In a follow-up to President Barack Obama's historic visit to Alaska, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx visited Alaska on Friday and talked with Native leaders about their requests for more federal support to help resolve the state's unique and towering transportation needs.
The visit with more than 20 Alaskans, many seated around a long table in the First Alaskans Institute office in Anchorage, was Foxx's only meeting in Alaska during a stopover on his way to speak at a conference in Tokyo, officials said.
Foxx quickly emphasized the president's commitment to Alaska Native issues and transportation needs, and his effort to combat climate change, including by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday.
"The impacts here are very real," Foxx said of climate change in Alaska. "We see thawing permafrost destabilizing the earth on which 100,000 Alaska Natives live, threatening homes and damaging transportation infrastructure that will cost billions of dollars to fix."
He said the president had asked him to come to Alaska to listen. Sitting at the head of the table, he did so intently. He jotted notes, agreed to tackle numerous requests and wasn't afraid to ask questions.
"What's a honey bucket?"
A five-gallon bucket serving as a toilet in many unplumbed villages, people replied.
"Wow," he said.
He also heard concerns that the federal government's mechanisms for awarding transportation funds are slanted to urban areas with greater resources to apply for grants, hurting rural and tribal communities in the battle for improvements.
"We are American and we deserve the same kind of benefits as other Americans around the country," said Andrea Akall'eq Sanders, First Alaskans Institute director.
Foxx heard about the soaring costs of fuel and groceries in more than 200 off-road communities and the sky-high cost of rural air travel. The Alaskans complained of the limited ability to make snowmachine trips between villages as snowpacks become thinner.
Foxx, who visited Nome and Unalakleet last year, wasn't surprised. "If you ever want to see the impact of transportation on pricing, come to rural Alaska," he said.
Participants discussed local efforts to build a deepwater port in Western Alaska, an effort he's familiar with, and a 38-mile dirt road between the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers to lower the cost of energy for a chunk of Southwest Alaska.
Mary Sage, tribal transportation director for the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, told Foxx that funding is needed to help maintain and improve safety on North Slope ice roads, including between Prudhoe Bay and Barrow.
The 175-mile link is really a glorified trail. It's created each winter after the tundra and Arctic Ocean freeze and ties Barrow to the state's skeletal road system. It allows people to lower the costs of big-ticket items that can be purchased in cities, including trucks, gas stoves and snowmachines.
But traveling the frozen thoroughfare can be dangerous, she said, requiring a full assortment of safety gear, including personal locator beacons, snow shovels, tire chains and extra gas.
Improvements could include roadside markers, occasional grooming and funding to support rescue efforts in deadly cold temperatures.
Foxx said he wanted more information on the ice roads. Turning to his chief of staff, Dan Katz, he said a team of transportation officials should be assembled to tackle the issue.
Participants also asked for federal support for the Denali Commission, which has helped build rural roads and harbors, but has seen its budget drop from $140 million in 2007 to $14 million this year.
The support could include U.S. Transportation Department officials housed in the Denali Commission's Anchorage offices, said Nicole Borromeo, general counsel for the Alaska Federation of Natives. They could help address the state's transportation needs.
Foxx reiterated the president's commitment to boost the Denali Commission's role by having it coordinate efforts to address the impacts of climate change in Alaska.
He said tribal programs have been a "casualty" of dozens of short-term budget extensions in recent years and efforts by Congress to cut costs. He added that Congress is taking steps to pass the first long-term highway transportation bill in years.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, who sat as a guest at the far end of the table across from Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, said he's trying to address a 2012 formula change to transportation funding that favored large tribes and hurt small ones in Alaska.
As differences between the Senate and House versions of the transportation bill are worked out, he intends to create a floor that will provide at least $75,000 for tribal organizations, ensuring some 140 small tribes in Alaska have access to some transportation funds.
Other highlights of the proposal include more funding for Alaska over six years, from today's $483 million to $585 million. Also, money for tribal transportation programs, long flat, would rise $10 million annually.
Piiyuuk Olivia Shields, one of the young leaders in attendance and an elementary education student at the University of Alaska Anchorage, made a plea for more rural roads in a state where scores of villages are accessible mainly by plane.
She told a story about the risks of traveling by snowmachine between Bethel and the village of Kasigluk, about 20 miles away, saying she and others were once towed to a wedding in a freight sled, under a tarp. But the rope snapped, temporarily leaving the group alone in bad weather.
"We would greatly benefit from having roads connecting villages," she said.
In a press conference, Foxx said Obama was "blown away" by the warmth of Alaskans and the effects of climate change he saw.
Foxx, asked if he had larger plans to address transportation problems in Alaska associated with climate change, such as roads and airstrips threatened by thawing permafrost, said the president's initiatives to battle warming by lowering carbon emissions could help.