Sen. Ted Stevens has negotiated for the Air Force to buy a remote, 160-acre island of uninhabitable arctic tundra from the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. for more than $460,000. Stevens originally tried to get $2.5 million for the island by sneaking a provision into the Defense Appropriations Bill. That comes to about $2,800 per acre, despite the fact that a government appraiser valued the land at just $600 per acre. Stevens has a long history of procuring federal pork for Arctic Slope. In fact, Stevens created the special, native-owned company with a U.S. Senate bill several years ago. He has since continued to help it prosper with a series of contract preferences, no-bid contracts (including a $2 billion defense contract in 2002), and subsidies. It’s now the largest company in Alaska.
It’s probably just a coincidence that (a) Arctic Slope is the primary tennant, paying $6 million per year in rent, in a huge Anchorage office building built by a real estate company in which Stevens is a no-risk investor (meaning that for a small buy-in, he gets a share of the profits, but is indemnified from losses), and that (b) Arctic Slope pays Stevens’ brother-in-law $120,000 per year to lobby on appropriations and government contracts.
Pure coincidence, I’m sure.
Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough plans to ask the federal government for $10 million in federal grants to build a ski resort and “day lodge.”
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