AIDEA to move $20 million from slush fund for more leases in ANWR

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, which limits public involvement to whatever it can get away with, plans to act Wednesday on a plan to draw $20 million from a slush fund for new oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Before AIDEA acts, there should be a real public hearing with real public notice. Something far more than the limited opportunity that AIDEA is giving Wednesday at 9 a.m.

Here are details on the Wednesday meeting.

As it did in 2020, the first time AIDEA drew from the slush fund to buy oil leases, the agency has tried to keep its plans quiet and avoid public discussion.

The Anchorage Daily News had this coverage Tuesday.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy runs AIDEA like a private development bank, with his longtime political aide Randy Ruaro installed as the head of the agency and a board that consists largely of Dunleavy supporters, including Dunleavy commissioners Adam Crum and Julie Sande.

One tactic the corporation has employed to avoid public review and transparency is to withdraw money from an account set up within the corporation called the Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund. It is supposed to be a loan fund, but it has been used as a slush fund.

AIDEA has withdrawn tens of millions from its revolving loan fund, transferred it to AIDEA’s Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund, and opted to spend it on capital projects—such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

Cutting the Legislature and the public out of the process is a way of avoiding and silencing opponents.

But 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.

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.

Money appropriated for the proposed Ambler road project and the oil leases the corporation purchased in the federal lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are prime examples of expenditures that should have been part of the annual capital budget debates.

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