Print article JUNEAU Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is withdrawing a plan to split the state Department of Health and Social Services into two agencies, citing “technical issues” with the executive order that set out the plan. Legislative hearings over the past week have exposed potential legal problems with the governor’s proposal, and lawmakers have grown increasingly wary of the idea. “I think that (order) had in concept broad support, but we’ve found a few action items that need addressing over the next several months, maybe over the summer,” said Sen. Click Bishop, R-Fairbanks, during a Thursday afternoon hearing about the proposal.
As COVID emergency expires, Alaska’s border screening becomes optional Published February 14
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Print article JUNEAU Alaska’s mandatory border screenings for COVID-19 turned optional Sunday as a statewide COVID-19 emergency expired at midnight. Gov. Mike Dunleavy said the airport action is the biggest obvious change caused by the end of the emergency, but the state expects to find new implications over the next couple of weeks. One issue discovered just last week: The end of the emergency means losing a third of the state’s $23 million monthly food stamp aid from the federal government. Alaska has been operating under a state of emergency since March 2020 and now becomes the only state other than Michigan to lack a statewide COVID-19 emergency, according to the National Governors Association. In Michigan, local officials and the state’s health commissioner have issued separate declarations of emergency to fill the gap, but much of Alaska lacks
Print article The Eagle River lawmaker who last fall criticized Alaska Airlines for their mask policy on Wednesday expressed “constitutional concerns” about Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s COVID-19 health mandates. Republican state Sen. Lora Reinbold, in her first meeting as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, invited testimony from a Harvard professor who co-authored
a disputed treatise by three infectious disease specialists who oppose broad lockdowns and school closures. Wednesday afternoon’s session on Alaska’s COVID-19 restrictions and public health emergency declaration also featured a sometimes testy exchange between Reinbold and Dunleavy’s health commissioner, Adam Crum. Reinbold made headlines in November when she wrote a social media post that referred to Alaska Airlines staff as “mask bullies” after flight attendants asked her to wear the required face covering. Reinbold later encouraged Alaskans to bypass mandatory COVID-19 tests at the airport. More re