AKLEG Week 5: 'Yeah, we had a lot of new people.'
AKLEG Week 5: 'Yeah, we had a lot of new people.'
The fed's rejection of Alaska's transportation plan is remarkable but not entirely surprising given that people have been warning about its problems since last year.
Happy Friday, Alaska. The fifth week of the legislative session is in the books.
In this edition: In what could be the most costly act of incompetence by the Dunleavy administration, the federal government this week rejected the state’s transportation plan, which serves as the basis for more than $5 billion in federal funding over the next four years. While the state is scrambling to fix the problems before a March 1 deadline to resubmit the plan, it’s hard to overlook the fact that many, many groups have been warning this could happen since last year.
Current mood: 🚧
‘Yeah, we had a lot of new people.’
Alaska Department of Transportation officials sought to assure legislators that the federal government’s rejection of the state’s transportation plan — a federally required document outlining $5.6 billion in transportation projects and upgrades — will be resolved quickly and that Alaska will still have a construction season.
“I believe we have a good strategy to get this done, and I’m confident that we can do it,” Department of Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson told the House Transportation Committee on Thursday.
The statewide transportation improvement plan, or STIP, is a comprehensive plan covering the state’s highways, ferries and other methods of transportation over the next four years. Alaska is alone as the only state to have its plan rejected by the federal government, a decision that was outlined in a 24-page report earlier this week that found several serious errors and missing key details about projects. It also comes after a several-month extension to submit the document.
With the state’s last STIP set to expire at the end of March, the Federal Highway Administration has given the state until March 1 to resubmit the plan. Without it in place, more than $100 million in federal dollars that has already been approved for summer construction projects could be put on hold.
The move is remarkable but not entirely surprising given that several local transportation organizations had flagged many of the problems that the federal government identified with the state plan last year. Perhaps the biggest among them is the Dunleavy administration’s decision to include several projects in the plan — including controversial bridge replacements for an Interior ore trucking plan and the West Susitna Access Road — without first getting approval from the local groups.
That’s a big issue because federal law explicitly requires the input of municipal planning organizations on projects within their regions.
“FAST Planning would like to express our reservation that the STIP appears to have been developed internally without meaningful input from stakeholders throughout the State,” explained a letter from the Fairbanks Area Surface Transportation Planning organization dated September 2023, citing the federal law that requires the state to develop the STIP in coordination with local planning authorities. “These consultations did not occur while the STIP was being developed; rather, the STIP appears to have been prepared internally and published for a 45-day public comment period as the sole opportunity to begin engaging with the Alaska DOT&PF on regional project priorities.”
The letter notes the group was surprised by the inclusion of funding for two bridge replacements that the Dunleavy administration included without ever talking to the local organization. The bridge replacements aren’t required for current road usage but are necessary for the Mahn Choh mine project to transport ore from outside Tok to Fort Knox, a route that would take through the city of Fairbanks.
Several citizen groups in Fairbanks have raised concerns about the plan, arguing that it appears the Dunleavy administration has been hellbent on helping the mine at the expense of other projects and the public’s safety.
The FAST letter questions the need for bridge replacements in the first place.
“State bridge engineers indicated a 1% weight reduction on the axles of 165,000-lb ore haul trucks would meet the load limits of this bridge. If this is the case, does the bridge actually need to be replaced?” asked the report. “If not, the $31 million set aside for this project could potentially be used for other freight needs statewide.”
The Dunleavy administration has denied that the plan was dictated directly by his office. However, he’s been an outspoken supporter of mine-related infrastructure projects, including the Ambler Mine road and Pebble Mine.
At the Thursday hearing, Anderson characterized much of the federal government’s concerns with the state plan as a surprise, suggesting that the federal government had shifted expectations. He also questioned whether local involvement was as necessary as the local groups or federal government have said, arguing that the state has an interest in overseeing transportation projects.
“We have a difference of opinion on certain aspects of that,” he said.
House Transportation Committee Chair Rep. Kevin McCabe, a Big Lake Republican who is also unabashedly pro-mining, was similarly dismissive of local input, worrying that it would set a bad precedent and the state would have to bow down to local groups. He went even further, suggesting it was an effort to kill the mine.
“I’m wondering,” he said, “is this just another way to shut down the Mahn Choh ore haul, and the whole state suffers?”
Anderson said he didn’t think that was the organization’s intent, noting that there are other ways for the trucking project to move forward without the bridge replacements (also, the local citizen groups have been careful to note they oppose the trucking plan but not the mine). McCabe called the local concerns “a little bit of disingenuousness.”
He was also critical that the FAST letter included input on the Sterling Highway.
“Why does Fairbanks feel like they should be commenting?” he asked.
Anderson noted that such comments on projects outside boundaries are treated like regular public comments and are not given the same authority as projects within their boundaries.
To be clear, the FAST letter questioned the state’s decision to focus more than $1 billion on various road projects in the area, noting that it wasn’t a particularly fair way to allocate federal money, and it appeared to be primarily focused on the benefit of Anchorage sportsmen. It didn’t even suggest redirecting the money to the Interior but to the Mat-Su region of the state that McCabe represents. It also pointed out that several of the Sterling Highway cost estimates appeared to be wildly inaccurate, a point also flagged by the feds.
Other legislators pressed state officials to explain how the state found itself in this situation in the first place, questioning Anderson’s claim that they had been caught by surprise when many of the problems had been flagged months in advance.
“Did you have experienced people working on this STIP?” asked Rep. Louise Stutes, a Kodiak Republican who caucuses with Democrats and independents in the House Minority. “Were the people who were formulating and putting the information together experienced? Had they been involved in doing a STIP previously?”
Anderson gave a lengthy answer about the experience of the various teams in the Department of Transportation but didn’t actually say that they had any prior experience in producing the STIP.
“Just to be clear,” Stutes said after a few rounds of back and forth over it, “most of the people who had been working on this were not experienced in putting together a STIP?”
“I would hesitate to say not experienced in putting together the elements of a STIP, but a brand-new STIP?” he finally conceded. “Yeah, we had a lot of new people.”
Why it matters
A massive amount of construction money is in jeopardy right now. While the administration has tried to signal confidence about the effort to meet the quick turnaround—a move that will likely require them to ditch the unapproved projects altogether while they try to negotiate on other more minor points—not everyone is so sure.
“I’m curious how it’s going to be resolved in two weeks. We’re going to go back and try to do in two weeks what we couldn’t do in over a year. Is that the anticipation?” she said. “We have an inexperienced group of people that are not experienced with the STIP. I understand they’re familiar with their individual jobs, but they’re not familiar with the STIP. They’ve had this long timeframe, and here we are with a two-week deadline.”
Anderson said he believed they could get the main problems addressed in the next two weeks and said they’d put in serious hours to finish it.
“We gain experience through doing,” Anderson said. “That’s a big thing at DOT. We’ve got experienced people now; I would just offer that up.”
Whether true or not will be seen over the next two weeks. In the meantime, it doesn’t sound like there’s a lot of stomach for excuses.
“I’m going to urge him that this is not a time to say, ‘Well, it’s the Biden administration, and they’re just out to get us,’” Murkowski said, as the Anchorage Daily News reported.
Stay tuned.
Follow the thread: The House Transportation Committee hears from DOT
Other coverage: Anchorage Daily News/Alaska Beacon/KTUU/Juneau Empire
Weekend watching
Kacey Musgraves has a new album coming out next month, and her single from it has been on repeat all week.
Have a nice weekend, y’all.