A Bridge (Way) Too Far
A controversial Alaska project highlights the pork-barrel politics of transportation funding by Congress
In Ketchikan, Alaska, home to about 8,000 people, community leaders complain the town is suffering for lack of land for development. "This is a community that's choking on itself," says Blaine Ashcraft, business manager of the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce. With tourists streaming in, Ketchikan's sights are fixed on building a bridge to nearby Gravina Island, home to 50 people, 1,800 acres of available timber in the Tongass National Forest, and the community's airport, accessible now by a seven-minute ferry ride.
The proposed bridge would be nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge and high enough for cruise ships to pass underneath. It's being paid for in part by $223 million worth of designated funds, so-called earmarks, included in the $286.4 billion federal highway and mass transit bill getting wrapped up by Congress last week. Critics call it the Bridge to Nowhere, and cite it as a prime example of congressional pork. "It is an abomination," says Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a fiscal watchdog group. But Alaska Rep. Don Young, chair of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, earmarked the project as "high priority." He's not alone. Members of Congress stuffed the final legislation with more than 6,300 earmarks worth about $23 billion. "It's sort of like building highways by ransom," says Stephen Slivinski, a budget analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute. "They divide the spoils in exchange for a vote on the bill."
The Transportation Equity Act, long regarded as one of Washington's biggest porkfests, is a bipartisan favorite. Every $1 billion creates 47,500 jobs, plus the chance to tout the highway and mass transit projects back home. Nevertheless, the transportation package, which is renewed every six years and provides funding through 2009, took about 23 months to negotiate after the last transportation act expired in 2003. The long fight was over only after the group of so-called donor states (that pay more in gas taxes than they get back in highway funds) won a bigger slice of the pie. With this the biggest transportation bill yet, that means states are getting more money than ever. Paradoxically, they also have less freedom in spending the money because of earmarks. While some are worthy, many simply bring home the bacon for specific constituents or interest groups. Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Sierra Club allege that the proposed Gravina Bridge is to provide access for the timber industry to the Tongass. Other earmarks: an automobile museum in Warren, Ohio, a snowmobile trail in Vermont, and designer suspension bridges in Dallas by world-famous architect Santiago Calatrava.
Greasing the wheels. While the congressional largesse brings a rare moment of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, it has been condemned by deficit hawks and the White House. President Bush threatened to issue his first veto to the Republican-led Congress when an earlier draft exceeded his $256 billion limit, but a compromise was finally reached. Critics contend that doling out earmarks greased the wheels for the bill's easy passage. Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona says House members were offered at least $14 million each for special projects in their districts. Young has been unrepentant in his use of earmarks. To the Anchorage Daily News he has bragged, "I stuffed [the bill] like a turkey" and "the state's going to do great out of this bill."
Whether it's truly great for Alaska remains to be seen. Experts list a third of Alaska's major roads as being in poor or mediocre condition. "Ketchikan is not connected to any road system," says Emily Ferry of the Alaska Transportation Priorities Project, which opposes the earmarks. "We need to fix the system we have." Critics of the highway bill couldn't agree more.
This story appears in the August 8, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
advertisement
