ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A key lawmaker urged Congress on Wednesday to probe whether a program aimed at awarding no-bid federal contracts to Native-owned corporations in Alaska was especially vulnerable to fraud and abuse.

U.S. Congressman Ed Markey, ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, called for the inquiry a day after a Native-owned company executive and three others were charged in an elaborate bribery-kickback scheme that steered a $780 million contract to a favored recipient.

The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, where the four men were arrested, called it “one of the most brazen corruption schemes in the history of federal contracting.”

The case “raises questions about whether there are adequate controls in place to prevent fraud and abuse … and protect U.S. taxpayers and Alaska Native shareholders,” Markey wrote in a letter to committee Chairman Doc Hastings seeking a hearing.

The defendants, two of them U.S. Army Corps of Engineers managers, were accused in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday of falsifying invoices at Eyak Technology LLC to obtain $20 million in cash, luxury cars, watches, airline tickets and other illegal benefits for themselves.

EyakTek, which had a $1 billion-plus Army Corps contract, is a unit of the Eyak Corp., an Alaska Native corporation owned by the indigenous people of eastern Prince William Sound.

The company has actively participated in the federal Small Business Administration program that allows noncompetitive government contracts to be awarded to minority-owned firms.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A rogue fishing vessel caught in the North Pacific four weeks ago was stranded off the coast of Alaska on Monday while authorities prepared to remove the crew and kill a large number of rats on board, a U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman said.

The 140-foot Bangun Perkasa was found in early September using illegal drift nets to scoop fish from international waters about 2,600 miles southwest of Kodiak, Alaska, authorities say.

A Coast Guard crew that boarded the ship found some 30 shark carcasses, 30 tons of squid and 10 miles of outlawed monofilament drift net, along with the rat infestation.

The Coast Guard cutter crew, alerted by Japanese officials patrolling the area by air, escorted the ship to the Dutch Harbor area, where it arrived on Sunday, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Sara Francis said.

High-seas drift net fishing, considered highly damaging to fish stocks, marine mammals and other sea life, is banned by various international treaties and by U.S. law.

The rats found on board pose another environmental problem: Potential invasion by a nonnative species that could wipe out large numbers of Alaska seabirds and other natural life.

It is unclear how many rats were on board, Francis said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Oct 3 (Reuters) – Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday formally approved a disputed Bush-era oil lease sale in the Chukchi Sea off northwestern Alaska, a remote site where Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) seeks to drill exploration wells next year.

Salazar’s move frees the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement to approve a Chukchi exploration plan submitted by Shell in May. That plan proposes up to three wells a year in 2012 and 2013 in the Chukchi.

The BOEMRE in August approved a separate Shell exploration plan that proposes up to two wells a year in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s northern coast.

Environmental and Alaska Native groups had challenged the the Chukchi lease sale, held by the Minerals Management Service in February of 2008 under the administration of President George W. Bush. The groups won a 2010 federal court order barring any exploration work in the Chukchi until deficiencies in pre-sale environmental reviews were corrected.

In his decision Monday, Salazar determined that the BOEMRE had conducted sufficient remedial analysis, including a new review of oil-spill risks, to support the lease sale as held.

A Shell spokesman in Alaska said Salazar’s decision puts the company closer to its goal of drilling in the Arctic offshore next year. “We believe the Chukchi plan we submitted in May of this year is technically and scientifically sound and we look forward to exploring this critical part of our Alaska portfolio in 2012,” Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said in an email.

But representatives of the groups that sued to overturn Chukchi oil leasing said Salazar’s decision puts a fragile ecosystem at risk.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A rogue fishing vessel found using outlawed drift nets in the North Pacific was seized with about 30 dead sharks, 30 tons of illegally caught squid and an infestation of rats aboard, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Friday.

The boat was being escorted to the Alaskan port of Dutch Harbor, where its 22 crew members will be detained by U.S. customs officials, Coast Guard officials said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will take over the vessel and prosecution of the case.

High-seas drift-net fishing, considered dangerous to fish stocks, marine mammals, sea turtles and other ocean life, was banned by international law in 1991.

The vast nets of fine-filament mesh, sometimes left abandoned in the ocean, have been referred to as floating “walls of death” for their indiscriminate entanglements of sea life.

“The nets that they use are miles long and just catch everything in their path,” said Sara Francis, a Coast Guard spokeswoman in Alaska.

Despite the ban and widespread condemnation of high-seas drift-net fishing, the Coast Guard and its counterparts in other nations still regularly find vessels doing engaged in the practice in international waters, Francis said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sept 26 (Reuters) – Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin threatened on Monday to sue the author and publisher of an unflattering biography she said was filled with “lies and rumors presented as fact.”

The book by veteran political writer Joe McGinniss, “The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin,” was published last week as speculation mounted about whether the Republican conservative firebrand would launch a late bid for her party’s presidential nomination in 2012.

A letter from Palin’s lawyer said McGinniss and Crown Publishing faced possible legal action for defaming the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee.

The letter advises the author and Crown to refrain from destroying any e-mail correspondence that might serve as evidence in such a lawsuit. Crown is owned by German-based media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG BERT.UL

“This book contains a series of lies and rumors presented as fact and combined with ‘anonymous’ sources,” said the letter, sent by Palin attorney John Tiemessen.

As evidence of the malice a successful defamation suit would likely have to show, the letter cited an e-mail from McGinniss to an Alaska political blogger in which he expressed skepticism about unsubstantiated reports pertaining to Palin’s personal life that Tiemessen said were included in the book.

“The final work that was published contains most of the stories that Mr. McGinniss complains were nothing more than ‘tawdry gossip’ that amounted to the wishful fantasies of disturbed individuals,” Tiemessen’s letter said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Native Alaskan children living in remote villages have rates of tooth decay about four times the national average, a government study showed.

Lack of fluoridated water and an abundance of sugary, carbonated soda pop were the major reasons cited in the research that tracked dental health of children in the mostly Yupik Eskimo region of southwestern Alaska.

Dr. Brad Whistler, Alaska state oral health director and a co-author of the study, said children need major dental work.

“When they smile, you see a lot of silver teeth,” he said.

Such severe decay sets up children to have serious dental problems as adults, Whistler said.

One reason for the high level of tooth decay is poor water-system infrastructure in many Alaska Native villages, which prevents the fluoridation of drinking water that has helped lower rates of tooth decay.

In some villages that were part of the study, residents must haul water home from central pumps, he said. Even those places with more sophisticated systems are likely to lack fluoride in drinking water, because few qualified technicians are available to work in such far-flung locations and install the necessary equipment.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A Pennsylvania father and son pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to federal charges they harassed an attorney for former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in phone calls authorities say followed their similar badgering of Palin herself.

Shawn Christy, 19, and his father Craig Christy, 47, entered their pleas during an appearance in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, Alaska.

The two are accused of making hundreds of harassing and threatening calls in early August to Fairbanks attorney John Tiemessen, who represents Palin and her family, and to workers at Tiemessen’s law firm.

The calls were laced with profanities, and Shawn Christy also used repeated anti-Semitic slurs, an affidavit filed in the case said.

Shawn and Craig Christy were each charged with a single count of making harassing interstate telephone calls, an offense that carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine, followed by a year of supervised release, Assistant U.S. Attorney Retta-Rae Randall said.

At the hearing on Wednesday, Federal Magistrate Judge Deborah Smith set a trial date of November 21.

The father and son, arrested last month in Pennsylvania, appeared separately in court in yellow jail suits and handcuffs. A hearing to determine potential bail conditions for the two men was set for Monday.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A moose hunter severely mauled by a bear in a remote part of Alaska had to travel by boat and later ride in a helicopter to reach a hospital, but he was recovering from his wounds on Wednesday and expected to survive, state officials said.

Donald Sanford, 65, was attacked by the bear on Monday at a site off the Denali Highway, in the interior part of the state, said Alaska State Troopers.

Sanford summoned a hunting partner and was taken by boat about five miles downriver to a remote lodge. Then, the Alaska Air National Guard picked him up by helicopter and flew him some 170 miles to an Anchorage hospital, the troopers said.

He had multiple wounds to his abdomen, back, neck and hands and had been bleeding for hours when rescuers picked him up by helicopter, said a spokesman with the guard.

Sanford’s wounds were not life-threatening, according to the Alaska Air National Guard.

The bear appears to have been guarding its own moose kill when it confronted Sanford, said Susie Echols, co-owner of the lodge where Sanford was treated initially and picked up by the helicopter.

“From what they could tell at that point, there was a moose that the bear had downed, and it was covered up, like a bear would do,” Echols said

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Nearly all Alaskans will receive $1,174 this year from the state as part of its annual dividend payout from Alaska’s oil wealth fund, Governor Sean Parnell said on Tuesday.

The oil wealth fund, established in 1976, is worth $37.9 billion and has paid dividends since 1982, with the annual dividend announcement eagerly awaited by residents.

“This is truly one of those great duties of the Alaska governor and unique, a duty that 49 other governors likely wish they had,” Parnell said, before opening an envelope to reveal this year’s dividend at an Anchorage news conference.

But Parnell cautioned that future dividends were likely to be smaller, partly because the dividends — based on a five-year average of investment earnings — reflected rocky times for stock markets, he said.

It is also because Alaska’s oil production is declining steadily, from a peak of 2.1 million barrels a day in 1988 to less than a third of that currently.

“There will be fewer and less royalties going into the Permanent Fund unless we turn that around,” Parnell said.

With children as well as adults receiving the dividends, the annual payout is considered a significant portion of most Alaska families’ income. About 670,000 people will receive this year’s dividend, state officials said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sept 20 (Reuters) – About 3 million acres of federal onshore territory in Alaska will be offered for oil and gas leasing late this year, under a proposal released on Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The BLM released a draft plan for an upcoming lease sale that will offer 283 tracts in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an Indiana-sized chunk of land on the central and western North Slope of Alaska.

Most of the leases that the BLM proposes offering in the sale are in the northeastern section of the reserve, the area closest to existing oil fields and pipelines already established on neighboring state land.

The lease sale will be held near the end of the year, but no firm date has been set yet, said Ruth McCoard, a spokeswoman for the BLM in Alaska. “We need to get through all of the public process,” she said.

Public comments on the BLM’s lease sale proposal will be received through October 21, the agency said.

The upcoming lease sale was planned after President Obama in May announced an initiative to hold annual leases in the federal land unit. A month later, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced his intention to hold the first of those annual lease sales this year.

There have been six lease sales in the reserve since 1999, and currently 1.36 million acres are under lease, according to the BLM.