Rep. Nick Begich III – Alaska’s sole representative in the United States House of Representatives – visited upper and middle Kuskokwim communities this week, making stops in Aniak and Bethel, as well as other smaller villages upriver.
During his time in Bethel, Begich sat down at KYUK with news director Sage Smiley to talk about what he’s hearing from constituents and his thoughts on how federal policies play out on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length. The transcript may contain errors – it is generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcription. Please check the audio before quoting in print.
KYUK (Sage Smiley): Thank you so much for joining us today Rep. Begich, you have been doing a little tour of the [Yukon-Kuskokwim] Delta; you were in Aniak yesterday. Tell us a bit about how that's been. What have you been hearing from constituents? What have you been up to?
Rep. Nick Begich III: Yeah, you know, we came out here yesterday. We did stay the night last night in Aniak, and we had an opportunity to meet with [The Kuskokwim Corporation], with folks from Calista, with folks from Donlin [Gold], with folks from the school district. And what we're really trying to do is understand the community needs in a holistic sense, right? And really understand how these organizations are working together, what their capacities are, and then also, what are some of the gaps that they need some assistance in filling.
KYUK: What are you hearing from them, what are the biggest priorities for these communities?
Begich: Yeah, you know, I think there's been a lot of concern around federal funding, certainly that's been on people's minds, and it's a reasonable thing to be concerned about. There's a lot of reliance in not just this part of the region or this part of the state, but the entire state with respect to federal fund flows. And as we're starting to see in [Washington, D.C.] a tightening of the belt, it's impacting people across the United States. But for the states that are most federally dependent, and Alaska is one of, if not the most federally dependent state in the country, it's certainly got folks concerned. And so what we have said from the start and continue to say, and what we were talking about yesterday: if there are issues specifically that are concerning, that we can address and try to raise flags with administrative officials in [Washington, D.C.], let us know, and let us know early so that we can get ahead of some of those decisions before they get handed down.
KYUK: That leads very well into one of my next questions, which was: many people here do rely on federal assistance programs, whether that's Medicaid, whether that's [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], and our regional tribal health consortium, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation, they have said that 38% of their budget comes from Medicaid. So as you're traveling around and talking to people, how are you sort of explaining your support for the Big Beautiful Bill, for your support for pulling back these things as it is a really important part of the budget of our health corporation, for example?
Begich: I think it's a really great question, and there's been a lot, in my opinion, of mischaracterization around what these adjustments were. So let me explain a couple of things about the adjustments. So we'll start with [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], and then I'll talk about Medicaid.
So for [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], specifically, historically, the federal government has paid 100% of [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] payments to the state, so full reimbursement passed through from each state to the federal government in terms of [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] liability. What has happened, though, is because there's no real skin in the game for the states, is that some states like Alaska have had a very high, what they call improper payment rate. So that's payments that were made in the improper amount, or payments that should never have been made were made. And in the case of Alaska, we have a lot of people who should be getting support on [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], and haven't been, and so they have a formula and to determine that improper payment rate, and Alaska is the worst in the nation. We have – not in this last year, but the year before – we were over 60% of the payments in [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] were improper. And so that's being improved. I think we're down in the 20% level, but we're still the worst in the country. And so what the federal government said was, ‘Look, we got to have some accountability among the states.’ And so the [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] doesn't change. People who were eligible before are still eligible today. But what did change was that the states need to pay 5% you know, instead of zero, into the program, and so if a state continues to have high improper payment rates, there's penalties associated with that. So that's intended to incentivize states to get it right. And Alaska, even recently, in the news, has recognized that and has started hiring people who are experts at [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] compliance to ensure that we're taking care of the backlog of folks who have been waiting for [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits, and they're accelerating that so now we appear to have a more responsive situation where we're going to bring those payment improper payment rates down to a manageable level, which will be better for people in the long run anyway in the state.
When you talk about Medicaid; so Medicaid, there's, you’ve got to think about this this way. There are two populations of Medicaid. There's a traditional Medicaid population, and then there's what they call the expanded Medicaid population. The work in [Washington, D.C.] this last year did not affect anyone in the traditional Medicaid population, so folks who are disabled, single moms, kids, those low income families are not impacted by anything happening in the Medicaid program. What is impacted is part of the expanded Medicaid population. Within that population, there's three groups that were addressed, three categories of spending within expanded Medicaid as a part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. There are folks who are in the country illegally that were receiving Medicaid support, not in Alaska so much, but in other states like California. There's been a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse, and so we're tightening some of the controls around the program to reduce that. But then the last piece was what they called the work requirement. So for able-bodied folks. So these are, again, not part of the traditional Medicaid population, but for able-bodied folks who could be working but are choosing not to work, they have until 2028 to either find a job or start looking for work. Now it's important to recognize that there are excluded categories in this work requirement, so I'll mention a few of them here. If someone is a caregiver to a family member or a friend, they're excluded from the work requirement because we deem that as work. If someone says, ‘Look, I'm not in an area or in a position where there's opportunities for me to work. I'm able-bodied, but that's not where I'm at.’ There's a volunteer option, so someone can volunteer 20 hours a week and that's considered full-time work. If someone is a senior who's getting a Medicaid supplement, then they are also excluded from the requirement. And if someone is in a county or borough that is one-and-a-half times the national unemployment rate, they're also excluded, which includes a lot of rural Alaska.
KYUK: Even in unincorporated boroughs?
Begich: If, yes, if it's a borough it counts. But also important, and this is probably one of the most important things for rural Alaskans to know is that if somebody is Alaska Native or American Indian or Hawaiian Native, they're excluded, because we have a treaty trust obligation, and Medicaid is an important supplement to [Indian Health Service], and [Indian Health Service] has been chronically underfunded for a long time, so a lot of the health consortiums and providers in Alaska rely on who service, the Native population rely on Medicaid as a gap between what [Indian Health Service] pays and what they need in order to run their operations. So all those categories are excluded from the work requirement. And so when you look at those categories and the expanded Medicaid population, you're really talking best data that I've got right now is about 7% that that would apply to.
KYUK: The state of Alaska recently petitioned the [U.S.] Supreme Court to rule on rural subsistence priority, specifically here on the Kuskokwim [River]. I'm wondering where you fall on that issue. What do you think about rural subsistence priority?
Begich: I think there should be a rural subsistence priority. And I think it's important because when you're out here in parts of the state that are off the road system, I mean, let me back up a little bit. When I'm in Washington, D.C., and I talk to my colleagues about rural, they think rural is a long trip down a road. But I have to explain to them, if that's rural then we're ultra-rural. We are beyond rural. We are not connected to the roads. Many parts of our state will never be connected to our roads for a variety of reasons: because of the terrain, topology, the size of a community, justifying a road, resources in that area that would justify a road. So we have to think differently and be treated differently up here. So when you're in one of those communities, you should have my opinion, this is Nick's opinion, but you should have a priority for the rural food resource that you need in order to survive in the community. And so I think it makes sense, and that's where I fall on it.
KYUK: Some rural school districts, including in the [Yukon-Kuskokwim] Delta, rely on J-1 or H-1B visas to bring in teachers to help supplement education in these rural areas. And with the changes [to visas], I know that some school districts are concerned. What are you hearing from them? Or what do you feel like you can do at the federal level to help mitigate those concerns?
Begich: Yes, and we, we've raised this concern with the administration, and it is, I do support the ability to bring in J-1s and H-1Bs to support as a supplement to local Alaskans and Americans generally, the education workforce in rural Alaska. We know that it's a hard job to fill, and when you've got positions that go unfilled it means that kids are going uneducated. So we need to make sure that we have teachers in the classroom. I met a teacher this morning in Aniak and she was telling me her story. She thought she would come to Alaska, it would be an exciting experience. She's on a J-1 visa from, I believe, the Philippines, and she was, she was here for the first year, and said, ‘Okay, I'm gonna go somewhere else in America.’ And then she realized just what an impact she was making to these kids. And she's on her fifth year here, and it's rewarding work for her, and she's really integrated into the community. We need that. And you know, I've had conversations with others in the school district here in the last couple of days, and I've heard it from others around the state. But it was good to meet some of the educators who've come over from their home countries to rural Alaska, and they've become an important part of the workforce here to make sure that the kids have opportunities.
KYUK: How do you balance your support for development projects in this region – the one top of mind is obviously Donlin Gold, supported by Calista and [The Kuskokwim Corporation] – with the potential concerns or impact to subsistence fishing and hunting, to the environment more broadly?
Begich: It's a great question, and I think it's a question we will never stop asking and answering as Alaskans. Last week, I was on the House Natural Resources subcommittee for oversight, and I sit on that subcommittee. We had two panels, eight Alaskans that came down from Alaska to testify before Congress to talk about some of these topics and what was really interesting, because the majority party and the minority party have an opportunity to call their respective witnesses in. So we heard from Democrats and Republicans both on the committee, but every Alaskan agreed that Alaskans are pro-development and pro-environment. And there is no one outside of Alaska that will take better care of Alaska than an Alaskan will do. So I think that was really important for others to hear that in Alaska these two things, while they may appear in conflict to some folks, they're really harmonics to each other, and in some respects, having the resources come into the region may allow us to do a better job of taking care of the environment that we have. So I was recently up in Red Dog outside Kotzebue, and just to see the shareholder hire that's been prioritized there for so many years, it's been transformational for the economy there. It's given people a lot of opportunities. And as some folks listening may know already, the fish that come up that stream up into Red Dog – there were no fish before Red Dog came. They cleaned the water up so much that the fish came back because it was naturally polluted by the deposit that was out there. So that, I think that's a really interesting example of how a lot of times resource development in the modern era can be used to actually improve environmental outcomes. And, yeah, so I'm encouraged by it, you know, I recognize, having been to some of the villages yesterday, the opportunities in some of these areas just aren't there. There just are not economic opportunities. It's a continuous grant funding hope and prayer that someone will approve a grant or get a congressionally directed spending request back to a village to keep it alive for a few more years. The best way to keep our communities alive is to make sure there's economic opportunity. Donlin [Gold[ is one of those kinds of projects that brings generational opportunities to the region.
KYUK: This is a bit of a multi-part question. So bypass mail is a really important part of goods handling in this region, and the cost of energy, the cost of goods do continue to go up. I'm wondering, number one, what your opinion on bypass mail is, and then number two, what sort of other solutions you're looking at, at the federal level to help assist this region, which has really high energy costs and really high cost of pretty much everything –
Begich: Yeah.
KYUK: – to help bring those down and make it sustainable.
Begich: Really good, really important topic to cover. First of all, [Essential Air Service] was on the chopping block, and so we heard about that in early conversations and raised huge alarm bells. And I know that the senators did too. So we are all on the same page for supporting Essential Air Service, which is connected to our ability to deliver bypass mail. Recently, we saw there were some price increase proposals from the Post Office for bypass mail, and I joined a letter with the senators to push back on that and say, ‘Look, you know, you don't understand the impact that you're making to rural communities in Alaska, and we can't absorb those kinds of price increases.’ So we're working on pushing back against those price increases because we recognize that there's no other way to get essential goods out here, right, in an economic fashion. Anyway, one of the things that's been a challenge, and I've seen this personally in different parts of the state, is trying to bring groceries into communities where the community can really only sustain one grocer, and so there's international grocers that come into parts of Alaska, and they're engaging sometimes in monopolistic practices that make it very difficult for people to get a fair price and a reasonable price for for groceries. And so what we saw in Aniak was a store run by [The Kuskokwim Corporation] where they're not motivated to try to generate a profit from the community. They're motivated to make sure that they keep people honest and they keep a fair price, and I think that's really important. It was encouraging to see the model, but it is tough. Running a grocery store in rural Alaska is tough, but it's tougher as a community resident to eke out a living in these parts of the state if you've only got one provider.
You touched on energy. So one of the things that I think is important is that in rural parts of Alaska, where we have micro grids. Micro grids running purely on diesel are not the most cost efficient structure. So in other parts of the state, you have wind and solar augmenting with some now battery systems that come in, that's good, and it demonstrably lowers the cost when you don't have to bring the fuel in. And so we need to use that model that's being used in other parts of the state, where you can and plug in solar, and if it makes sense, wind, but definitely solar into these micro grid systems so that we don't have to pay as much on the diesel fuel costs for the diesel fuel consumption. So when you talk just at a high level, you know there's what's driving the cost of living in rural Alaska. You have food, energy, and housing, and those are the three things.
And one of the things, so in the final category, housing, that we have worked to do early on is we passed HR43, which allowed for some of the lands that are in a number of these villages that have been locked up in a municipal land trust to be returned to the villages. And this was something that Don Young worked on, and my predecessor, Mary Peltola, worked on, and we were happy to work on too, and we were able to get it over the finish line. So hopefully that'll open up some lands that are attractive in some of these villages that just haven't been able to be developed for either community purposes or for new housing, because you've got, obviously, generations of people that are often living in the same home stacked on top of each other, and while we all love each other and we love our family, that's not always the easiest thing for folks, we want to make sure they have the ability to to get housing in their own community.
KYUK: And you see that as a federal solution to the housing crunch that exists here in the [Yukon-Kuskokwim] Delta?
Begich: Well, that's one solution. That's part of the solution. But giving, getting people their land is not, is not the be all, end all. So there's federal funding programs that are part of [Indian Health Service], there's federal funding programs that are part of [U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development], there are state programs. And so these various grant sources, one of the challenges that my team and I have realized is that a lot of these programs come with challenging strings or challenging barriers, right? And so you'll talk to folks who are responsible for housing in a particular region, and they're saying, ‘Look, I can get grant money from here and a loan from here, and I might be able to get it, get some additional third party match from here.’ And they're stitching together this strange patchwork quilt of requirements that makes it very difficult for them to even get a single house built. And so we're looking for people to help us identify what those barriers are and see if there's some, maybe some legislative fixes to some of those barriers so that the programs can plug into each other a little bit more effectively.
KYUK: In July, you voted to pull back previously committed funds from public broadcasting, which impacts stations all over the U.S., including KYUK and KSKO upriver in McGrath, [here at KYUK] we're looking at cutting $700,000 just from salaries and benefits this fiscal year. And so I'm wondering if you could walk us through that decision of support for rescission for public broadcasting.
Begich: Yeah, so the rescissions request that came over – so let me just back up how, just explain at a macro level how rescissions operate. So under the the Budget Control Act of 1974, Congress and the executive have an opportunity to work together on two categories, one's called deferrals and one is called rescissions. Prior to that Budget Control Act, the President could just decide to rescind funds at will and or defer funds until the end of the fiscal year, at which time they wouldn't be utilized, which was sort of a backdoor way to rescind until the next fiscal year. So Congress decided to put this in place, and it was signed into law, and it provides a process by which the executive branch can then send a package of rescissions. And so it's not a line item set of rescissions, it's a group of rescissions. So a group of rescissions was sent over as a singular bill to the House and Senate, and it included about $8 billion of [U.S. Agency for International Development] rescissions, as well as [National Public Radio] and [Public Broadcasting Service] rescissions, which were about a billion dollars. So what was rescinded in that package was not the current fiscal year, but it was future funding for those two categories. So the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and [Public Broadcasting Service] had been forward funded from their portion of government funding for the next two fiscal years. So those two fiscal years were pulled back, and we were only funding this fiscal year. If we do a [continuing resolution], which is likely, we will see what happens. That might be a future question on your list, I don't know, but if we do a continuing resolution through November, then there'll be a discussion about whether that includes the things that were previously rescinded or not, and that will probably be more in the weeds. I don't know the answer to that question yet. We haven't seen yet what the answer to that's going to be. But when you looked at the entire package, I had to make a decision about, ‘Okay, what do we do with $9 billion in spending? Do we rescind it or do we not?’ And something that I've campaigned on, and I've talked a lot about, was I believe we're sending too much of our American tax dollar resources overseas when we know we have a significant national budget deficit. So you don't get to decide which particular category you vote on. You have to vote on the entire block. So I chose to vote yes for the rescission. What is, what's important to recognize, however, is that there's $100 million fund that's dedicated to emergency response that Alaska will continue to be able to receive funds for the [Public Broadcasting Service] funding, my understanding is it's about 17% of funds came from the federal government for for [Public Broadcasting Service], but 1% for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting –
KYUK: for [National Public Radio].
Begich: – for [National Public Radio]. Thanks.
KYUK: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting got most of its money from the federal government.
Begich: Okay, so what's been encouraging to see, though, is how the public has responded. And we've seen this in other areas as well as things have gotten a little tighter in [Washington, D.C.], you know, folks who are patrons have stepped forward, and we've seen $3.5 million dollars. I think in the first several weeks that the real hard push for raising capital has occurred, there's been about $3.5 million, which is, I think half, I've been told anyway, half of the budget gap. So I'm hopeful that we'll be able to see some private funds come in and pick up where the federal government left off and keep the stations running and on online.
KYUK: Would you support restoring federal funding for public broadcasting?
Begich: You know, we'd have to take a look at it specifically. You know, it's all within the context of what other things get rolled up into a single bill decision, because very seldom do we have the ability to vote on just that item. But I think broadcasting is important. There's no doubt about that. People remain, particularly in rural Alaska, they remain connected through radio, but it would just depend on what it's attached to.
KYUK: It's the final days of the federal fiscal year. We're looking at a potential government shutdown. For lack of a better way, to not be blunt, why visit the [Yukon-Kuskokwim] Delta now in these final days of the federal fiscal year?
Begich: Well, first of all, it's important, right? And there's never a perfect time to do a trip like this, because you're definitely outside of [Washington, D.C.] But no one's in [Washington, D.C.] right now, the House and the Senate have recessed for the week, and so we come back to our districts around the country and we visit the people that we need to visit, right? Our constituents, and they're telling us: here's the things that we need. So if you spend too much time in [Washington, D.C.], then you're going to become [Washington, D.C.] So it's important that we take time out and come back home and hear from people before we go make decisions on their behalf. So I think that's important. But the House passed the continuing resolution to fund government. So I'm in the House and we passed that successfully, and went over to the Senate. The Senate tried to pass. It did not get through. They had two different versions, one from the Republicans, one from the Democrats, both failed, and so the Senate adjourned for the week and will be back next week. But it is concerning. I don't think that we need to be playing games with government funding. And you know that the house is ready to pass a clean, what they call a clean [continuing resolution], which is a continuation of the previous fiscal year forward for a couple of months, while we let the regular order, what we call regular order, or, you know, the appropriations process, work through, give it some time to work through. So we have three appropriations bills out of 12 that have passed, both the House and Senate have been sent to conference, and those are being worked on in a negotiated way, what they call the four corners. So you got two of those corners are Republicans and two are Democrats, one in the Senate, one in the House. They're negotiating out what those appropriations bills will look like in the final form between the two chambers, but both chambers did pass them. Now you say three out of 12 doesn't sound like a lot, but it represents more than half of the actual federal spending within those three bills. So it is a significant chunk. I think a lot of folks are getting tired of the [continuing resolution] process. Continuing resolutions don't offer many opportunities for us to bring back targeted monies for our districts, because you're just continuing the previous fiscal year. So if you got a project that needs to get done, it's very hard to get it funded in the current methodology. So we do, I believe we need to get back to again, what they call regular order, which is passage of the appropriations bills through the appropriations process. And hopefully this will give us some time to do that.
KYUK: Final question: you are busy. You're doing a lot of travel. Some of my colleagues in journalism may say you're a little bit tough to get an interview with. Why interview with KYUK?
Begich: Well, I'm here, and I have time in my schedule. Let's do it. You asked for an interview. Let's do an interview. I mean, we, I do a lot of interviews. I do a lot of radio and I do a lot of print interviews as well. Some of those are national. Some of those are local. You know, I'll tell you this just straight up. There are a couple of news sources in the state of Alaska that I don't do a lot of interviews with because I don't feel like we get a fair opportunity to share our side of the story. Radio is different. Radio allows us to have a robust one on one conversation where we can drill down in issues and it's longer form. A lot of times in print, I'll give someone a quote that might be three paragraphs and get one sentence in, and the sentence may or may not be what I believe is the full picture. What we’re doing today, we have an opportunity to drill down. And I really appreciate the long-form opportunities, because it allows us to provide context to what's happening in [Washington, D.C.] How does it impact us? What are the concerns in the community? We can have a fuller discussion in this format.
KYUK: Is there anything we didn't touch on that you want to add?
Begich: You know, I'm excited for the opportunities that we have as a state. You know, in every administration, Democrat or Republican, there's going to be chances for Alaska to have a certain perspective shared. And under this administration, we have an opportunity to really open up chances for people in rural Alaska. When I was in a village yesterday, outside Aniak, I was talking with a grandmother and this grandmother's son and daughter-in-law and kids just left for Anchorage, and they wanted to stay in the village, but they didn't have an opportunity out there to really build the life that they were envisioning for themselves. You know, I want to see more opportunities for people to stay in rural Alaska, and those opportunities come from the private side, long-term, sustainably. What we're seeing right now statewide, again, is kind of a microcosm of what we're seeing nationwide, where, if you have communities that are really reliant on the federal government, and the federal government runs out of money, it's a huge risk, and it's a huge risk for Alaska. So in this moment, I think it's important for us to advocate for ourselves, for not just continuing federal funding, that's understandable, but to open up an additional aspect to our economy, the private side that creates additional jobs and allows those monies to circulate and lets our lets us keep our people where they want to be, which is in their traditional communities.
KYUK: Well, thank you very much for your time Rep. Begich.
Begich: Thank you.
