Anchorage Daily News

The Palin administration, citing a need to improve the state's credibility, plans to ask Alaska's congressional delegation for far fewer earmarks in the coming year.

"We really want to skinny it down," said Karen Rehfeld, Gov. Sarah Palin's budget chief.

Rehfeld recently wrote a memo to all state commissioners telling them that to "enhance the state's credibility," federal earmark requests for money should be only for the most compelling needs.

They should have a strong national purpose, Rehfeld told the commissioners, not just to fill funding gaps in the state's budget.

Rehfeld said in an interview that the state has to be sensitive to a national perception that Alaska has a lot of money and shouldn't always be asking for so much from the federal treasury.

"I think anyone who travels outside of Alaska ... typically there is always a comment about something to do with a bridge or the Permanent Fund dividend," Rehfeld said.

Members of Congress insert earmarks into national spending bills to direct money to specific projects and programs. Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has particularly been a master of the process, using it to direct billions of dollars home. Alaska-specific earmarks Stevens is most proud of include the Denali Commission to improve the infrastructure in rural Alaska, the Medallion program for virtual pilot training on two of the state's most dangerous mountain passes, and earmarks for telemedicine and fighting fetal alcohol syndrome.

But there's been a backlash against earmarks, with criticism that they lack public scrutiny and demands in Congress to cut back on them. National press and watchdog groups have especially singled out Alaska, with the highest per-capita federal spending in the nation, in charging that earmarks are abused.

A favorite target is the so-called "bridges to nowhere" for Ketchikan and Knik Arm, inserted by Alaska Rep. Don Young into the five-year transportation bill in 2005. Congress later stripped the earmarks directing that spending, but let Alaska keep the money to use on the bridges if it wanted. Palin, to the delight of budget watchdog groups, earlier this year abandoned the Ketchikan bridge and said the bridge money would be spent elsewhere.

Palin has said Alaska needs to change its national image, change that includes trying to become less dependent on the federal government.

EARMARKS NOT DEAD

Aaron Saunders, spokesman for Stevens, said Stevens is also concerned that too many Alaska projects are funded only through federal dollars. It's easier to find support in Congress if the state is also putting money in, he said.

"The senator is obviously encouraged the state has heard his message," Saunders said. "The state needs to step up and become more of a partner."

Asked about the credibility issue, Saunders said the anti-earmark political environment is affecting states across the board and Alaska has not been singled out.

In fact, the defense spending bill that Stevens helped get through the Senate this year includes more than $183 million in earmarked projects for Alaska, with most of the spending going for projects on the state's military bases.

The Washington, D.C., budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense found in a recent analysis that Stevens still ranks second in Congress in the amount of earmarks. That's despite the fact Stevens is no longer in the majority party.

But most of the appropriations bills are still pending in Congress, and state budget director Rehfeld said she's watching closely what happens with earmarks.

GO FOR GRANTS

The state government is far from the only source of Alaska earmark ideas. And Rehfeld isn't saying the Palin administration shouldn't request any earmarks at all. But she said the signs are that the environment in Congress is changing.

"Just asking for them and they will come, I think, is a thing of the past," she said.

Rehfeld said she believes the state government annually made more than 100 earmark requests of the congressional delegation in previous years. She said the request for this year, the first under Palin, was for more than 50 earmarks.

Her goal in the coming year is to ask the delegation for no more than a dozen or so, excluding recurring ones the state gets every year for things like the National Guard and salmon sustainability work. Rehfeld said there aren't many of those.

The state's federal earmark requests for the current year range from $71 million for rural Alaska sanitation to $315,000 for evaluating native plants and producing them for agriculture.

Rehfeld said she hasn't identified specific projects she wants to stop. She said she wants state agencies to look at whether there are other ways to get the money, such as through competitive federal grants.

"This change will require agencies to re-examine the way business is done and to vigorously investigate funding opportunities not directly tied to the congressional appropriations process," Rehfeld wrote state commissioners.

Find Sean Cockerham online at adn.com/contact/scockerham or call him at 257-4344.