Alaska Politics & Infrastructure

I Didn't Know —
And That's the Problem

How Alaska fared better under Biden than most voters realize

By a Lifelong Alaskan  ·  2025

I'll be honest with you. I follow politics. I pay attention to what's happening in this state. I care about Alaska's future.

And I didn't know.

I didn't know that Alaska received more federal infrastructure investment under Joe Biden than under any Republican administration in recent memory. I didn't know that our infrastructure grade — the one given by engineers, not politicians — actually improved during his presidency. I didn't know that the funding now being frozen or cut is the same funding that was fixing our roads, our bridges, our ferry system, and starting to address the rural water crisis that has left dozens of Alaska communities hauling water from rivers in 2025.

If I didn't know, chances are most Alaskans don't know either. And that gap — between what actually happened and what we believe happened — is worth talking about honestly.

◆ A State Built on One Card

To understand where we are, you have to understand how we got here.

Alaska struck oil. And for decades, that oil revenue became the answer to every question. Why develop a sustainable tax base? Oil. Why plan for a future beyond resource extraction? Oil. Why build infrastructure that doesn't depend on boom-and-bust commodity prices? Oil.

Between 2004 and 2015, under Republican governors Frank Murkowski, Sarah Palin, and Sean Parnell, Alaska's budget grew at nearly four times the rate of population growth plus inflation. When oil was over $100 a barrel, money flowed. Government expanded. Projects were funded. The Permanent Fund Dividend checks got bigger. Life felt prosperous.

Nobody asked the hard question: what happens when the oil price drops?

In 2015, it dropped. Hard. And Alaska had no backup plan. No state income tax. No sales tax. A government bloated from years of oil-fueled spending. And an infrastructure deficit quietly accumulating for decades.

Alaska Budget Facts

$37.3B Estimated cumulative overspending above inflation-adjusted budget, 2004–2023

$50K Excess government spending per Alaskan over that same period

4× Rate budget grew vs. population + inflation, 2004–2015

That's not a statistic to brush aside. That's a generational failure of planning — and it set the stage for everything that followed.

— ❄ —

◆ Enter the Federal Lifeline

Here's where the story gets politically inconvenient.

In 2021, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — the largest federal investment in American infrastructure in nearly a century. Alaska, a state that voted against Biden by a wide margin, became one of its biggest beneficiaries in the nation.

Biden Era Infrastructure — Alaska

$9.3B Total infrastructure funding granted or announced for Alaska

$8,700 Per capita — highest infrastructure funding in the nation

C− → C Alaska infrastructure grade improvement per ASCE Engineers

What That Money Actually Did

→ Bridge grade improved from B− to B+, described as a "shining example" of effective federal investment

→ $285 million to the Alaska Marine Highway System — ferries coastal communities depend on for groceries and medical care

→ $1 billion announced for broadband to finally connect rural Alaskans to reliable internet

→ $206.5 million for electrical grid resilience, including an Anchorage-Kenai subsea cable

→ Funding for Newtok Village relocation — a community literally sinking into the ocean due to permafrost thaw

→ Rural water and wastewater projects advancing in communities that had waited decades

The American Society of Civil Engineers — engineers, not Democrats — documented these improvements.

"

The bipartisan infrastructure law was one of the most consequential legislative efforts I've worked on in the U.S. Senate, and I am proud to have played a leading role on something that brings such significant benefits to Alaska.

— Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

That's right. The Republican senator most responsible for making this happen was Lisa Murkowski. She wrote it, negotiated it, and fought for Alaska's share. She voted for a Biden infrastructure bill. And Alaska is better for it.

— ❄ —

◆ Then the Freeze

In January 2025, President Trump took office and signed an executive order freezing funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

⚠ Immediate Impact on Alaska

⚠ Over $130 million in rural Alaska clean energy grants frozen on day one — in villages where fuel costs over $20 per gallon

⚠ Alaska Marine Highway faces a $78 million budget hole — ferries serving Southeast Alaska, Kodiak, and Aleutian communities may run out of funds by summer 2026

⚠ Disaster relief for Western Alaska storm victims rolled back from 100% to 75% federal reimbursement, despite earlier promises

⚠ More than $2 billion in total federal funding potentially at risk, per Alaska's own legislative leaders

⚠ Over 1,400 federal workers in Alaska — fisheries researchers, forest rangers, weather service employees — expected to lose jobs

"

These modernization projects are life-sustaining in parts of the state where fuel can cost over $20 per gallon. Trump's cutbacks are a direct threat to Alaska's future.

— Senate President Gary Stevens (R) & House Speaker Bryce Edgmon (I), 2025

These aren't Democrats complaining. These are Alaska's own Republican and Independent legislative leaders sounding the alarm about their own party's president.

— ❄ —

◆ The Disconnect

So how do you hold two truths at once? Alaska voted overwhelmingly for Trump. Alaska's political culture is built on oil, independence, and skepticism of federal overreach.

And yet: Alaska's infrastructure measurably improved under Biden. Alaska's infrastructure is now measurably at risk under Trump. Alaska's dependence on federal spending is not a liberal talking point — it's a mathematical reality that shows up in the state budget every single year.

Why Voters Don't Know

→ Politicians take credit while avoiding blame. Republican legislators who voted against the infrastructure law held press conferences announcing projects it funded. The source got quietly buried.

→ Infrastructure improvements are invisible. A bridge that doesn't collapse. A road that gets repaved. People notice when things break, not when they get fixed.

→ Cultural identity overrides policy outcomes. The story of oil independence and skepticism toward Outside interference doesn't leave room for "a Democratic president's bill built our roads."

→ Local media is shrinking. Many rural communities have little to no local news coverage connecting federal policy to local results.

— ❄ —

◆ What a Responsible Path Forward Looks Like

This isn't an argument to vote Democrat. Alaska's political complexity runs deeper than that, and no party has a clean record here.

What this is, is an argument for honesty.

The honest truth is that Alaska built its fiscal house on oil revenues and never prepared for the day those revenues would fall short. The honest truth is that the largest infrastructure investment this state has seen in decades came from a Democratic administration, delivered in part by a Republican senator willing to work across party lines. The honest truth is that the current administration — the one Alaska voted for — has frozen, delayed, or cancelled significant portions of that investment, and Alaska's own Republican leaders are the ones raising the alarm.

Thirty-two Alaskan communities still have no piped water system. People are still hauling water from rivers in 2025. That's not a statistic. That's a moral failure that has outlasted every governor, every legislature, and every administration of the last fifty years.

The Last Frontier Deserves Better

Alaska is extraordinary. Its geography, its people, its wildlife, its cultures, its possibilities — there is nowhere else like it on earth.

It deserves leaders — from any party — who tell the truth about what it takes to maintain a state this size, this remote, this complex. Who build sustainable revenue structures instead of gambling everything on oil prices. Who accept federal investment when it serves Alaskans, regardless of who signs the bill.

I didn't know Alaska fared better under Biden. Now I do.
The question is what we do with that information.

Sources

American Society of Civil Engineers Alaska Infrastructure Report Card (2025) · Alaska Policy Forum · Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska · Ballotpedia · Alaska Beacon · Anchorage Daily News · U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski's Office · Alaska Public Media