Alaska should seize Arctic opportunities, commission report says
32 broad recommendations for action to achieve goals of promoting economic development, improving health, safety and emergency response and deepening scientific and academic knowledge.
With industry poised to invest billions of dollars in the rapidly thawing and increasingly accessible and resource-rich Arctic, Alaska now has a blueprint to help the state to take advantage of the situation, members of the Alaska Arctic Policy Commission said Monday, according to Alaska Dispatch News.
That blueprint comes in the form of the commission’s newly released final report, outlined at a Juneau news conference by lawmakers who are members of the organization.
“The development is going to happen with or without Alaska. It’s already happening,” Sen. Lesil McGuire, an Anchorage Republican who co-chairs the commission, said at the news conference in the Capitol.
The report is the product of two years of meetings and study by the commission, composed of 10 legislators and 16 other individuals with Arctic knowledge.