Alaska Legislature: Senate Resources - October 14, 2026 10:00am

I call the Senate Resources Committee meeting to order. Today is Wednesday, October 14th, 2026, and the time is 10:00 AM. We are here in the Anchorage Legislative Information Offices. Uh, please turn off all cell phones. Um, committee members present today: Senator Dunbar, Senator Clayman, uh, Senator, uh, Vice Chair Senator Wielekowski.

I am expecting Senator Kawasaki and Senator Rauscher both to come online. And there is Senator Raucher. He has joined us. Welcome. Senator Kawasaki may be joining us later.

The recording secretary helping us out today is Heather in Juneau, and helping us out here from Juneau and the Anchorage LIO is Zach, Ian, Cassie, and Tristan. We have a quorum to conduct business. In an online, additionally, is Alfius Billard. He is with Legislative Legal Services. The agenda today is one item.

It's an overview of the Department of Natural Resources public and charitable use land conveyances and options related to the appearance of executive branch officials. We're going to start out by going over the timeline of documents and issues in terms of getting information from the Department of Natural Resources. So, I transmitted a timeline and discussion of events these last few months to members. I believe it may be posted online or will be soon. And so, we'll turn to that document first just to lay the groundwork.

It's a 4-page document, so we'll start on page 1. Good place to start, right? And what is highlighted here is the existing statute related to charitable land use. The conveyances under discussion are being made under public and charitable use statute and regulation. And so I wanted to make sure that we reviewed what those two things were.

So charitable use— land use statute provides the rules and restrictions for charitable land use. They must be leases limited to 55 years. They go to a nonprofit association, club, or society. A society operating exclusively for charitable, religious, scientific, or educational purposes, or for the promotion of social welfare. The use may not be used for commercial development.

The land cannot be closed to the general public. The applicant must provide proof of tax-exempt status, and they may be charged less than market value. So, pretty clear and strict guidelines for charitable use. It calls into question whether DNR's conveyances of significant acreage to AIDA— that's the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority— under this statute for public use is lawful, procedurally adequate, and supported by Department of Natural Resources due diligence. Now, the regulation that fleshes out this statute was changed.

In December 2025, a new section was added to the regulation 11 AAC 98. It's— it's Section 010, Public Purpose, and it cites the statute that we just talked about. And it states that public purpose now means use or disposal of state land or resources that contributes to a substantial benefit to the general public, including if the use or disposal furthers the delivery of government services, promotes general health, safety, welfare, facilitates access to and enjoyment of natural resources, and here's number 4, supports private commercial or industry that contributes to the economic development of the state, or number 5, is otherwise determined by the Commissioner to be in the interest of the state. So this regulation change was put out in December of 2025. It was adopted in February after being posted for public comment.

And it was enacted in March of 2026. So that lays the groundwork for the citation of public and charitable use that's being utilized for these land conveyances to Ada. So the next section of the explanation paper, the timeline paper, goes now to July 10th. And this was when the original public comment period was noticed for a land conveyance to the Alaska Industrial Development Export Authority near the city of Houston. This land conveyance is identified as ADL 234762.

It's 20,000 acres in the Houston area. So it went out for public comment. It was at that time that I began noticing multiple land conveyances by the Department of Natural Resources, actually beginning in June, to various communities, small amounts of land. But this one stuck out because it was 20,000 acres. And so I began after that July 10th public notice to discuss this with Majority Legal Counsel and members of this committee.

We felt this was concerning. That's a lot of land. And so about that time, there was also a news article by Matsu newspaper— I think it was the Frontiersman— that reported a public hearing in Houston, very full of citizens in the area expressing huge concern about the conveyance of this land, identifying that this land is used by them for recreational use, hunting, snow machining, dogsled racing, hiking. It's a significant area to them. And so on August 19th, you see that the Senate Resources Committee sent a letter to Commissioner Krother, expressing concern about land conveyance ADL 234762.

This letter is posted on the Senate Resources Committee for October 8th. That is— the letter is publicly posted there if the public wanted to take a look at it. The next day, on August 20th, the public comment period was extended an additional 30 days for this public land conveyance. Um, may have been in response to the letter that the Senate Resources Committee sent, but I believe that the public outcry also motivated the additional 30 days. On September 1st, um, we— during the interim now, after the August 19th letter, uh, the Senate Majority Counsel and I and members of this committee continued to discuss this, and I submitted a request to Commissioner Krother of the Department of Natural Resources for some public records.

Um, the public records request is in Pursuant to statute and regulation, and you'll see on the next page— well, the records request, is that posted? I'm asking my staff. I don't know if that letter was posted. But I asked essentially for— and I don't have a copy of it here. I did include it, I believe.

Yes. You have it in the letter that's on your desk, committee members, and you can see there that I'm asking for communications related to that request, discussion among DNR regulators related to the request, those kinds of details. So that letter was sent on September 1st. Now, the next page of the timeline paper, page 3, outlines for you the time limits that DNR has to respond to a public records request. They— when I sent that on September 1st, they had 10 days, 10 working days after that date, to respond to me.

And at that time, the public agency shall, number 1, furnish all requested records that are disclosable, or number 2, advise the requester of what records are not— are non-disclosable. I did get a response from DNR on September 10th. The response said, "We will undertake this work as expeditiously as possible without impairing DNR's ability to fulfill its responsibilities." That response did not fulfill Item D of the the regulations related to public records requests, and Item D says the public agency may extend the basic 10 working days established, not to exceed 10 additional working days, by providing notice to the requester in the basic 10 working day period, uh, when these will be furnished and, again, determination of what's nondisclosable. None of this has been provided to me as the requester of this public information. So that's been disappointing.

On September 4th, however, we do have a legal memo from our Legal Services. It was provided to us by Alfius Bullard, who is attorney in the department— or the Division of Legal— Legislative Legal. Mr. Bullard is online if members have any questions for him. That legal memo is posted for— with our October 8th meeting. On September 9th, we sent a second public comment letter, and this second public comment letter just fleshed out a bit more and referenced Mr. Bullard's legal memo, which identified the questionable constitutional and statutory actions that we believe are represented in this very large land conveyance.

Again, this letter is posted publicly on the October 8th meeting. On September, uh, 18th, we invited Commissioner Krother to attend the October 8th meeting. It was a joint resources meeting held in this room from 1 to 3 here in the Anchorage LIO. On September 22nd, noted on page 4, uh, I received a response from Commissioner Krother's office 4 days later. The commissioner responded, "We respectfully decline your invitation to participate in this upcoming Joint Resources Committee meeting.

The governor's office has not given us permission to attend. We are happy to answer any questions you may have via email and continue to work diligently to fulfill your records request." So we met on October 8th, and the commissioner was not in attendance. For those of you that have— that viewed that meeting or have viewed the recording of it, you are aware that multiple times during that meeting we had questions for the Department of Natural Resources. They were not present. We have no answers to those questions.

The next day, on October 9th, attempting to be collegial I sent a second invitation to Commissioner Krother, extending to him the invitation to speak to the Senate Resources Committee on October 26th—that's a Monday—at 10:00 a.m. here in the Anchorage LIO. The next day, I received a response from Commissioner Krother saying, "Thank you, Senator. Received, and we will be back in touch with you soon." I've been checking my email even today. I have yet to receive any response from Commissioner Krother about my second invitation to attend and answer questions about this very large land conveyance. So that's where we stand right now.

If the Commissioner, of course, declines again, we are still in this point with some very significant, unprecedented land conveyances. The, the 20,000 acres, ADL 234762, is one that we have concern about. But in addition, there was a second land conveyance, ADL 234934, which is over 800 acres of land, again being made under the public and charitable use statute and regulation. These conveyances are being made with zero cost to Ada and are requiring from Ada virtually no clear description of how the land will be used. In the first land conveyance, the 20,000 acres, the commissioner— the commissioner has waived the reversionary interest clause.

So, for the public, that means that, um, first of all, DNR can convey land and have a provision in that conveyance that if the land isn't used within a certain period of time or for the use indicated, the land goes back to DNR. That's called a reversionary clause. Uh, in this case of the 20,000 acres, the commissioner waived that reversionary interest clause. In other words, this land would not come back to Ada— or excuse me, not come back from Ada to the Department of Natural Resources. The second land conveyance for which we have concern is the over 800 acres over in the Port McKenzie area, and in that conveyance, DNR chooses to include a reverter in this conveyance to Ada.

This is part of the preliminary decision document. Uh, again, this is posted on the October 8th meeting of joint resources. So that's where we stand right now. One of my big concerns is this is a huge conveyance of public land. That land has value.

There are multiple conveyances being made right now, both large and small. We're focused right here on conveyances being made to ADA. There are also conveyances being made to Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. That commissioner— Commissioner Butcher has agreed to attend the October 26th meeting to discuss that.

One of the other conveyances that's happening is being made by the University Land Office. Now, the reason I bring that one up is not because we have jurisdiction over that. That— the Land Office at the University of Alaska has the authority to convey their land, to lease it, to do whatever. In this case, they are leasing 829 acres for a private development in the Matsu area, but they are having a— this is a lease. There's a cost to it.

At operational levels, the lease payment to the University of Alaska for this 829 acres of private developed land will be $586,740 a year with annual escalators going forward. DNR, by contrast, is conveying 20,000 acres of land to ADA for private development of an industrial park with no cost to Ada or to no jurisdiction over any cost that Ada would— might be charging to anyone they choose to convey that land to. If you take the math and take the $587,000 that you at the University of Alaska will be getting annually for 829 acres and transfer that to what DNR is conveying to ADA, that would be $14 million annually that would come to the state general fund if the state were leasing this land directly to the industrial park and data center developer that ADA has proposed could make use of the 20,000 acres of land. I would propose that in fact DNR is delegating assets, they are appropriating land to ADA, and ADA in turn is taking over an appropriation authority which belongs to the legislation. The legislature.

So actually, this is a violation of our legislative appropriation authority, as well as concern about the use of this land that has been not described at all. So just an additional comment that I would make about the transfer of this land, uh, in comparison to what the University of Alaska is doing to lease their land to a private sector developer. So At this time, I will open to the committee any questions, comments. As I said, Mr. Bullard is online with legislative legal if there are any comments. And I note that Senator Kawasaki joined the committee meeting at 10:05, so he's been present for the main corpus of this meeting.

Committee members, any questions or comments?

Senator Clayman. Madam Chair, any sense in non-written communications from the DNR Commissioner about attendance at a future meeting with our committee? There's been no communication whatsoever from the Commissioner himself or the legislative liaison other than the emails that I have noted verbatim in the document. Thank you. Going online.

Any questions, Senator Rauscher?

Not at this time, thank you. Thank you, Senator Rauscher. Senator Kawasaki, you are on the phone. Any questions? Yeah, uh, none from me, but we are trying to get our internet back so I can see you all.

Okay, all right, thank you, Senator Kawasaki. Any further questions or comments? From the committee members?

Seeing none, we do have— we do have opportunity to hear from the Department of Natural Resources if we take a rather serious step. I will turn to Senator Wielechowski, vice chair of this committee. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Senate Resources Committee issue a subpoena to compel the appearance of Department of Natural Resources Commissioner John Crowther to appear in person before the committee on October 26th at 10 a.m. in the Denali Room of the Anchorage Legislative Information Office at 1500 West Benson Boulevard in Anchorage, Alaska, and to provide the following items to the committee chair for that hearing. Number 1, documents relevant to Chair Giesel's public records request dated September 1st, 2026, received by the commissioner via email, and 2, Any documents necessary to assist the Senate Resources Committee in understanding development plans and policy rationales related to DNR land conveyances to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority or to the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, or to— or related to the legality of planned DNR land conveyances.

So the motion has been made. Is there any discussion? Senator Clayman. Is Mr. Bullard the person with Leg Legal that can probably answer questions about procedural steps? Making you aware again, yes, Mr. Bullard is online as well as Emily Nauman.

She is the Director of Legislative Legal Services and has assisted in the motion that was just made. Perhaps Ms. Nauman might be more accurate. Sure. Please go ahead, Senator Clayman. So my question from somebody from either Ms. Nauman or Mr. Bullard.

If we issue the subpoena, does that mean it would— must get served, or will the department have the option, having us having voted for the subpoena, will the department have the option to advise that they will appear without having— without being served with a subpoena?

This is Emily Nauman, Legislative Legal Services, and I, um, I missed the lead-in to the motion, Senator Wilkowski, and it could be that the language in the motion might answer that question. If the motion required the authorization of the subpoena, I believe that the chair would be required to deliver that subpoena. If the motion gave the chair the authority to issue the subpoena, then the chair might have authority to later decide not to issue the subpoena in the event that, say, the department decided to comply with the intent of the subpoena without the actual subpoena needing to be delivered. So the answer to your question might be in the Muslim language.

Senator Clayman? And I wasn't paying that much attention to the language of the motion, so I guess that's—. Senator Wilkowski. Thank you, Madam Chair. The motion was that this Senate Resources Committee issue a subpoena.

So it— and I think the rationale is that there was a request for information that was made under the public records request that was not complied with. There was follow-up and still it has not been complied with. There was a request to appear before the committee that was not complied with. There was an a second request to appear before the committee, and we've heard nothing back from them. So I think the committee chair has tried to work this out without the issuance of subpoena and unfortunately has not been successful.

And further questions, Senator Clayman? Not a question, just a couple of comments. I think that, Madam Chair, your efforts to try to get this information have been exceptional, and I'm disappointed that we haven't seen more. I am familiar, though, at least to my knowledge, although I'm not on the Budget and Audit Committee. My, my understanding is the last time the legislature issued a subpoena to the, to the governor's or to the executive branch was in 2025 relating to, to revenue matters.

And that committee issued a subpoena, but then it was actually never served because after the subpoena was issued, they agreed to comply. And so my, I'm, I'm, I'm supportive of the motion. I would just want Madam Chair, you to have the discretion if in fact once we take the vote, if there is a vote in support of the subpoena, that you would have the ability to not order the service if in fact they agreed to appear in a timely manner after us having made the decision to— in support of the subpoena. And I would note certainly in my years of legal experience, there have been multiple times we've had subpoenas issued and we sent a copy to the other side and said, do you really want us to serve, sir, can we get going forward? I think every time I have been involved in one of those incidents, the other party— and sometimes I was the other party— we always appeared.

So that's the only caution— not caution, but I would just want us to not have to go through all the expense and time of actually serving the subpoena if in fact the committee votes for the subpoena. If the department agrees to comply with it without being served, then I don't see a need to actually serve. Senator Clemon, I have great respect for the Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources. I acknowledge that he has a boss who— in the reply, it was actually his boss denied him the authority, the ability to attend the meeting. If the issuance of this subpoena convinces the commissioner's authority over him to allow him to attend, I would certainly be eagerly accepting that.

And so we'll work that out. We'll see what happens. But, of course, past experience— has, has been challenging. We're going to take a brief at ease.

I call the Senate Resources Committee meeting back to order.

Senator Clayman, your comment has relevance in that the motion identifies October 26th at 10:00 a.m. And it is possible that the commissioner may need a different date. Perhaps he's out of town, who knows. And so I'm going to suggest to Vice Chair Senator Wielechowski that he amend his motion for the subpoena.

Senator Wilkowski. Madam Chair, I would amend the motion that's in front of us. The very first, uh, line currently reads, I move that the Senate Resources Committee issue a subpoena to compel the appearance of Department of Natural Resources Commissioner John Crowther. I would move to amend that to read, I move that the Senate Resources Committee issue one or more subpoenas to compel the appearance of Department of Natural Resources Commissioner John Crowther. The remainder of the motion remains the same.

And if I could, just on the rationale for that, if, if you issue a subpoena for a date and time specific, then it's for that date and time specific. And in order to be flexible with the commissioner, if he has a previous engagement at that specific time, this would give the gives you, Madam Chair, the ability to— and the committee the ability to be a little more flexible with the commissioner. Thank you, Senator Wilkowski. Is there comment from anyone? I'll ask.

I have a comment. All right. I see your hand is up. Senator Rauscher.

Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you. So, if we go with the amended motion and now we're issuing more than one possibly, uh, requests for an appearance, and then they kind of go out on a record of no, he didn't make it this time, we didn't make it that time. So I'm thinking, can we give him a date range instead of issuing multiple subpoenas and then being able to chalk up the fact that he wasn't able to appear for the first one or the second one. I just think it might be a little bit better if we gave a date range, and that way he would have a better chance to, um, to pick a date, since that's what we are actually discussing, whether or not he might be able to make it.

It's just a thought. I appreciate that, Senator Rauscher, and as I said, I have huge respect for the Commissioner. That being said, this committee has to be available, and I have already secured the fact that I have a committee—this committee—available on October 26th at 10:00 a.m. So that is the desired date, and I—that is the preferred date, and that's what we will hold hold the line on, and if there needs to be negotiation on that, there will be a specific second date chosen. But at this point, putting in a date range without first conferring with this committee, making arrangements for the room, etc., is not a possibility.

I appreciate, however, your comment. Senator Kawasaki. Did you have any comments?

No, I do not have any questions. Thank you, Senator Kawasaki. I just want to make sure everyone online has an opportunity. Anyone else in the room wish to comment? Anyways, on the committee, not in the room, but committee members.

All right, I see no, um, I see no other comments. So at this time, I'm going to request a roll call vote of the members of this committee. To document the approval of this motion in the minutes. Heather, would you please call the roll?

Senator Dunbar? Yes. Yes. Senator Clayman? Yes.

Senator Wilkowski? Yes.

Sorry, Senator Wilkowski? Yes. Senator Kawasaki? Yes.

Senator Rauscher?

Senator Rauscher?

Senator Rauscher, your name was—. Senator Rauscher.

Senator Giesel?

Yes. The vote is 5 yeas, 1 pass.

Thank you very much, Heather. And so, on a vote of 5 yeas Nay, 2, and 1 pass. The motion to issue a subpoena to compel the appearance of the Department of Natural Resources Commissioner John Krother to attend the October 26th Senate Resources meeting is approved. Uh, are there any concluding comments from committee members? Seeing none, this concludes our meeting.

The next meeting of the Senate Resources Committee is October 26th at 10:00 AM in the Anchorage Legislative Information Office The subject will be the Department of Natural Resources public and charitable use of land conveyances. At this time, the meeting will stand adjourned. Let the record reflect the time is 2— excuse me, 10:35 AM.