By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Billions of federal dollars might be headed to Alaska to assist in the construction, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure projects covered by a trillion dollar infrastructure bill currently in discussion in the U.S. Senate.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, left, talks about the infrastructure bill with Sitka Sound Science Center's Lisa Busch and others earlier this month. The senator held an online question and answer session about the bill with reporters Thursday. (Sentinel Photo)
With negotiations moving forward in Washington, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski touted the positive impacts of the infrastructure bill during a conference call with Alaska media Thursday.
“This package really is very significant when it comes to those states like Alaska that have, I think, lagged behind when it comes to what we would describe as basic infrastructure, which is roads, which is ports, which is water and wastewater and broadband,” the senator said in the conference call from her office in Washington. “And so the overall benefit to a state like Alaska, I think, is going to be really, really considerable.”
Murkowski, a centrist Republican, is a member of the bipartisan group in the Senate that has been working for months to fashion a bill agreeable to both parties. They announced the completion of their work earlier this week, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced that he wants the Senate to vote on it before the start of the Senate’s August recess.
In her comments to the Alaska press Thursday, Murkowski said there’s money in the package that could help revitalize the Alaska Marine Highway System.
“I have been working with colleagues to make sure that there is a path forward for essential ferry service in rural communities,” she said. “We’ve got a provision in this legislation that will help us with the Alaska Marine Highway System, not only on the construction side but with regards to operations and repairs within the Alaska Marine Highway System. I think we know this has been part of the challenge that we have faced.”
Funding in the bill, she said, could help make AMHS sustainable.
“We need to have a sustainable ferry system and one that again meets the need in the region, whether it is short hops or longer commutes,” Murkowski said.
A pilot program for electric ferries also is included in the bill, along with a multitude of other provisions for electric vehicles as part of a larger push by President Biden to mitigate climate change.
The bill was advanced in the Senate by a 67-32 bipartisan vote on Wednesday. In a chamber divided 50-50 between parties that frequently employ the filibuster to torpedo legislation, the $1 trillion infrastructure package received support from senators as divergent as Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY). And Sen. Joe Manchin, (D-WVA), who has often been a holdout when Democrats need all 50 of their votes to pass legislation, was a member of the bipartisan infrastructure committee, and a supporter of the resulting bill.
Murkowski described the bill as historic.
“Hard infrastructure. What we’ve defined as roads, bridges, rails, ports, water systems, broadband,” she said. “All these legacy infrastructure initiatives that we recognize are needed, are important, in many parts of our country are old, are decaying or in some parts of our country like Alaska they don’t even exist yet... It’s good for Americans, it’s pretty historic. We haven’t seen this level of support and focus on infrastructure for our nation in decades.”
While senators can still amend the bill before the final vote, as written it includes $110 billion for roads and related projects, $11 billion in transportation safety programs, $39 billion in transit modernization, $66 billion for trains, $7.5 billion for electric vehicle chargers, and $73 billion in clean energy infrastructure, among other items, a White House document says. The full text of the bill is not yet public.
All told, the bill includes $550 billion in new spending.
Murkowski pointed out Sitka’s Green Lake dam as one local project that could benefit from the bill.
“We really worked to try to support Alaska’s enormous potential for hydropower, including incentive payments to upgrade hydropower facilities. I was down in Sitka a couple weeks back I think, and I had an opportunity to see what’s going on at the Green Lake dam there and what needs to be done in terms of that upgrade,” she said.
Among other items in the wide-ranging legislation, Murkowski highlighted the potential for funding broadband, clean water, precommercial thinning of Tongass young growth timber, airport improvement, and more.
“We directed $3.5 billion for Indian Health Services for sanitation facilities. This is going to be really a once in a lifetime investment in sanitation infrastructure… We have far too many communities that are unserved or underserved… We also focused on precommercial thinning,” she said, “recognizing the value of what that will bring for young growth stands down there in the Tongass.”
While the big-picture of the bill has clarified in recent weeks, Murkowski noted that there’s uncertainty about funding for specific projects at the moment.
“Some of it will be very hard to ascertain because so much of this will come by way of grant... Each state will have that ability to assess where the priorities are with the funds. But again, what we’re doing is we are making an investment, a legacy investment in infrastructure that will help to connect our communities,” she said.
The bipartisan bill is not the only piece of infrastructure legislation currently on the table in Washington.
Senate Democrats also plan for a $3.5 trillion bill focused on other forms of infrastructure, ranging from caregiving for the elderly to incentives for clean energy production. This second bill would be passed via the budget reconciliation process, which can be passed by a simple majority, including the tie-breaking vote of the vice president.
In Thursday’s phone conference, Murkowski said she opposes the second, larger spending bill, but that doesn’t erode her support of the bipartisan bill now before the Senate.
She said the larger bill is not needed, and would unnecessarily raise taxes.
She called it “an extraordinary proposal that pretty much takes everything that might be left over and puts it into one package with an approach to paying for it by raising taxes on Americans.”
“You’ve got a negotiated, bipartisan package that has worked to address not only the needs of rural America, urban America, Republicans and Democrats, versus what will be a wholly partisan project and product that is not paid for -- that will be paid for by increased taxes... I want to call it an excess of every wishlist that might ever be out there by a Democrat colleague.”
President Biden has said he won’t raise taxes on Americans who make under $400,000 annually.
“Nobody making under 400,000 bucks would have their taxes raised, period, bingo,” the president said in May.
To become law, the bipartisan infrastructure bill must pass both the Senate and the House, though progressive members of the House Democratic Caucus have threatened to derail the bipartisan bill if centrist Democrats in the Senate stall the larger reconciliation bill.
