Sullivan talks Golden Dome, ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ impacts following Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Alaska tour

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - In a wide-ranging interview with Alaska’s News Source following the Alaska visit of new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, Sen. Dan Sullivan called a proposed missile defense system in President Trump’s so-called “One, Big, Beautiful Bill”, which would touch multiple parts of the state, forward progress.

“We are working right now on the big budget reconciliation bill, and that’s got a really big military component to it,” Sullivan said. “It’s dealing with the Golden Dome missile defense, which I’ve been very, very active on, reopening Adak, the Navy base out in the Aleutian Islands, something I’ve been focused on for 10 years, and then a huge investment in our Coast Guard; it’s looking like probably the biggest investment in our Coast Guard ever.”

After appearing with the president at the White House last week, Sullivan discussed President Trump’s proposed $175 billion multilayered missile defense system, called the Golden Dome, that would put U.S. weapons in space for the first time.

To address what he views as evolving threats, Sullivan said, in his view, Alaska should ultimately be playing a “critical role” to house all of the country’s missile interceptors between Alaska’s Fort Greely and Vandenberg Space Force Base (formerly Vandenberg Air Force Base) in California.

“I like to say Alaska is the cornerstone of missile defense for America,” Sullivan said. “The threats, in terms of protecting our country, have dramatically increased. Our missile defense system here in Alaska is meant to go after the threat of a ballistic missile ... [but] now we have the threats of cruise missiles, we have the threats of hypersonic missiles, and to be perfectly honest, we don’t have a lot of defenses against those.”

The Golden Dome proposal is part of the Trump Administration’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” which Sullivan said he’s optimistic will pass, seeing a host of issues benefiting Alaska specifically if Republicans can get it through the Senate with changes he’d like to see.

“It’s got a really good component of building up our Coast Guard that will very positively impact Alaska Ice Breakers, new cutters, hopefully home porting that icebreaker down in Juneau,” Sullivan said. “Then it’s going to have — we’ll have to improve upon it, [but] I think a whole host of issues that deal directly with Alaska’s economy and responsible resource development in Cook Inlet, in ANWR, in the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska.”

Sullivan went on to say he is working to address cuts proposed to Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP benefits.

“I’ve made it clear that we have some unique challenges that Alaska faces and we’re working on those,” the senator said. “You might remember in the 2017 bill that we did budget reconciliation on, I was able to get a provision in there that was actually very helpful to Alaska’s unique challenges with regard to Medicaid.”

Using the context of the state having one of the lowest federal funding matches despite having one of the highest costs of living, as well as some of the highest healthcare costs, Sullivan said he hopes the final bill addresses those costs along with the high error rates within the state’s SNAP program.

Sullivan is scheduled to travel to the North Slope with the U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on June 2, where they are scheduled to tour oil and gas production facilities.

The senator will provide opening remarks at the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System’s Pump Station 1 regarding the president’s Alaska energy executive order, which the administration argues takes a more aggressive approach at tapping into the state’s natural resources such as energy, minerals, timber and seafood.

“As I’ve told people back home, whether you voted for President Trump or not, this executive order is an unmitigated good for our state,” Sullivan said. “The federal government is saying Alaska, we want to help you grow your economy. Alaska, we want to help you with jobs. We need to take advantage of this.”

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