Last week, Northwest Arctic community members, Borough leaders, legislatures, and energy experts gathered together for the Northwest Arctic Regional Energy Summit, in Kotzebue. Ethan Berkowitz, Democratic candidate for Alaska’s seat at the U.S. Congress, also was among those invited. Berkowitz, an old friend of Rep. Reggie Joule, D-Kotzebue, has been traveling to the region for over 13 years.

For too long, high fuel prices have suffocated rural Alaskans. The sting of high energy costs put big strains on family budgets, and continues to push village businesses from profitability to bankruptcy to extinction. The entire state is now in the midst of a full-blown energy crisis and, as rural Alaska knows too well, it is past time for solutions.

Climate change is one of the most significant issues facing current and future generations of Alaskans. For us, the impacts of global warming are real and personal. We’ve seen changing temperatures and chemistry in the ocean alter our fisheries. In the face of melting permafrost we’ve cut back tundra travel essential to oil and gas exploration and development. We’ve responded as storms pound coastal communities that were once protected with sea ice, and we’ve suffered unprecedented forest fires aggravated by lightning strikes and massive beetle kills.

As Alaskans, we pride ourselves for being an “energy state,” but we pay too much for energy. This problem hits rural Alaska particularly hard, packing an added punch because communities already suffer from the loss of municipal assistance and revenue sharing, and our seniors have had their Longevity Bonuses taken away. While the state treasury counts billions in extra cash from the high price of oil, rural heating bills have gone through the roof, and in hub communities gas at the pump costs almost $5/gallon. In the most unfortunate cases, elders have had to chose between heating and eating, and some villages report paying almost $1 per kilowatt hour, ten times the price in Anchorage. That’s why it’s important that the debate over the gasline include solutions that will lead to lower cost energy.

I’ve participated in discussions across Alaska about our health care system. The conversations don’t usually start out about health care. They are stories about life – about our families, our businesses. They’re about money and the quality and availability of medical treatment. They’ve taken place in villages and hospitals, on city streets and in rural clinics, in homes, businesses and airports.