Governor Mike Dunleavy proposed his path for strengthening Alaska’s economy in a speech on Thursday to the Alaska Chamber and Greater Juneau Chamber of Commerce, and it centers heavily on utilizing the state’s own resources.
Dunleavy made a hard push that natural resources must remain at the forefront of Alaska’s plans. He made reference to Iceland’s successful utilization of their natural resources, comparing it to Venezuela’s failures to utilize theirs, warning that the reason for the disparity is due to political ideals and that Alaska must not follow the path of not fully utilizing the state’s resources. “Venezuela is not running out of oil. They’re not running out of timber. What they’ve run out of is good politics. That country is in a spiral. It’s in a desperate situation. You’ve got a country in Venezuela in which people are actually hungry, leaving the country en masse, because of the politics of that particular country. They have a lot of hope, but they’ve not been able to capitalize on it the past several years because of their politics.”
He also discussed the state’s access to potential trading partners in Canada, as well as open access to the Pacific Ocean, as another reason why pro-development politics in Alaska can allow the state to flourish: “If Alaska remains a pro-resource development state and if Alaska remains a state that wants to develop its resources in a responsible manner, our location is going to bode extremely well for us. So you’re going to see more discussions about investments in Alaska because of its location for shipping and defense, its location because of cargo, and its location because we can ship resources out through our ports to the Pacific that other states and provinces may not be able to.”
The state’s budget deficit was not mentioned much in the statements, but he did say that the state service cuts he proposed last year could be the basis for further discussions.