Gov. Mike Dunleavy addressed the COVID-19 Disaster Declaration, saying that the state is going to transition into a recovery process since the state is no longer under an emergency disaster declaration, as of Sunday morning at 12:00 a.m.
Senate President Peter Micciche spoke to KSRM on Dunleavy’s comments Sunday, “So if you remember on Friday, the Senate passed SJR 2 and the reason we did that is we could not support Senate Bill 56, which was a full extension of the emergency declaration. The Senate believes it’s time for kids to be in school and for a complete open economy. It’s time to transition to normalcy and a full economic recovery. We passed SJR 2, which said if you need a new narrow health order to get federal funds to help Alaskans back on their feet, we would support that, remember the government made choices on how to manage COVID that hurt Alaskans substantially. We have record unemployment, we have a lot of problems. We want federal funds since the government caused those issues to help Alaskans recover. We spent a lot of time talking to the governor and the chiefs of staff over the weekend and the decision that was made is that we could manage the recovery without any kind of declaration. The declaration that was in existence ran out on Saturday night at midnight and right now it has lapsed. There are no mandatory travel restrictions and the governor believes that we can still manage to receive federal funds to assist Alaskans as needed over the coming months.”
Micciche addressed the Alaska House of Representatives being unable to organize last week with regard to disaster declaration lapsing over the weekend, “There’s no question that the House being unable to organize has affected all of these decisions. The Senate passing a resolution the other day was in recognition that we have no way to pass the bill. The Senate, of course, has been working since day one, but the House is not organized so we will have bills stacked up that will help manage the issues going forward, but none of them can pass until the House organizes and processes those bills as well.”
The disaster declaration lapsing affects Alaskans from across the state, including on the Kenai Peninsula. Sen. Micciche said, “There are a lot of folks in Kenai. We had CARES act funding. We think there’s an additional bill coming with some substantial funds that will help for the longer term on getting folks back on their feet. Unemployment, I know there will be some stimulus payments. I know there will be some additional relief for businesses getting their employees back to work. We are hoping, that’s one of the things where by we passed the resolution, we’re not positive at this point that it doesn’t require additional legislation to receive those funds. We are hoping that it stays outside of the legislative process where it’s more of a path, but we’re watching it on a daily basis. We’ll see what comes through congress and we’ll evaluate what we need to do to execute those payments to relieve Alaskans of their hardships right now.”
Governor Dunleavy’s administration released a new COVID-19 recovery and transition plan that begins to move the state towards normalcy. The administration is also issuing four health advisories that address general safety, travel and critical infrastructure, with appendices focusing on the seafood industry. The advisories are based on the latest epidemiological data and expertise within the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services and outline best practices to continue mitigating the spread of COVID-19.
