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 the plan in place, more than $100 million in federal dollars that have 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 local groups.
That’s a big issue because federal law explicitly requires the input of municipal planning organizations on projects within their regions.
The Dunleavy administration has denied that the plan was dictated directly by his office, though 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 put a halt to the mine.
“I’m wondering, is this just another way to shut down the Manh Choh ore haul, and the whole state suffers?” he said.
Anderson said he didn’t think that was the intent of the organization, noting that there are other ways for the trucking project to move forward without the bridge replacements. The local citizen groups have also been careful to note they oppose the trucking plan but not the mine. McCabe went on to call the local concerns “a little bit of disingenuous.”
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 normal public comments and are not given the same kind of authority as projects within their boundaries.
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, most of the people who had been working on this were not experienced in putting together a STIP?” Stutes said after a few rounds of back and forth over it.
“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.”
Stutes said she was worried they could really get everything fixed in two weeks when it took them more than a year to get to this point.
“We gain experience through doing,” Anderson replied. “That’s a big thing at DOT. We’ve got experienced people now. I would just offer that up.”
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.