Is a Headline Question Always Answered No?

“Limited Entry: Is It Working?”

Courts struck down rationed access to Alaska’s ocean fisheries in 1968, so a constitutional amendment in 1972 enabled a limited entry system. At the same time, enforcement of the 200-mile exclusion zone ramped up, the state toughened management of fish stocks, and some bond-financed hatcheries opened.

By March 1985, “Even a decade hasn’t been long enough to untangle the dozens of conflicting threads” of all those variables, Kleeschulte wrote. He quoted his former boss Jay Hammond criticizing perverse incentives: “The system produced unnecessary pressure on the fish, just so people can hold on to valuable permits.” The average permit price of $50,442 is worth about $152,500 today, yet some permits have outpaced inflation.

Hammond’s legislative ally Clem Tillion wasn’t sure the system could be called a failure. “It’s going to take a while for the effects to be known,” Tillion said. “Why the rush?”

A while later, effects are still mixed. “The Limited Entry Act had a number of goals, and some have proven out more than others,” says Glenn Haight, a member of the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission who has worked in seafood industry development since the ‘90s.

Limited entry succeeded, he says, in defining the maximum amount of gear allowed in the water, and state fisheries have been maintained as an owner-operator industry. On the other hand, participation in traditional fisheries has steadily declined while year-round commercial fisheries employ a class of professional fishermen.

An idea floated in 1985 was a permit buyback. Haight says, “There is a prevailing belief among many permit holders that too many permits were originally issued. That has yet to be analyzed in a large-scale manner which could lead to a paring down on the number of permits.”

By 2008, for example, the Southeast salmon purse seine fishery retired 35 of 419 permits by a reverse auction financed with federal grants and loans. Permit holders also paid a special assessment for subsequent buybacks. However, a retrospective analysis found that, under certain assumptions, the cost of buybacks exceeded the net benefit.

While the question remains unanswered, Haight says, “It’s our job to continue work with Alaska’s fishing industry, our communities, and the legislature to see what can be done to help in areas that are falling short.”

“Can Alaska’s Oil Industry Survive Government Greed and Environmental Extremism?”

Editor Paul Laird gave his cover story a more open-ended headline inside the March 1986 magazine: “1996: What lies over the rainbow for the Alaskan oil industry?” Government greed doesn’t appear until halfway through, quoting Scott Hawkins, then a corporate economist at Key Bancshares of Alaska, who warned, “If the legislature increases taxes on the oil industry again, we’ll have a contracting industry.”

In 1989, soon after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the legislature revised the Economic Limit Factor, which had eliminated taxes on low-producing wells, and production has never repeated the 2-million-barrel-per-day peak from the previous year.

“Alaska’s oil and gas industry did survive the last forty years regardless of all the efforts to derail them, but not without pain,” says Rebecca Logan, CEO of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance. “Over the last four decades, there have been years when Alaska lost out on oil and gas revenue and the jobs associated with them, due to the political winds in Juneau and [Washington,] DC.”

Laird defined “survival” as continued aggressive exploration and development by 1996 and not retreating to legacy production. Even without hoped-for game-changers like lifting the oil export ban (not until 2015), opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (not until 2017), and marketing North Slope natural gas (still pending), Exxon discovered the Point McIntyre satellite of Prudhoe Bay in 1988 and began production in 1993; Conoco discovered Badami in 1990; and ARCO Alaska discovered the Alpine field in 1994.

However, rather than contrast “survival” versus retreat, Logan contrasts bare-minimum survival against robust thriving. She says, “Alaska’s resource development activity will continue to thrive when the business climate is favorable and survive when it is not.”

By the way, the 1986 article doesn’t mention environmental extremism, except possibly the example of a 121-page book of federal regulations for disposing of crankcase oil.

“Is It Time to Get the Politics Out of Alaska’s Ferry System?”

Laird’s May 1986 cover story notes, “The subsidized services of the Alaska Marine Highway System, along with many other expenditures taken for granted during the carefree days of petro-obesity, are in for close scrutiny in the months or years ahead.” The ferry system’s 1986 operating budget of $60 million would be about $175 million today, adjusted for inflation, and indeed it is. However, a twenty-year plan drafted in March 2025 would budget more than $200 million annually, with increased service.

A working group for reshaping the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) issued findings in 2021. The group stated, “Operations are hindered by frequent turnover in politically appointed positions, short-term planning horizons, cumbersome procurement processes, indirect labor negotiations, and political influence over operational decisions.” Thus, Southeast Conference and the AMHS Reform Committee recommended transitioning AMHS to a state-owned corporation, not unlike the Alaska Railroad.

That recommendation is a half-step away from divesting AMHS to a private buyer, which Representative Andrew “André” Marrou was sponsoring in 1986—“so it doesn’t have to be done in a crisis situation later,” he said. A Libertarian elected for one term from Homer, Marrou was his party’s vice-presidential candidate in 1988 and presidential nominee in 1992.

His privatization idea seemed unlikely at the time; AMHS officials told legislators that private operators would likely keep the system’s only profitable route, the mainline run from Seattle to Skagway, and jettison the other routes. Marrou suggested that off-season fishing boats could pick up the slack.

A 2020 report commissioned by Governor Mike Dunleavy likewise concluded that privatization would be impractical. It echoed a 1986 observation by economic researcher Eric McDowell: “It’s difficult to view public services and conveyances like roads, airports, and the marine highway in the context of private enterprise.” Laird’s article counters with examples of privatized parks, prisons, and street sweeping, and Laird says the state might still subsidize service, but “the check may be smaller than it is today.” Not according to the long-term plan.

“Foreign Investment: Is It Alaska’s Economic Cure or Its Ailment?”

While the November 1986 cover posed an open-ended question, the subtitle inside the magazine could be answered yes or no: “Is foreign investment a safe long-term prescription for Alaska’s economic ills?”

In his article, Kleeschulte noted Japanese ownership of Alyeska Resort (now owned by a Canadian company) and Alaska Pulp Co. in Sitka (now defunct) and Canadian investment in Red Dog Mine and, through Yukon-Pacific Corp., attempts to market North Slope natural gas. “Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese firms may buy into the project as part of any agreement to buy the gas,” Kleeschulte predicted, anticipating occurrences in early 2025.

According to the Global Business Alliance, international investment in Alaska supports 15,200 jobs, or about 6.2 percent of the state’s current workforce. That’s down from more than 7 percent in 2017 but higher than the US average of 6 percent. Of the 117 international employers operating in Alaska, the biggest foreign investors are from Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom, and manufacturing (read: seafood processing) is the largest sector.

In the ‘70s, the US Department of Justice was so concerned about Japanese ownership of seafood processors that it launched a special investigation. It found no significant problems, other than a dependence on foreign capital to modernize equipment and develop new products. However, a surge of Japanese investment in Alaska seafood processing had already declined by 1986, and Japan’s roaring economy in the late ’80s deflated by 1992.

Seafood conglomerate Maruha Nichiro Corporation exited Alaska in 2020, selling Peter Pan Seafood Company to American investors. Peter Pan has been going through tough times, but what remains is still under domestic ownership.

Canadian companies still have major stakes in Alaska, with Teck operating Red Dog Mine and Novagold pursuing the Donlin gold project. Western Australia-based Northern Star Resources acquired the Pogo gold mine in 2019, and other Aussie mineral companies are exploring Alaska. Australian investment arrived on the North Slope in 2021 when Santos acquired Pikka developer Oil Search, a company based in Papua New Guinea.

“Can Alaska Measure Up in Module Manufacturing?”

Tim Bradner, now editor of Alaska Economic Report and Alaska Legislative Digest, spoke to executives at Veco, which by June 1988 had just fabricated two small modules for ARCO to use in the Kuparuk River Unit. Bradner reported that Veco underbid an Oregon company for the Kuparuk job, anticipating no profit, even with a discount by the Municipality of Anchorage for the lease of workspace at the city-owned port.

Lack of infrastructure and skilled labor were two factors limiting the fabrication of larger sealift modules. However, then-Veco President Pete Leathard said that Trans Alaska Pipeline System construction had left Alaska with a skilled workforce.

Nearly forty years later, Leathard still sees local laborers as the core of a module industry. “Alaska has a good solid base of good tradesmen, and the additional workforce will come,” he says. “Construction tradesmen travel across the country and to Alaska when long-duration work at reasonable pay is available. A company just needs to know how to source these people.”

Leathard acknowledges that Alaska’s capabilities are suited to smaller, truckable modules. However, he sees this as an advantage over sealift modules built at Gulf Coast shipyards. “It is an extra five-week journey by barge to the North Slope versus Anchorage. Five weeks can mean a lot when it comes to minimizing costly extra work and meeting the startup schedule,” he says.

The logistical math pointed to Anchorage last year when ConocoPhillips Alaska needed a production module for its Nuna project at Kuparuk. The module, built near the Don Young Port of Alaska at the Anderson Dock owned by North Star Equipment Services, was the first of its kind fabricated in Alaska in twenty years.

One-off jobs are great, but Leathard still sees potential for sustained module making. He says, “I have been involved with many major projects in many countries throughout the world. I have been involved with major projects on the West Coast and the Gulf Coast and Canada. Alaska is equal and better than most in quality and productivity.”

“Greenhouse Effect in Alaska: For Better or for Worse?”

By the November 1988 issue, climatologist James Hansen raised the alarm in Congress about global warming, and the United Nations formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that year. “The year’s hottest scientific topic—the so-called greenhouse effect—may be more relevant to residents of Alaska than you think,” wrote Kleeschulte, immediately quoting three sources who said evidence for human-caused climate change was already convincing.

Broad predictions about permafrost melting, coastal flooding, and major displacements of fish populations have come to pass, more or less, if not to the degree anticipated: “Southeast’s average temperature is likely to rise by 11°F by 2030—when the equivalent of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles,” for instance, is on track to miss the mark.

Last year, the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at UAF published Alaska’s Changing Environment 2.0, updating the inaugural 2019 report. It states that average temperatures increased in Alaska by more than 3°F in less than fifty years; prior to the ‘70s, annual averages had changed very little. Six of the top ten warmest years in Alaska have been recorded since 2010.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, was about 350 parts per million in 1989, and now it stands at 428. An adjusted forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change anticipates the doubling to 700 by 2075.

The 1985 article predicted longer growing seasons in Alaska, extending by ten days for each 1.8°F rise. In fact, Alaska’s Changing Environment 2.0 notes a nearly thirty-day extension, two weeks earlier in the spring and two weeks later in the fall, compared to a century ago.

“I wish in 1988 I had had the foresight to write more about permafrost melt and its economic impacts on Alaska’s infrastructure and the expense of village relocation,” says Kleeschulte, who now maintains a ten-acre farm in Virginia near the Blue Ridge Parkway. “That 1988 article on greenhouse gases did impact my thinking on the need for renewable energy and how it could play a big role in Alaska’s future economy.”

Since retiring in 2018, Kleeschulte says he spends his time volunteering at a local food pantry while not “inflicting my political views on anyone.”

Final Answers

Kleeschulte’s writing is overrepresented in this retrospective, and he cops to it. “I hate question headlines, but I undoubtedly was responsible for them being used on many of my stories, since I almost always presented both sides of an issue in boring detail and almost never could settle on which side was right at the time,” he says. Kleeschulte’s assignments often tackled politically adjacent topics without conclusive answers.

In Betteridge’s formulation, question headlines indicate that an article lacks firm factual support. That is, if a publisher could confidently answer “yes,” then the headline would be a declarative sentence.

For example, “Alaska’s Oil Industry Can Survive Government Greed and Environmental Extremism.”

Or this one: “Foreign Investment: A Safe Long-Term Prescription.”

If the answer is “no,” then declarative headlines signal boring or depressing stories: “Juneau Will Not Bust.” “Not Time to Get Politics Out of Alaska’s Ferry System.” “Alaska Can’t Measure Up in Module Manufacturing.”

These three headlines abide by Betteridge’s Law, but two of these seven flout it, and two have no definitive answers: “Limited Entry Is Working (with Mixed Results).” “Greenhouse Effect: Bad for Alaska (But Not as Bad as Predicted).”

Therefore, this article’s own headline refutes itself. Questions in headlines are not always answered “no.” Which could’ve been the headline all along.