On Wednesday, the Kenai and Soldotna Joint Chamber of Commerce played host to guest Kati Capozzi, President of the Alaska Chamber at the Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center. She spoke on the 2021 public information survey, which is conducted yearly through Dittman Research, to understand important policies. This survey was fielded on April 15-22, 2021 and the sample size included 709 likely voters in Alaska.
There were several questions conducted to rate Alaska’s economy. They included questions on state spending, the Permanent Fund, more taxes, and a constitutional amendment for a spending cap.
Capozzi spoke on President Joe Biden’s approval rating in Alaska:
“He, actually, he’s at 51% of disapproving of his job. 46% oppose. Then, I did the breakdown for all those locations so you can see where you all are at. 65% disapprove. 33% approve. Something I thought was interesting and I wanted to make sure I shared with you is, and you see this in a lot of places in our polling, the less time people have spent in Alaska, the less time they understand where the money comes from, where the jobs come from. The 0-9 years approve of President Biden’s job at 60% to 36%.
On President Biden’s oil and gas policy, Capozzi said:
“We’re happy to see that there is 61% who oppose the oil and gas policy and only 38% who support. Southcentral, again, coming in strong, 37% no, but I do, again want to point out that education is the only industry that is supportive of President Biden’s oil and gas policy. That’s something to consider, these are the people that are teaching our children. I also happen to think that probably there is a direct correlation between education and the 0-9 years group because a lot of teachers are new to Alaska. They don’t know where the jobs come from and where the money comes from.”
On the subject of ANWR exploration and production:
“Last year, actually was the lowest we’ve seen ever at 60%. We’ve seen an increase in that, which we’re happy to see. We think it’s, honestly, a little bit of backlash to Biden’s oil and gas policy, but it’s still a trend that we’re not real excited about. We were at 75% back in 2002.”
The Alaska Chamber is scheduled to host a fall forum from September 28-30 in Girdwood on the subject of rejuvenating Alaska’s economy.