Even as a 20-year resident of Kotzebue, I’m a relatively new kid on the tundra compared to 70% of this Inupiat community who have called it their home for time immemorial. Still, as a proud community member, I work to support and preserve Kotzebue’s unique character and cultural heritage. As the general manager/CEO of the Kotzebue Electric Association (KEA), I work to make sure my neighbors pay less to stay warm and keep their lights on. Unfortunately, that just got much harder.
Because there are no electrical transmission lines coming into Kotzebue, we operate our own micro-grid, which for years was primarily run on diesel. However, for the last three decades, we’ve successfully moved toward energy diversity and independence by adding wind and solar to our toolbox of energy production.
You can imagine our excitement then when we learned that funding in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) created a tremendous opportunity for KEA to fortify our energy diversity, invest in grid resilience, and potentially move us from 30% renewable energy to 50% — the tipping point for making energy more affordable.
The tribal entity in Kotzebue, The Native Village of Kotzebue, was also awarded grant funding for two new wind turbines and a solar array. According to Chad Nordlum, the energy project manager for the Native Village of Kotzebue, the BIL/IRA investments would create a tribe-owned solar farm that “will produce income for the tribe [and] lower fuel bills.”
Today, decision-makers thousands of miles away are “freezing” these investments, setting back projects that were slated to break ground imminently and potentially derailing our goals of achieving energy independence and reducing the ever-increasing cost of keeping our families warm. In total, the administration has frozen $91 million in investments that could support long-term sustainability in a region that is critically important to the US for responsible mineral resource development and geopolitical defense.
One of the KEA grants originated as a congressionally directed spending request from Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office. Once approved, it was turned over to the Department of Energy for administration. It’s also now on hold. The project would be the first of its kind to collaborate with the U.S. Air Force to provide redundant power for their Long-Range Radar Site just outside of Kotzebue and support local communications assets for broadband providers and the local radio station located in the same area.
Sen. Murkowski has said that “from programmatic wins to congressionally directed spending projects, the funding I have secured is the direct result of working together with Alaskans from across the state to address the needs of their communities. This package invests in our military while enabling us to respond to workforce shortages, food insecurity, clean drinking water needs, the housing crunch, the high cost of energy, crises in our fisheries, and more.”
She couldn’t be more correct. Please join me in supporting Sen. Murkowski’s efforts to not only spearhead these investments but to protect them. Join me in asking Washington decision-makers to “unfreeze” these funds, thereby allowing us to move closer to energy independence, reduce costs and keep our families warm. The current cost of energy is not sustainable for our region — nor is the high cost of living for other necessary commodities such as food and housing. Without the already awarded IRA and BIL funding to build out more renewable energy with lower costs, this is one “freeze” we may not survive.
Tom Atkinson is a 20-year resident of Kotzebue. He has worked in the community first as a grocery store manager, and later in municipal government as city manager. He currently serves as the general manager/CEO for the Kotzebue Electric Association.
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