State bumbling on federal highway plan puts entire construction season at risk

The federal government, which provides most of the construction money, rejected the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan for 2024-2027, which puts the road building season in Alaska and thousands of jobs at grave risk.

This is not a case of federal overreach. The blame for this rests entirely with the Dunleavy administration.

Here is the cover letter that says the highway and transit agencies have determined the state plan “cannot be approved” without significant revisions. There are three levels of changes needed, the letter says.

Here is the 24-page document detailing the rejection. It’s hard to comprehend this failure. It’s been clear for months that the Dunleavy administration was not focused on the thorough work required to complete this fundamental task on time.

The state hopes to resubmit its plan within a couple of weeks, but sources say it may take two months to fix the variety of problems identified with the state plan, which is not enough time to meet the end-of-March federal review deadline. The plan was rejected in a letter February 9.

The revised plan is due to the federal government by the end of this month.

This would not have happened had the state followed the orderly public process called for in federal law. The process is predictable. It requires consistent and clear leadership.

One of the many key issues ignored by the Dunleavy administration, as I and others have explained, is that projects in Anchorage and Fairbanks were placed in the Dunleavy plan without local approval. About two dozen projects that are not eligible for federal funds, according to the report, such as bridge funds for the proposed West Susitna Access Road.

Other problems include a variety of technical steps that should have been dealt with in advance regarding the handling of public comments, details on funding sources and project details. It’s all part of a system to qualify for the federal money our transportation systems rely upon.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy will claim this is the Biden administration taking aim at Alaska. Don’t believe that for a second. This is entirely self-inflicted.

The governor who claims he needs more power to get things done for Alaska needs to work with the Congressional delegation and ask the Biden administration for help immediately to fix this fiasco.

Getting this plan approved by the federal government in a timely manner is a basic task that has been achieved many times in the past by the executive branch, making the failure all the more striking.

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