Congress fight on Trump’s agenda crosses Alaska

Twice a month, planes land on the gravel landing track in Noatak, Alaska, about 70 miles north of the Arctic Circle, transporting diesel that residents need to heat their houses in the bitter cold.

And once a month, they receive electricity bills four times higher than those of most of the rest of the country which include two separate costs: one for the cost of energy itself, and another for the cost of the fuel used to pilot.

“The cost of fuel is the thing that kills,” said Bessie Monroe, 56, who works as assistant to the tribal administrator of the village, while she was making her invoice. Even if it completes the heat of its generator with a wood stove – and can still sometimes feel the cooling of the wind through one of its walls – Mrs. Monroe paid about $ 250 per month for electricity for its small house in a room this winter.

So a few years ago, in order to build a source of local electricity and save money from residents, the village of Inapiat of 500 worked with its public service company to install a small farm of solar panels. And when the congress approved new tax credits for clean energy projects in 2022 through the inflation reduction law, was signed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the village has seen the opportunity to buy more.