According to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, which
monitors, and criticizes, these ``earmarks,'' Alaska won 39 such
projects worth $722 million.
Among the more intriguing expenditures is $1 million for pavement
rehabilitation in North Pole, Alaska.
Five of the 10 most expensive earmarks in the bill go to Alaska, said
the group's Keith Ashdown, and all are likely to be in the final
package.
``Nobody is standing in the way of Don Young,'' Ashdown said.
Three of those projects, totaling $223 million, are for the Gravina
Bridge linking Ketchikan, a town of 8,000, to Gravina Island, home to
the town's airport and about 50 people.
Critics say it is an extravagant expense to replace what is now a
seven-minute ferry ride to the airport.
Young said road access to the island is essential for continued
growth.
The House bill also contains $200 million for the Knik Arm Bridge
linking Anchorage to the largely undeveloped Port MacKenzie area of
Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the fastest growing region in the state.
Opponents describe Port MacKenzie as little more than a
mosquito-filled wetland, although it is popular with recreational
snowmobilers and fishermen.
Here, too, Young says the bridge is important because Anchorage is
running out of land for expansion.
The environmental groups who say the projects benefit private
developers more than the Alaskan populace have things ``totally
backward, so I don't pay much attention to them,'' Young said.
Alaska's two Republican senators have also been aggressive in
procuring infrastructure funds for their state, particularly Sen. Ted
Stevens who, as the former Appropriations Committee chairman, wielded
considerable influence over federal spending.
Rather than expensive roads and ``bridges to nowhere,'' many areas of
the state would be better served with improvements in air services and
ferry systems, said Emily Ferry, coordinator for the Alaska
Transportation Priorities Project.
That's an issue in another controversial project, $15 million to start
a road linking Juneau and the tourist destination of Skagway, through
the Tongass National Forest.
Skagway Mayor Timothy Bourcy said in an interview that 62 percent of
the people in his town said in an advisory vote last fall that they
preferred improved ferry service to a road that would traverse steep
and narrow fiords and cross some 60 avalanche chutes.
``I'm not sure what the drive is for having this road, but it is not
coming from the people,'' said Bourcy, whose town of 1,000 hosts some
800,000 visitors, mainly from cruise ships, each year.
The Alaska projects in the House bill do include numerous waterway
improvements, including $7.5 million for a ferry terminal in Unalaska.
Groups that criticize the big projects acknowledge that Alaskans are
of two minds about the federal largesse.
``There's a realization within the state that our demands are getting
to be pretty outrageous,'' said Tim Bristol of the Alaska Coalition.
But ``it's hard for Alaskans to say no to a $223 million bridge.''
From The Associated Press, 6/8/05:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5059748,00.html
Alaska Lawmaker Gets Federal Highway Money
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -
A bridge nearly as long as San Francisco's Golden Gate may one day
grace the skyline of Ketchikan, population 8,000, in southern Alaska,
thanks to a tenacious lawmaker who is making his state a major
beneficiary of federal highway money.
``That's my job, infrastructure,'' says Republican Don Young, chairman
of the House Transportation Committee and Alaska's sole
representative, explaining his efforts to secure money for his state,
often in the face of criticism that some projects are too big and too
expensive.
The six-year highway and transit bill that Young steered through the
House in March and that the Senate approved in a different version
last month is particularly generous to Alaska.
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Any support out there for our troops?
Harry
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