Orange_Juice
Senior Member
- Jul 24, 2008
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She is still sitting on top of earmark money!
Palin Administration Still Pursuing ‘Nowhere’ Project - ProPublica
Sarah Palin (Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has portrayed herself as a foe of pork-barrel spending, pointing in particular to her role in killing the $398 million "Bridge to Nowhere between Ketchikan (pop. 7,400) and its airport on Gravina Island (pop. 50). I "told the Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,'" she said in her speech accepting the Republican vice presidential nomination. "If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves."
But Gov. Palins administration acknowledges that it is still pursuing a project that would link Ketchikan to its airport -- with the help of as much as $73 million in federal funds earmarked by Congress for the original project.
"What the media isn't reporting is that the project isn't dead," Roger Wetherell, spokesman for Alaskas Department of Transportation, said. In a process begun this past winter, the states DOT is currently considering (PDF) a number of alternative solutions (five other possible bridges or three different ferry routes) to link Ketchikan and Gravina Island.
The DOT has not yet developed cost estimates for those proposals, Wetherell said, but $73 million of the approximately $223 million Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) earmarked for the bridge in 2005 has been set aside for the Gravina Access Project.
In an interview that aired Friday night, ABCs Charles Gibson challenged Palin about the fact that shed initially supported the Bridge to Nowhere during her 2006 run for governor. I was for infrastructure being built in the state, she said, but repeated her line that Alaska would find a way to build [the bridge] ourselves.
Palin Administration Still Pursuing ‘Nowhere’ Project - ProPublica
Sarah Palin (Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has portrayed herself as a foe of pork-barrel spending, pointing in particular to her role in killing the $398 million "Bridge to Nowhere between Ketchikan (pop. 7,400) and its airport on Gravina Island (pop. 50). I "told the Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks,'" she said in her speech accepting the Republican vice presidential nomination. "If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves."
But Gov. Palins administration acknowledges that it is still pursuing a project that would link Ketchikan to its airport -- with the help of as much as $73 million in federal funds earmarked by Congress for the original project.
"What the media isn't reporting is that the project isn't dead," Roger Wetherell, spokesman for Alaskas Department of Transportation, said. In a process begun this past winter, the states DOT is currently considering (PDF) a number of alternative solutions (five other possible bridges or three different ferry routes) to link Ketchikan and Gravina Island.
The DOT has not yet developed cost estimates for those proposals, Wetherell said, but $73 million of the approximately $223 million Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) earmarked for the bridge in 2005 has been set aside for the Gravina Access Project.
In an interview that aired Friday night, ABCs Charles Gibson challenged Palin about the fact that shed initially supported the Bridge to Nowhere during her 2006 run for governor. I was for infrastructure being built in the state, she said, but repeated her line that Alaska would find a way to build [the bridge] ourselves.
