Alaska's volcanoes, landslides, and earthquakes anchor a federal hazard-program hearing

Alaska's geological hazards drove a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing Tuesday on bills reauthorizing three federal hazard programs — the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, the Volcano Early Warning and Monitoring System, and the Landslide Preparedness Act, which expired in September 2024.

Alaska Earthquake Center Director and State Seismologist Mike West testified that the Alaska Volcano Observatory has issued detailed forecasts during Mount Spurr's 16-month unrest — the volcano sits 80 miles from Anchorage and remains at yellow alert — but most U.S. volcanoes lack that monitoring. "The problem is that most U.S. volcanoes aren't monitored like SPUR. Fully implementing NVEWS would fix this," West said.

He also flagged a national earthquake-alert gap. "Just 3 states so far have the USGS's ShakeAlert system, which is capable of providing warning before shaking even starts," West said. "4 Months ago, the USGS published a ShakeAlert plan for Alaska." Alaska doesn't yet have operational ShakeAlert. West credited the earthquake program with informing the building codes behind Anchorage's November 2018 magnitude-7.1 outcome: no fatalities, no entire-building collapses.

Recent landslides — Wrangell killed six on November 20, 2023, Ketchikan was hit in 2024 — made the case for the third bill.

Rep. Nick Begich, who introduced the volcano reauthorization, framed Mount Spurr: "If Mount Spurr erupts, ashfall could shut down aviation, damage critical infrastructure, and pose a public health emergency."

The subcommittee also heard offshore drilling bills affecting Alaska's Arctic and Bering Sea waters — including nullifying Biden-era withdrawals of 625 million acres and requiring new seismic and AI-based assessments. Retired NOAA official Doug Helton opposed the drilling bills, saying he retired "alongside more than 1,000 other NOAA employees who left amid the Trump administration's effort to gut the agency." The subcommittee took no votes.