WASHINGTON -- Alaska scored another win in the five-year transportation funding bill signed by President Barack Obama Friday, getting major funding for roads and bridges despite offering relatively little to the Highway Trust Fund that doles out cash to states.
The bill marks the first long-term transportation funding bill in a decade. After moving through conference to negotiate differences between House and Senate funding plans, it passed the House Thursday by a 359-65 vote and sailed through the Senate late that night by an 83-16 vote.
Alaska once again scored significant funds, despite the state's small population and relatively limited road system. Since 1956, the state has taken in more than $6 for each dollar it has paid into the Highway Trust Fund through gas taxes.
All three members of Alaska's congressional delegation voted for the bill, and it bears their fingerprints in a variety of ways -- from Rep. Don Young's efforts to ensure funding for the Alaska Railroad and primary responsibility for a funding formula that favors Alaska to Sen. Dan Sullivan's land changes for Southeast Alaska and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's efforts to pare back dependence on selling off the nation's oil reserves and her plum position on the House-Senate conference committee.
Obama said the bill was imperfect but "a commonsense compromise" that will "put Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges and transit systems," while providing the opportunity to make sound investments.
The bill is the first long-term funding package for transportation and infrastructure since "SAFETY-LU," a bill negotiated by Young and named in honor of his first wife. "Since then, we have limped along with short-term extension after short-term extension, robbing our states and localities of the certainty they depend on to repair and expand our nation's crumbling infrastructure," Young said after the House passed the bill Thursday.
The new law retains the state-by-state funding allocations from that 2005 negotiation, in which Young ensured that a low-population, high-need state like Alaska wouldn't lose out to states that send more gas tax money to the Highway Trust Fund.
Lawmakers heralded the bill as a chance for states to do some long-term planning, with Young noting that the Alaska delegation worked together to secure Alaska-focused provisions that will increase the state's funding by $281 million overall.
So what exactly does Alaska get?
The state will pull in, on average, $531 million a year through fiscal year 2020. The allocation starts with a boost in FY16 -- $508.6 million, up from $484 million this year. The allocation will increase each year, with the state drawing more than $555 million in FY20.
The total Alaska take-home for the five-year bill is nearly $2.7 billion.
Relative to other states, that puts Alaska roughly in the middle, with an average annual funding level similar to Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi and Oregon. Alaska, with roughly 730,000 citizens, only has more people than Vermont and Wyoming. When it comes to transportation funding, Alaska does much better than similarly sized states -- pulling in twice as much annually as states with similar populations.
The issue of which states are paying more has taken on a diminished role in the fight over transportation funding too since the Highway Trust Fund has gone upside down in recent years -- no longer taking in enough money to cover its expenses.
The trust fund is short by about $16 billion a year, failed by a gas tax -- 18.4 cents per gallon -- that hasn't gone up since 1993. Given inflation and improvements in fuel economy, the tax no longer covers federal transportation funding. Many states have picked up their own highway funding shortfalls by raising their own gas taxes over the last several years -- usually in the 20 cents per gallon range. Alaska falls at the bottom, however, sticking with its unusually low 8 cent tax.
Just how the money will be spent isn't as defined in this bill, since Congress has walked away from funding specific projects through earmarks in recent years.
An Alaska bridge project -- the much-derided "bridge to nowhere" -- that Young and then-Sen. Ted Stevens inserted into a previous transportation spending bill became a whipping boy for members fighting Washington "pork" in the form of earmarks, and a tipping point for the new way of doing business in Washington.
States will, for the most part, be able to decide how they want to spend the transportation dollars, said Jim Tymon, chief operating officer of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
Alaska's benefits from the bill will come in a variety of forms, some explicit and some potential streams of grant funding that remain unallocated.
The Alaska Railroad, for instance, will see $31 million annually -- a $3 million boost. And it could garner some extra cash to make up its funding shortage for implementing new crash safety regulations, if it wins a competitive grant from a new $199 million fund. The state will also get $80 million in funding over five years through a new federal freight program.
Alaska received more than any other state for constructing ferries and ferry terminals -- about $18.6 million per year. The funding allocation fits the state's needs: Alaska is No. 1 in terms of inland waterways -- 5,500 miles, according to the Department of Transportation.
Tribal transportation funding will go up from $450 million to $465 million in the next year, and will increase $10 million for the four years following. Just how much of that money will go to Alaska Native communities remains unknown.
The bill also pares back the amount the Bureau of Indian Affairs charges tribes for road projects to 5 percent, down from 6 percent.
A provision in the bill specific to Southeast Alaska aims to finish a state-federal land swap in the Tongass National Forest begun after the 2005 transportation bill.
The National Park Service will get an an additional $220 million for roads over the five years included in the bill, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group. The NPS annual funding will run from $268 million to $300 million annually.