Alaska, America’s worst state for business, bets on a new carbon boom

Alaska can be a rugged and unforgiving place, and that’s not just its landscape. Its economy is prone to big booms and wrenching busts. Lately, it has seen more busts.

More than any other state, Alaska is dependent on oil. As much as 85% of the state’s unrestricted general fund revenue comes from oil production, according to state estimates. In some years, it has been well over 90%. But oil production has been in long-term decline in the state, which was once America’s No. 1 producer of crude but has been surpassed by several shale oil boom states, including Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota. Alaska’s crude production in 2022 was roughly equal to that of Oklahoma, and it hit the lowest level since 1976, according to Energy Department data.

This trend helps explain why Alaska‘s economy performed worse than any other state last year, according to the Commerce Department, shrinking by 2.4%. And it explains why the Last Frontier finished dead last in CNBC’s 2023 America’s Top States for Business rankings.

In addition to a last-place finish in the Economy category, Alaska ranks 49th in the Infrastructure, Education, and Access to Capital categories. It finished 48th in Cost of Doing Business. This is the seventh time since 2007 that Alaska has finished at the bottom, and the third time in the last five studies.

Alaska’s carbon turnaround plan for the future

Alaska isn’t giving up on crude. Recent approvals such as the controversial Willow Project have led state officials to forecast an increase in production in the years ahead. But Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the state legislature have a plan that they hope will reverse Alaska’s fortunes once and for all, by making the state less susceptible to gyrations in the oil market.

“Alaska was built on a promise that we would be north of the future. That we would be visionary,” Dunleavy, a Republican, said at a news conference May 23.

Dunleavy was marking the signing of SB 48, legislation that officially puts the state in the carbon business.

“Just like oil, just like gas, just like our timber, this is a commodity that can be monetized now,” he said.

Under the new law, Alaska will be able to sell so-called “carbon offset credits,” capitalizing on the state’s vast public forest lands. Companies that emit carbon will be able to buy the credits, effectively paying the state to preserve and protect its forests, thereby canceling out, or offsetting, those emissions.

What the state doesn’t spend on maintaining its forests, it can keep as revenue.

Alaska Natural Resources Commissioner John Boyle, who is working on the rules to implement the program, said in an interview with CNBC that the market for the new credits could be huge as…