Sen. Lisa Murkowski has requested $490 million for more than 130 Alaska projects in congressional appropriations bills under consideration in Congress. None of the money would be headed to Wrangell, though the community could benefit indirectly from statewide programs.
Congress is working this month to approve spending on projects and government operations for 2023.
When Murkowski visited Wrangell on Sept. 11, Borough Manager Jeff Good gave her a tour of the borough’s ongoing capital projects. They visited the water reservoir dams, Public Safety Building, former 6-Mile sawmill site, power plant and former Wrangell Institute property (proposed for the Alder Top Village, or Keishangita.’aan, residential subdivision). They also discussed the community’s other infrastructure needs, including road improvements, water, stormwater and sewer.
The Public Safety Building likely houses too wide a variety of services to qualify for a congressional earmark, Good explained. “Because it’s a multipurpose building … it doesn’t fit into a funding program that’s already out there.”
Appropriations bills are separated by topic — there is a bill for agriculture, for defense, for financial services and general government. The Public Safety Building, which houses the jail, court system, police department, fire department and more, doesn’t fall neatly into any of the 12 categories.
The reservoir dams’ stabilization project is likely too early in its planning processes to qualify. “We don’t have anything concrete yet,” said Good.
In the previous fiscal year, the borough received $2.08 million in directed federal funds for a connection pipe between the upper reservoir and water treatment plant. “She did give us one last year,” Good said. “That might be why we’re not on the list” this year.
Typically, appropriations bills do not earmark funds for the same community for a similar type of project two years in a row.
Murkowski succeeded in winning congressional approval for $230 million in Alaska projects for the 2022 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
Since Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola was elected after the congressional deadline to submit earmark requests for 2023, and Rep. Don Young died just weeks before the deadline, no requests for funding were made in the House, which explains why Murkowski’s budget request was so large. “When he suddenly passed and wasn’t there to advocate for any, it did put more of a burden on my back,” Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News last month.
Alaska’s other U.S. senator, Dan Sullivan, did not request any earmarks this year. He was one of 34 Republican senators who declined to submit targeted requests to budget negotiators.
Statewide projects in Murkowski’s 2023 request list, like $230,000 to train youth peer mentors through the Rural Alaska Community Action Program, $3 million to the Alaska Native Justice Center and $2.5 million to expand the Alaska Primary Care Association’s community health worker program into rural areas could have positive impacts on Wrangell.
Earmarks, another term for congressionally directed spending, have been criticized for facilitating backroom deals and political favoritism. Among the most famous examples is Young’s $230 million “bridge to nowhere,” which he earmarked in 2005. The project, which was meant to connect Ketchikan to its airport on Gravina Island, was canceled in 2015 after $39 million had already been spent.
In 2011, the House cracked down on earmarks by prohibiting members from using them to direct money. Congress restored the earmark process in 2021.
Despite past controversies, Murkowski defends the legitimacy of earmarks. “I am one who believes very strongly that it is the prerogative of Congress to take seriously the role of appropriations rather than cede that to the agencies,” she told the Anchorage Daily News.
“Most of the people working in these agencies have no idea what the needs of Kotzebue are, don’t understand what it means to be in a community that is not connected by road and what it means to be in a community where you get your fuel delivered twice a year by barge.”
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