Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Millions earmarked for state radio system

From: NEXTEL-1
Date: Sun, 04 Jul 2004 14:23:23 -0400

Article Published: Saturday, June 26, 2004
Millions earmarked for state radio system

By SAM BISHOP News-Miner Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON--The U.S. Senate's annual defense spending bill proposes to
put almost $30 million into a seamless radio system for federal, state
and local agencies in Alaska.

Detailed dollar figures for the bill emerged Friday with release of a
report explaining senators' intentions for the $416.2 billion they hope
to spend on defense nationwide in the 2005 fiscal year. The Senate
passed the bill Thursday night, 98-0.
The Alaska Land Mobile Radio system could receive a total of $29.6
million, according to three line-items in the report.
"This project helps correct shortfalls in communications
interoperability between federal, state and municipal agencies for
mutual aid, disaster response, crisis management and day-to-day
operations," according to a news release from Sen. Ted Stevens,
R-Alaska.

Stevens, chairman of the
Senate Appropriations
Committee, has been
directing money to the
radio system for the past
few years, but the bill
passed Thursday would
nearly double previous
annual spending.

Spending on the
ground-based midcourse
segment of the national
missile defense system
once again dominates the
proposed new defense
expenditures for Alaska.
The midcourse segment's
main interceptor base is
being built at Fort Greely.

The Senate proposed to
add $163.5 million to the
midcourse segment of the
system, compared to the
Bush administration's budget.

Of that increase, $100 million would go to "GMD enhancements," but those
aren't explained in the report or the bill.
Another $22 million would pay for more improvements to the Allen Army
Airfield at Fort Greely. Congress has already provided $45 million to
strengthen the runway so interceptor rockets can be landed there.
The total also includes $2.5 million for a power plant feasibility study
at Fort Greely.

Much of the remaining midcourse money--$25 million--would go to upgrades
at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, the northernmost
Hawaiian island.

The $163.5 million added to the midcourse system didn't increase the
overall spending because the Senate also cut more than $200 million from
an interceptor being developed for another facet of the program.

One other unusual Alaska earmark in the Senate bill would provide the
Air Force with $2.5 million to buy a 160-acre Alaska Native allotment
owned by a family with the last name of Adams at Oliktok Point on the
Beaufort Sea coast. The Air Force built a Distant Early Warning line
facility on the point in the 1950s, according to Courtney Schikora,
spokeswoman for Stevens.
"The Air Force used the land essentially as a dump site all the way up
into the '70s," Schikora said.

In 2002, the Air Force surveyed the site and concluded it would cost
$8.5 million to restore the allotment to its original condition,
Schikora said.

"The Adams family offered to sell the allotment to the federal
government for $2.5 million, therefore releasing the U.S. from all
claims resulting from the Air Force's trespass," Schikora said. "That's
what this line-item does."
The bill says the money is compensation for the "unauthorized use and
contamination" of the allotment.
Other Alaska items specified in the bill and report include:

* $15.1 million in two line-items for communications and safety
improvements at the state-owned rocket launch facility on Kodiak Island.
Schikora said the money would connect the site to a fiber-optic network.

* $10 million each for utilidor upgrades on Fort Wainwright and Eielson
Air Force Base.

* $10 million for research into the performance of hybrid electric
vehicles at the Army's Cold Regions Test Center at Fort Greely.

* $2.5 million for the Alaska Federal Health Care Telemedicine Network.

A House-Senate conference committee, on which Stevens will sit, must
still write a final version of the bill to be presented for a final vote
in each body before it can go to the president for a signature.
Washington, D.C., reporter Sam Bishop can be
reached at (202) 662-8721 or
[email-masked]
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~2237042,00.html

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