Military spending bill includes free flights for Alaska soldiers and a push to reopen Adak

Sen. Dan Sullivan says $115 million in Arctic infrastructure money is intended to start reactivation for Aleutian base

Adak is seen in an undated photo. (Getty Images)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

The new $900 billion military spending law signed by President Donald Trump last week includes special benefits for soldiers and Coast Guardsmen in Alaska, hundreds of millions in new construction within the state, and a continued push to reactivate the U.S. Navy base at Adak.

“It’s safe to say that this is the biggest bill that Congress does every year,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, in an interview this week.

The National Defense Authorization Act, as it is formally known, is normally a must-pass piece of legislation for members of Congress, and despite deadlocks on other key issues, it sailed through the U.S. House on a 312-112 bipartisan vote and through the Senate on a 77-20 vote.

Before final passage, the bill picked up plenty of additions, including the annual Coast Guard funding measure. 

“It’s a train leaving the station, and a lot of people want to jump on,” Sullivan said.

The bill raises military base pay by 3.8% nationwide, but soldiers and active-duty members of the Coast Guard in Alaska will receive a special bonus: A round-trip flight home each year.

“That’s not going to change the world. That’s not going to change the balance of power between the Russians and Chinese and America. But these are the kind of things that you can get in this bill that matter if you care and take it seriously,” Sullivan said.

Murkowski said the flight program was inspired by surveys conducted after a wave of deaths by suicide at Alaska military bases.

“We asked some of the enlisted: ‘What would make a difference to you?’ And we heard really simple things like, ‘I would love to be able to fly back home as a single enlisted just once a year, to go see my mom, be there for Christmas, be there for my nephew’s birthday,’” she said.

In a written statement, Begich said the pay increase provisions, “as well as the Commander-in-Chief’s announced year-end military pay bonus” demonstrate “sustained investment and support for our men and women in uniform.”

Sitting in her office in Anchorage and looking out at the snow-covered mountains, Murkowski noted that the bill contains millions for additional cold-weather gear and vehicles for soldiers deployed in Alaska. 

For years, Sullivan has pushed the Department of Defense to reactivate the U.S. Navy’s base at Adak, which formally closed in 1997. The land has since been transferred to the Aleut Corporation.

In July, Sullivan briefly blocked a confirmation vote for the U.S. Navy’s top officer. That got him a meeting with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who committed to creating a task force that would look at reopening Adak, Sullivan said.

“This task force was set up. They were actually supposed to have their recommendations to the Secretary of War mid-December. That deadline slipped, and trust me, I am conducting — I would call it vigorous oversight of this issue,” Sullivan said, using the title proposed by the Trump administration that would replace “secretary of defense,” which has not yet been approved by Congress.

Earlier this year, the Republican-backed Big Beautiful Bill Act included $115 million for “exploration and development of existing Arctic infrastructure.”

The new military spending law requires reports every 90 days on how that money is being spent and “an assessment of the feasibility of any viable infrastructure options in the Arctic region.”

That’s targeted language for Adak, Sullivan said.

“I hope we are getting Adak reopened,” he said. “That is going to be hugely strategic.”

Murkowski has a different vision.

“I think Sen. Sullivan has made it very, very clear from the hearings where he’s brought military leadership in, that Adak is what he’s focusing on. But you also have other other infrastructure in what is defined as the Alaska Arctic. You’ve got Eareckson out there in Shemya. You’ve got Nome, where we’re trying to build out a port. So it’s a little bit nuanced,” she said.

The law also instructs the military’s industrial office to boost Alaska mining and energy projects to the extent possible. Its text says the office should prioritize “the clearance of mining and energy project applications … likely to experience significant temporal impact due to seasonal Arctic climate conditions.”

That office has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on mines and factories in the United States and Canada.

Statistics provided by Sullivan’s office show $284 million in construction at Fort Wainwright, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and Eielson Air Force Base combined. There’s also millions for new missile defense construction at Fort Greely and elsewhere, and the bill includes instructions to develop a Coast Guard base on St. Paul Island to cover the Bering Sea.

The Coast Guard will also have to analyze the risks of increased shipping traffic through the Bering Strait and come up with a plan to address those risks.

Between the Big Beautiful Bill Act, the law to reopen the government after the extended shutdown and now the military spending law, “Alaska is getting well north of $1 billion in military and Coast Guard infrastructure,” Sullivan said. “I’m not sure we’ve ever done that.”

That matters because military construction means work for Alaskans in the construction industry and Alaskans who sell things to support construction.

“North of a billion — that’s really good for national security for America, but that’s also going to be really good for jobs,” Sullivan said. “That is a big stimulus to our economy.”

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.