AIDEA rushes $35 million Ambler spending plan to avoid public comment

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority did not want to hear from the public about the plan to spend $35 million in state money on pre-construction work for the proposed Ambler Road.

The state agency succeeded.

AIDEA, which operates more like a private bank trying to keep secrets than a government department open to public scrutiny, eliminated the threat of any serious public review by giving almost no public notice about what it planned to do Wednesday.

AIDEA announced its Feb. 10 meeting with a public notice on Feb. 1 that did not mention the Ambler Road.

It was intentional. Hiding major proposals with vague language has become standard operating procedure for AIDEA.

Dozens of Alaskans testified at an AIDEA board meeting a year ago on the Ambler plan, but they weren’t informed it was back again so they didn’t show up.

This lack of transparency is not a good approach for AIDEA Executive Director Alan Weitzner, though he is probably doing what Gov. Mike Dunleavy wants.

The lack of oversight from the Legislature is striking. AIDEA has a revolving loan fund that it uses as a slush fund, transferring money out for projects with little to no public review. Once the money has been transferred out of the loan fund, it is not subject to the rules controlling the loan fund.

AIDEA has now withdrawn $55 million from its revolving loan fund, transferred it to AIDEA’s Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund, and opted to spend it on capital projects—buying leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and doing pre-construction work on the Ambler Road.

The 2014 law creating the Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund does not allow AIDEA to spend money this way. That is clear from the comments by legislators, the discussion at the time, supporting documents and the text of the law.

“With AIDF I am proposing that the State expand AIDEA’s existing authority to finance, or facilitate the financing of Arctic Infrastructure,” then-Sen. Lesil McGuire wrote.

The law called for using assets of the fund to finance projects by issuing loans and loan guarantees. AIDEA is going far beyond that role and using the money to develop projects on its own, without bothering to get legislative approval or hold public hearings.

Whether AIDEA has the legal authority to go beyond project financing is one immediate question for the Legislature. The Legislature has not given AIDEA the power to appropriate money for anything it supports.

A related question is what appears to be the sloppy handling of what the agency nows says is its authorization to spend $35 million on the Ambler project.

A resolution the board approved Wednesday falsely claims that a year ago AIDEA transferred $35 million from its revolving loan fund to the Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund specifically for the Ambler Road project.

Perhaps no one at AIDEA remembers the final version of the resolution the board approved a year ago. Or perhaps no one at AIDEA expected that anyone would check.

The resolution AIDEA approved on March 27, 2020 transferred $35 million from its revolving loan fund to the Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund. It also declared the Ambler Road proposal an Arctic infrastructure project. But the measure did not make any promise that the $35 million would go to the Ambler project.

AIDEA staff member Mark Davis told the board last year the $35 million was for the project, but that was not mentioned in its resolution. The AIDEA position was that everyone should pretend the resolution amounted to a $35 million fund for Ambler.

The resolution promised that “further action by the board is required for the authority to expend money from the Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund” on Ambler.

The original version of the resolution proposed a year ago by Tom Boutin, then the AIDEA executive director, would have done what AIDEA claims this week was authorized on the Ambler project. But that version was never approved.

The original resolution said the pre-construction work on the road “up to a maximum amount of $35 million” could be paid by the infrastructure fund. That version also listed what the $35 million would be spent on.

Shortly before the meeting last year, Boutin and his staff withdrew the explicit version of the resolution, after getting a memo from the environmental group Trustees for Alaska saying the $35 million plan was unconstitutional.

“Because AIDEA has been unable to secure additional funding for the Ambler Road through the Legislature and the capital budget process, it is now attempting to make an end-run around the authority of the Legislature by unilaterally appropriating money from its revolving fund to this project,” Trustees for Alaska said a year ago.

AIDEA’s resolution this week claims that last year “the authority was authorized to transfer $35 million from the Revolving Fund to the AIDF for the project.”

That never happened. And there was no other mention of the $35 million in the AIDEA resolution this week. AIDEA still wants Alaskans to pretend that the money was authorized for the project a year ago.

This contradicts the AIDEA resolution that was approved last year, which said “further action by the board is required for the authority to expend money from the Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund on AMDIAP.”

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