This year's Permanent Fund dividend check — what Alaskans receive each year from
the state's oil-revenue investment fund — is likely to be more than $2,000, the
first time since the state began making the payments in 1982 that the dividend
has topped two grand.

The biggest previous dividend was $1963.86 in 2000. Last year's was
$1,654.

The dividend spins off the Alaska Permanent Fund, the state's $37 billion oil
wealth savings account.

Some 90 billion barrels of oil and a third of the world's undiscovered natural gas lie beneath an area north of the Arctic Circle, government scientists estimate in the largest-ever survey of the energy resources there. The U.S. Geological Survey, which announced the findings Wednesday, called the region, which includes parts of the United States, Russia and Canada, "the largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on Earth."

Two Republicans told Cybercast News Service that lawmakers who do not support expanded domestic oil drilling are to blame for the high gas prices Americans are facing at the pump.

An environmental group on Wednesday filed a lawsuit intended to stop the expansion of a BP oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana. A shortage of oil refining capacity is often mentioned as one reason for soaring gasoline prices.

The Federal Reserve, navigating treacherous economic waters, decided on Wednesday to leave a key interest rate unchanged, bringing an end to a string of consecutive rate cuts.

The central bank announced that it was keeping the federal funds rate, the interest rate that banks charge each other, at 2 percent, marking the first time in 10 months that the central bank has failed to reduce interest rates at one of its regular meetings.