Lisa Murkowski's Seniority Has Made a Difference for Northwest, Arctic Coast Communities

Press Release

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) today during the start of a two-day campaign swing from Norton Sound to the North Slope said that her seniority in the U.S. Senate has been very important for Alaskans in the past and will be even more so in the future.

While in Kotzebue, Lisa Murkowski noted that she secured Kotzebue $150,000 in 2007 for the town's wind turbine project -- money that has helped to cut electric costs in the northwest community significantly. She also supported the project winning research grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy for a necessary power storage project. In 2005, she secured $2 million for municipal road paving projects in Kotzebue to cut dust and improve air quality. Lisa also won Kotzebue $210,000 last year for work on the Kotzebue small boat harbor, a project that should pay important community economic and subsistence benefits in the years ahead.

"One of the candidates running for Senate has pledged to never request an earmark, or, congressionally directed funds, for Alaska. All that means is that the citizens in Kotzebue will have to wait decades for their critical infrastructure needs to work their way up a Washington bureaucrat's priority list, if they ever make it given the smaller per capita benefits that Alaska projects sometimes provide," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

"Both my opponents would enter the Senate last in seniority and cause the Alaska delegation for the first time since Statehood to be last in seniority in the U.S. Senate," said Lisa Murkowski. "Neither of these outcomes is in the best interest of Alaskans, especially rural residents that are so far behind urban Alaska in gaining the basic infrastructure that the rest of America takes for granted. Seniority in the Senate means jobs and economic benefits for Alaskans," added Murkowski.

Lisa Murkowski, during her eight years in office, has been a champion for rural Alaska. Along with Senator Ted Stevens, she secured a 35 percent increase in the Medicare reimbursement rate. She also wrote key provisions in the recently enacted Tribal Law and Order Act to increase the number and training of Village Public Safety Officers, which are so important in smaller villages. Lisa has also won continued funding for the Village Safe Water program, $65 million last year, and blocked an effort then to rescind funding for water and sewer projects in Alaska. She also secured another $35 million last year in new funding for water and sewer improvements in Alaska's villages.

She has fought for the refurbishment of the icebreaker Polar Star, which will be increasingly important as maritime activities increase in northern Alaska. And the Senator, the U.S. representative to the Arctic Parliamentarians, has led efforts to pass legislation to create a northern port, bringing former Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen to Alaska in summer 2009 for hearings on port locations.

For Kotzebue, specifically last year she won $500,000 for Kotzebue's social services provider, Maniilaq Association, for improved facilities and equipment.

For Nome, the Senator in 2005 secured $1.5 million for municipal road paving/dust control, now proving very important given new EPA proposed regulations to limit small particulate matter (PM 2.5) in the air. In that same year she won $800,000 for water and sewer improvements in the community. Last year the Senator won $820,000 in additional funding for the Nome harbor project, and she helped win funding to finish Nome's new electric generation plant in 2007-08.

And for Barrow and the whole North Slope, she has had a series of accomplishments. In 2004, for example, she won a tax break for North Slope whaling captains, which has helped to fund the traditional subsistence whaling harvests for North Slope villages. She won reauthorization of the methane hydrate research program in 2005 -- and it is again pending reauthorization in her Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That program in 2006 provided the town with $500,000 in funding to help with improvements to the Barrow gas field. In 2008 she also successfully enacted legislation to make Ilisagvik College in Barrow eligible for Federal Land Grant School funding.

For the entire region she has worked tirelessly to win a higher federal loan guarantee to permit construction of a natural gas pipeline that would bring northern Alaska's natural gas to market, providing revenues and economic activity for all of northern and Arctic Alaska. That is pending approval in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

"These appropriations aren't wasteful spending; they aren't "pork.' They all are for vital services that America has provided to citizens in the Lower 48 States decades ago. Former Sen. Ted Stevens certainly understood the importance of getting Alaska aid for the basic services that our citizens deserve. I am the only candidate in this race who understands and can bring such aid that is still vital for this developing state," said Murkowski.

Other Regional Appropriations:

* $500,000 for the Shishmaref Erosion Demonstration Project (FY05)
* City of Buckland for construction of a piped water and sewer system -- $500,000 (P.L. 111-88, 200
* Alaska Coastal Erosion -- $2 Million in FY10 (P.L. 111-85, 2009) and $5 million for FY08.
* $5 million for Dillingham High School Gym Repairs (FY06)

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