meeting for the group in Alaska in August. The alliance, created in 2019, has come under increasing criticism, including from the former head of the century-old National Association of Attorneys General, who said in his retirement letter that the alliance, a competing group, is 'overwhelmingly dependent on corporate and lobbyist money' and creates pathways for attorneys general to have their travel paid by entities they are 'investigating or suing.' 'The simple fact is they are a lobbyist access group with some programming to cover for it,' said Tom Jones, head of the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative group that's used public records requests to expose some of the alliance's corporate links and sponsored trips. Taylor's office describes the alliance as a nonpartisan forum where attorneys general 'work in cooperation to share ideas, educate on emerging issues, build relationships and foster enforcement through meetings, panels, working groups, and social activities.' In an interview at his downtown Anchorage office, Taylor said he took vacation time for his trips to South Africa and France, on which he flew business class. And he vehemently defended AGA's value. In addition to trips, he said, it also provides trainings for state attorneys on subjects like organized retail crime, online gaming and artificial intelligence. Taylor said that AGA-sponsored trips contain substantive panels and discussions — such as, in South Africa, sessions on intellectual property rights and cybersecurity. And he added that the relationships he's developed with experts and corporate officials on trips have helped him and other attorneys general resolve problems without the need for 'long, nasty and expensive' litigation. But he also rejected the idea that those relationships make it more difficult for attorneys general to hold corporations accountable: He noted that states have sued and litigated against major sponsors of AGA like Amazon and Pfizer. 'The only benefit they have is that I do know who they are. And they do know who I am, and they can reach out,' he said. 'But that doesn't stop us from doing our jobs as AGs, as we've proven over and over again.' Taylor is a former top attorney for a large, Indigenous-owned oil and gas contracting business, and he began his tenure in state government in 2018 as deputy attorney general in charge of the civil division at the Alaska Department of Law. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed him attorney general in 2021. The AGA was created in 2019 by a group of Western attorneys general and has grown to include more than 40 states and territories, according to its website. Alaska pays some $10,000 in yearly membership fees. But Taylor acknowledged that a 'very, very low percentage' of the AGA's budget comes from those dues and that the rest comes from sponsors. CNN reported that the group collected nearly $27 million in sponsorships between 2019 and 2023 — and allows companies, depending upon the size of their contributions, to suggest 'speakers, panelists, working groups, white papers and events.' Jones, from the conservative advocacy group, said one problem with the corporate participation in the trips to foreign countries is that 'the other side of that conversation' is not happening there. People who would advocate for tougher legal scrutiny of corporations, he said, 'don't have the tens of thousands of dollars a year to pay into associations to buy time in Normandy with the attorneys general.' Taylor said he understands criticism that traveling internationally for AGA programming isn't necessary in the Zoom era, which, he added, 'is why I take personal time for those trips.' He also said that he paid for his six children and one of their spouses to accompany him on the trip to Normandy, which they followed with a weeklong stay at an Airbnb on southern France's Mediterranean coast to explore the Pyrenees, 'since I'm already there.' Amid a spate of negative press coverage and public records requests about the alliance, though, Taylor acknowledged that the group has room for improvement and will consider potential changes. 'AGA is a worthless organization if AGs can't take advantage of the things that they offer,' he said. 'And if they can't take advantage of the things that they offer because of the types of trips that are occurring, then we need to change those types of trips.' Detailed documentation of Taylor's alliance-paid trips — including travel confirmations and receipts for plane tickets — is not public because expenses covered by a third party do not need to be recorded, said Alan Birnbaum, a state attorney and public records specialist who handled a Northern Journal request to the Department of Law. [Read the Department of Law's response to Northern Journal's records request] Birnbaum cited a state administrative manual that says that if travel is 'immaterial' to an agency travel budget, related transactions don't need to be 'recorded as an expenditure and a revenue.' At Taylor's direction, Birnbaum later released some general itineraries for the trips, though more detailed documentation was still withheld. Taylor said he did not know whether he'd deleted the requested records, but, he added: 'I cull my email all the time.' He also said that state law aims to define what he described as 'the limits of a public record.' 'Any time we start to diminish what a public record is, that's something that I worry about, because that is a slippery slope: 'Well, you did it in this case. Why, now, won't you release the memo that you wrote the governor on this issue? Do you have something to hide?'' Taylor said. 'That's just one of those roads that I've just made a policy decision, we're not going to go around.' Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at natherz@ or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz. Subscribe at this link. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
