The state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities has protested the federal highway administration conclusion that the overdue state highway plan is deficient in numerous ways and fails to meet federal law.

The Dunleavy administration had claimed on September 27 that the rejection of 23 projects in the State Transportation Improvement Plan by the Federal Highway Administration was really a success because much of the rest of the plan was approved.

But an October 15 letter from DOT boss Ryan Anderson abandons that PR spin and claims that federal highway officials are wrong about nearly every alleged deficiency.

The longer this ridiculous bureaucratic battle goes on, the more money and time will be wasted and the more uncertainty will be created about which road projects will move ahead and which will be delayed or cancelled.

In a 39-page protest letter, Anderson says the state “contests all five findings, six of the eight corrective actions, all 10 recommendations and seven narrative statements. In general, we dispute the narrative sections, which contain unsubstantiated claims that are vague and lack sufficient evidence or support.”

Federal officials also flagged 15 proposed projects with “ineligible elements.” Anderson said the federal agency failed to identify those elements,

Here is the state complaint.

As I wrote here on October 2, one of the most alarming findings by the federal planners is that future levels of road funding assumed by the Dunleavy administration don’t appear realistic.

Here is the federal letter from last month.

The federal letter said the amounts assumed for advance construction “exceed the historic allocation of state funding for transportation projects. The DOT&PF is assuming risk by programming AC (advance construction) at these levels and this risk may impact their ability to deliver the STIP program identified to the public through this document.”

The Dunleavy administration responded by ducking the question of whether the state will be able to deliver what it is promising the public. Anderson’s letter tries to change the subject and make this part of the Statehood Defense Whining Industry.

Anderson asked what right does the Federal Highway Administration have to “reject or restrict the State of Alaska’s statutory right to manage its federal resources by leveraging Advance Construction (AC), a federally permitted financial tool, particularly when the current and projected balances are well within the historical previously approved range of AC usage.”

Anderson says that because in 2006, the state use of Advance Construction funds was higher than it is today, the current plan is not unprecedented. Citing figures from one year does not prove his point or disprove the federal contention that the state plan is financially questionable.

This is one of the many areas that the department has failed to explain in English to the public.

Meanwhile, the Dunleavy administration contends that one of the bridge projects it proposed in conjunction with the Kinross ore hauling project—replacing the northbound Richardson highway bridge over the flood control project—should move forward because it is a stone’s throw away from the boundary of the Fairbanks planning area.

That means that local approval from the Fairbanks planning agency, which has not occurred, is not needed and the state can move ahead with the project.

Rather than admit that this bridge plan was put forward by Dunleavy to benefit the Kinross ore hauling project, Anderson claims it is to deal with “potential load restrictions, earthquakes, and floods, all of which threaten the cost of living and transportation efficiency in the Fairbanks area.”

A change to that boundary—so that the flood control project would be included in the Fairbanks area—has been held up in Dunleavy’s office.

While the federal planners said the state has failed to cooperate with the metropolitan planning entities in Anchorage and Fairbanks, leading to policy disputes, the Dunleavy administration complains that its process is working just fine. The letter to federal transportation officials argues that they are not cooperating with the state.

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