By Jacob Bogage
ABOARD AIR FORCE TWO, Oct 5 (Reuters) – The US Energy Department will announce $150 million in new funding for power lines in Alaska on Monday as Vice President JD Vance visits the state, where Republicans are fighting to hold a critical Senate seat in the November midterm elections.
Vance is set to rally voters for Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, who is locked in a tight reelection battle with Democrat Mary Peltola. Flipping the seat is key to the Democratic Party’s strategy to take control of the US Senate, and recent polls have Peltola, a former member of the US House of Representatives, leading Sullivan.
The energy plan is the latest in a series of economic and investment announcements President Donald Trump and his administration have highlighted ahead of the midterms amid voter concerns over the Iran war and high gasoline prices.
Under the Energy Department plan, the Trump administration will tap federal funds to help construct 223 miles (359 km) of new electrical transmission lines linking the Beluga power station on Alaska’s southern coast with Healy in the state’s interior, an administration official told Reuters.
The corridor between Beluga and Healy covers major ports and nearly three-quarters of the state’s roughly 735,000-person population. The total cost of the project is $400 million, the official said.
SOUTH KOREA BACKED ALASKA PIPELINE CONDITIONALLY
A New York Times poll that concluded October 1 placed Peltola ahead by 7 percentage points. Other polls indicate the race is about even. Alaska, with its far-flung and rural population, is often difficult for pollsters to gauge.
Trump unveiled plans last week for South Korea to invest some $200 billion in US projects, including for an Alaska liquefied natural gas pipeline. But Seoul quickly said the pipeline would only proceed if certain commercial and legal conditions were met.
Both Sullivan and Peltola have made affordability — and energy — primary issues in their campaigns. Sullivan supports drilling for oil and gas in Alaska’s protected wilderness and has called on Trump to ban diesel exports amid the economic fallout from conflict with Iran and the Russian war in Ukraine.
Peltola has called for refining more oil and natural gas in Alaska but does not support drilling for resources in the environmentally fragile wilderness. She has also advocated for federal tax credits for solar, wind and hydropower projects.
(Reporting by Jacob Bogage, editing by Ross Colvin and Rod Nickel)
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