Alaska has benefited from many Presidential visits, and it’s always good to have the national spotlight shine on us. President Ronald Reagan’s visits were particularly memorable, given his keen appreciation for Alaska’s vast natural resources and understanding of the federal government’s history of locking up those resources by taking Alaska lands.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” President Reagan said in a 1979 campaign stop, bemoaning federal land-grabs. “It’s gotten to the point where a tourist who comes up here won’t even be able to see this land.” In 1983 while serving as President, he spoke stirringly of the importance of Alaska’s natural resources during a visit.
“Your state is a treasure trove of resources vital to our economy and to the well-being of every American,” he said.
President Reagan, a former western governor, understood Alaska.
I know that President Obama — whose upcoming visit is important for us all — is from a different party and has vastly different beliefs about how to grow the economy and the role of the federal government in our lives.
And I believe that many of his administration’s actions — including the consistent usurpation of Congress’ powers through issuing executive orders and locking up huge swaths of energy-rich Alaska land — are very detrimental to our country’s and Alaska’s economy.
However, there’s something I’m reminded of every day while representing Alaska in the U.S. Senate: Most Alaskans’ hopes and dreams transcend political ideologies. We all want what’s best for our families and communities now and for generations to come. We all want to live in a country that is teeming with opportunity, available to us all.
But in Alaska, a land of extraordinary potential, we face a unique problem, one that I hope President Obama recognizes during his visit. In order to make full use of our opportunities, we need to be seen not as symbols or abstractions, but as individuals. With real problems, real needs, real hopes and wishes, living in real cities and towns and rural communities — real people living in a real state.
For too long and by too many Outside, Alaska hasn’t been treated as a place in and of its own. It’s been a battleground and a playground, over-romanticized and underappreciated.
When the President visits, I hope that he is able to see Alaska not as a snow globe — something to put on a shelf and shaken for a feel-good moment — but as a place described by the drafters of our Constitution as “a homeland filled with opportunities for living, a land where you can worship and pray, a country where ambitions will be bright and real, an Alaska that will grow with you as you grow.”
Dan Sullivan is a Republican representing Alaska in the U.S. Senate.
Your state is about to be used as a prop for Obama's global warming/climate change agenda. His eyes are on Paris, not Anchorage.
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