The most senior member Congress, Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, was the speaker at the Greater Juneau Chamber of Commerce’s first in-person luncheon in over a year. In his speech, Young told the crowd he was working toward bipartisan solutions but has met with staunch political opposition.<\/p>\n
Young said there is increasing bipartisan recognition for the need to break the country’s reliance on China for minerals but that certain factions were predisposed to say ‘No’ to everything. The state had the opportunity to take advantage of its natural resources, particularly minerals and power generation sources, Young said, but there were people who were flatly opposed to the idea.<\/p>\n
Alaska needs to diversify its economy, he said, but needed to do it in such a way that didn’t sacrifice one part for another.<\/p>\n
“We have to have a change that doesn’t adversely affect the human race,” Young said, recalling traveling to Appalachia after the decline of the coal industry. “It was worse than any third world country, hundreds of people all on welfare.”<\/p>\n
Young told the crowd Alaska should invest in producing cheap energy from its many renewable sources like wind, hydroelectric and geothermal but expressed frustration at the blanket opposition to development he sees in national politics. Young, like many of his Republican colleagues, said that Alaska’s environmental standards were among the highest in the world and resource development in the state would be a boon both economically and environmentally.<\/p>\n
Young said at the luncheon climate change was real, but didn’t expand on what he believed to be causing it. Young told the Empire in 2018<\/a> he believed climate change was occurring but expressed skepticism it was caused by human activity. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a> says the majority of global warming that’s occurred in the past 50 years is due to human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n