Transportation, Treasury, the Judiciary, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006

TRANSPORTATION, TREASURY, THE JUDICIARY, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking my colleague, the senior Senator from Alaska. He has delivered, obviously, a very passionate statement on behalf of the issue in front of us. But even more than that, he gives us the historical perspective of what we in Alaska have been fighting for since statehood, what we in Alaska have continued to fight for almost 50 years after the fact of statehood, and that is a simple recognition that we are part of the United States and that we deserve to be treated with the same level of respect accorded to all of the other 49 States.

We are told not to take this amendment personally, but it is very difficult to stand here as an Alaskan and not take this personally. So I rise with my colleague to speak very strongly in opposition to a measure that is going to isolate us, that is going to pinpoint one State above everybody else to say: You are responsible; it is dollars directed to your State that we will now redirect to the devastation in the gulf area.

Alaskans are not hesitant to step up to the plate and help. We do it day in, we do it day out. We want to continue to be able to do that. But when we are singled out as one State, saying, Your project is not worthy; of all the other projects out there we are going to go after yours, it is not the time to be sitting back and saying we can compromise on this, we can make a deal.

There has been a great deal of discussion about this bridge. Let us speak first to the bridge in Ketchikan. It has been referred to on this floor as a bridge to nowhere. There have been references to media accounts about the community of Ketchikan and the project they have been working on for years and years. What I am hearing repeated in the Chamber and what I have seen in letters to us as Senate colleagues is a repetition of what we hear in the media, the same tired, worn-out facts that quite honestly aren't true, don't hold water, and yet get repeated. And the inaccuracies and the misrepresentations just make our job that much more difficult. It is as if we are legislating by the media, and we are better than that. It is our obligation to know and understand the facts that are real and to know and understand the implications and the impact of our actions.

I wish to talk about a couple of the facts that Members of this body need to know. If, in fact, what we intend to do here, if, in fact, this amendment is intended to provide for reconstruction of the twin-span bridge, it is eligible for emergency repair funds. Negotiations for its repair are already underway between the State of Louisiana and the Federal agency. I am confident that this bridge will be repaired without needless damage to the project from any other State. And if, in fact, there is a funding mechanism that we need to resolve to help make this happen, I am certainly willing to participate in that. I think all of us would be willing to participate. If we need to do something to make this project move forward with the funding mechanism, we can help with that.

The second fact, if this is being proposed as an amendment that is going to save money, people need to know that it swaps an earmark for our project in Alaska--the two bridges--to an earmark for a project in Louisiana. The project is going to be completed anyway whether or not this amendment is going to be considered. What we are essentially doing is taking the money from the Alaska project, we are directing it to allow the project, but we are reducing Louisiana's ability to have any kind of spending flexibility at a time when they need it the most. Let us make sure that what we are proposing here is actually going to meet the needs of those in Louisiana.

The third fact--this is where we need to get into the discussion about the bridges and what they are because the reference to the bridge in Ketchikan as being a bridge to nowhere is offensive. It is a bridge to the future for the people of Ketchikan, AK.

I was born in Ketchikan. I spend a fair amount of time going back and forth between Anchorage and Ketchikan and have done so for years. I was in Ketchikan this past weekend. I wasn't guided by occasional letters to the editor; I was guided by talking to the people in Ketchikan who ask: Where are we on the bridge? They are asking me: Lisa, where are we on the bridge? We put the money in the transportation bill finally, after so many years of waiting, how are we going to move forward on it? They are concerned because they are getting copies of the articles that are in the New York Times and in other publications around the country calling it a bridge to nowhere, and they are saying: Don't these people understand who we are and what we need? That is the problem. Most of you don't understand who we are up there and what we need.

We need basic infrastructure. Senator Stevens has spoken to that. If we had a terrible disaster hit us in Alaska, we would not face a lot of the repairs to the infrastructure because we don't have the infrastructure in the first place to repair.

The arguments that have been made or the statements that have been made about a bridge that will connect to 50 people do not acknowledge any understanding about Ketchikan and what it is and what kind of a community it is and what it has to respond to.

Those of you who have been to Alaska because you have been up on a cruise ship enter through Ketchikan. We call it Alaska's First City. You enter into the Tongass Narrows. As you come in, you see a community that is smashed up literally against a rocky terrain, a long, stretched-out community with islands dotted all around you. People ask: Why do you need this bridge? We need the bridge because on the other side of Ketchikan is the potential for this community to grow and thrive, despite some of the actions of the Federal Government, and the policies that have been made over the years, whether they relate to timber or farm fishing, have practically shut down the community. But we are coming back. We have a thriving maritime industry we are helping to grow and to cultivate. But we have a community of some 13,000 to 14,000 people in Ketchikan. It is 6 blocks deep and 16 miles wide.

We can't expand to the south and the east because we are bordered in by the Misty Fjords National Monument on the north, and we are hemmed in by the Behm Canal. The only place that Ketchikan has an opportunity to expand is right across the Tongass Narrows on Gravina Island. Gravina Island has a sloping area. It is wide open. But the best thing that Gravina Island has is some 20,000 acres of private, municipal, and State lands that can make a huge difference in providing economic opportunities for this area. We can't grow in any other direction in Ketchikan. We have to go across the narrows.

Right now, across the narrows, we have the airport. This is an airport that doesn't just serve the 13,000 or 14,000 residents of Ketchikan; this airport is the cargo hub for southeastern Alaska. You have FedEx and UPS coming in there. You have all of the aircargo coming into the southeastern part of the State.

You also have a small logging operation, one of the few that is hanging on after the policies we have implemented here in Congress. But we have a business that employs 50 to 100 people. Every day, those people are not able to get into their car and drive to work. They take a ferry to work and have to figure out how to do it on the other end.

The airport is also incredibly important to our military over there. Every nuclear sub that goes on Pacific patrol is tested for stealth at the Navy facility in Behm Canal. We have technicians coming into the airport. We have our Ketchikan Coast Guard base. It is at this base that they maintain most of the aid to navigation in the State of Alaska. The Forest Service certainly has a very large presence there. Ketchikan's hospital is a regional center. We get many of the patients visiting Ketchikan from the surrounding areas.

On top of that, we have a tourist industry where this summer the city of Ketchikan welcomed some 800,000 passengers into that community--800-some-odd thousand passengers that occasionally need to get off those cruise ships. Some of them have medical issues. Some of them need to use our airport.

We have an airport that is serviced by a ferry. But that ferry isn't the answer to everything we need. When we have some extreme tides, they can't utilize that ferry. What does that mean if you have a Medivac going out to the airport when you can't get the ambulance over there? You can't get to the other side with the vehicles we need. In fact, we have a ferry service, but is it what we need? Is it what we were promised when the airport was put back there in 1973? The promise at that time was, we will connect you across the very narrow channel of water to the community of Ketchikan. The people of Ketchikan have been waiting for 30 years.

Some people are making the assumption that just because we happen to have a chairman on the House side chairing the Transportation Committee, that all of a sudden any great idea, any project that we want as a delegation we were going to be able to snap our fingers and get. This is something that has been in the works for 30 years. Ask the people of Ketchikan how much money, time, and energy they have spent in the various studies, discussing dialog, debating, fighting. It is not something that just came up because we could have it; it is something that we as a community have been working together and pulling together for a long time.

Now to have a colleague come in and say that because there is something that has happened in another part of the country and because we need to find ways to pay for it, we are going to make a determination that we are going to pluck this money and we are going to take this project and anything that the community has put into it, anything the State has put into it, is now thrown out the window, that is not it.

The local government in Ketchikan has been working on a balanced plan--a use development plan--where we are talking about private homes over there, businesses, industrial facilities, harbors, green spaces to enhance the environmental value. We are trying to plan for our growth and development, but you can't have the growth and you can't have the development if you do not have access. Access is our State's biggest challenge.

As Senator Stevens has mentioned, the biggest State in the Union has the smallest number of roads. People look at it and say, It just doesn't make sense in Alaska where you have a limited number of people, and yet we spend so much money on Alaska. It must be wrong, you must be taking too much. The sad fact is, folks, we are a long way from the rest of the country, and it costs more. That is a reality. That is a reality of doing business up there. But because our transportation costs might be more, might be higher, might be greater, does that mean our projects are worth any less, have any less value?

There was a statement made by my colleague from Oklahoma. He said it is important to know what the people of Alaska are thinking, and he read a couple of letters to the editor that were published in the Ketchikan Daily News and a couple of letters which were published in the Anchorage Daily News. I do not know about the rest of my Senate colleagues, but I do not make my policy decisions based on a couple of letters to the editor.

I will ask at the appropriate time to have printed in the RECORD a copy of a letter that the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce has posted on their Web site speaking about Ketchikan's ``bridge to the future,'' refuting many of the allegations that have been out there. I wish to read one quick passage because it kind of sums up the position of the people from Ketchikan.

Statements like ``The Bridge to No Where'', and serves only 50 people'' simply are not supported by the facts. The bridge
will provide road access to Ketchikan's International Airport which serves approximately 130,000 passengers annually and employs 180 people daily. In August, the shuttle ferry ride required between the airport and Ketchikan serviced 31,000 passengers. In addition to the airport, there is a viable sawmill employing 50-100 people who will not have to take a daily boat ride back and forth to Gravina Island for work. During extreme ocean tide levels, the ferry is incapable of transporting vehicles, including typical safety vehicles such as fire trucks! The Alaska Department of Transportation evaluation indicates over the long run the bridge is cheaper to build and maintain than providing inadequate ferry service.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

KETCHIKAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, in addition to the airport, we have the sawmill.

My point is, at some point in time, those back here who do not know and understand Alaska need to listen to those of us who live in Alaska, who work in Alaska, and who raise our families in Alaska, to know and understand what the priorities are of Alaskans and allow us to address those. That is what we are trying to do with the 12 projects that are the subjects of this amendment.

I have been speaking about the Ketchikan project, and I want to stick with this for a few more minutes until I turn to the Knik Arm Crossing. We in Alaska are willing to do our share. I made that statement earlier. The citizens in Ketchikan, when they saw the aftermath in Katrina, didn't sit back and say, Well, we got ours. We are a long way away from the gulf, we don't need to worry about it. Private people have been dipping into their pockets, as they have all across the country, but we had a fundraiser in Ketchikan a couple weeks ago. We had fishermen, businessmen, housewives, teachers, shipfitters, booksellers, doctors, and clerks, raised almost $20,000 out of this little community of about 14,000 people.

We are willing to step up. Alaskans are willing to step up. Believe me, this week we have had an opportunity to talk about that as we dealt with the issue of ANWR in the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources yesterday. We want to help out. We are prepared to do it. But let us prioritize those projects within the State of Alaska that have the support and that will allow our State to develop as every other State in the Union has been allowed to develop. Ketchikan is asking for nothing more than exactly the same type of bridge connection that other communities all across the country have. However, Ketchikan and most of the other communities in my State are stuck in this time warp, a mid-1900s time warp, where transportation systems that are old hat or accepted and part of the landscape in the rest of the country are still the future to the State of Alaska. What we are trying to do is to bridge into the future.

Now I turn, for a minute, to the Knik Arm Crossing because we have not given as much attention to that. Maybe it is because the media hasn't dubbed it or given it a catchy little name such as ``Bridge to Nowhere.'' As Senator Stevens has indicated, again, we are a victim of our own geography. We are hemmed in by the mountains, the ocean, Cook Inlet, military land, and national forest lands. We don't have any place to grow. This is Alaska's largest community. We need to be able to go across the water so we can have the opportunity, as a community, as a State, and as a regional hub, to further our growth and development.

The comment was made on the Point MacKenzie--one side is Anchorage and the other side is Point MacKenzie--we have about 12 residents there; again, making us look like we are just going to build bridges because we have the ability to build bridges and we do not care where we are placing them. People that make statements such as this need to look at the facts. First, look at a map. Look at what we have over there. We have a community, the fastest growing part of the State is up there in the Mat-Su Valley. We have tens of thousands of commuters coming into Anchorage from the Mat-Su Valley every day that could be aided by a bridge across the water. To suggest we have 12 families that we are somehow helping out and connecting defies the facts. It is offensive to me. There has been some suggestion this is a project that we are taking up because we can. People need to understand this is something we have been looking at and studying for a good 30 years.

I cannot tell the number of projects--actually, I can tell the number of projects, and I am going to. We have, over the past, probably 10, 20 years, so studied this bridge, so evaluated this bridge, that the people in south central are asking, What's wrong? Why can't we get the bridge moving? We had the Point MacKenzie Area Which Merits Special Attention Plan in 1993; the Point MacKenzie Port Master Plan in 1998; the Regional Port of Anchorage Master Plan in 1999; the Anchorage 2020 Plan in 2001; the Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions Freight Mobility Study in 2001; the Matanuska Susitna Borough Economic Development Plan in 2002; the Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions Long Range Transportation Plan Amendment in 2002; the Regional Transportation Planning Organization Resolution Supporting the Knik Arm Crossing as a Regional Transportation Priority Project in 2003; the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly Resolution Adopting the Knik Arm Crossing as the Number One Regional Transportation Priority, 2003; and then the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Rail Corridor Study, June 2003. And there have been more updates since then.

This is something we have been working on for a long time. To suggest this is pork, this is fluff, this is servicing 12 families or 50 homes, we need to have everyone look at the factories and understand that Alaska will never achieve its full potential as a State unless we have access.

Taking away these two projects from the State of Alaska and saying this is what we are going to do to help with the reconstruction efforts in the gulf, to single out one State, we start taking it very personally.

If the suggestion were made to our colleagues that everybody gives a little bit, everybody gives a little bit on your transportation projects, that is okay. As one of the 50 States, we can deal with that. We can certainly accept that. But to see we are looking at one State--first it was one project, now it is two projects--this Senator cannot accept, will not accept a proposal like that.

I appreciate the efforts of so many that have been working so hard as we try to find offsets, as we try to do the work necessary to rebuild the gulf region. But we need to recognize, again, we worked on a transportation authorization bill, a 6-year plan. This bill was 6 years in the making. What went into it, went into it with thought and study and the support of those people who would benefit from it. And the people that will benefit from the bridges in Ketchikan and the bridge in south-central are not only the people of Alaska but all of the tourists we serve, all of the military we serve, all of the people that rely on Alaska for your energy needs, for your commerce needs. It is not about providing service and assistance to a few. Let Alaska come into this century when it comes to transportation infrastructure. Don't take from us our ability to grow, as all of the other States in the lower 48 have been allowed to do, having been provided the Federal funding. Don't deny Alaska.

I yield the floor.

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