Alaskans are set to pick a new governor in a little less than a month, and the race has big implications for the state's industrial development corporation.
As the name suggests, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, aims to spur industrial development in Alaska. In recent years, it has authorized spending millions of dollars on some controversial projects, including Arctic oil exploration and two different mining access roads.
The AIDEA board is appointed by the governor, so Anchorage Press reporter Max Graham reached out to the four candidates for governor in this year's general election. And Graham says, depending on who wins Alaska's top job, there could be big changes coming to the state-owned corporation.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Max Graham: AIDEA has its hands in several different big projects around the state, and just within the past year, the board has approved a lot of spending, but hasn't necessarily spent it yet.
Casey Grove: I do want to ask you about whether AIDEA has actually made money for the state, which is a separate question. But first, if you could just remind me, what are a couple of the big projects that that AIDEA is involved in, that they've at least been authorized to spend money on, that have been in headlines in the last couple years?
MG: Yeah, so in my article, I focus on three. One is oil leasing and exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. One is the Ambler Road, which is a 200-mile proposed haul road that would connect a mining district in Northwest Alaska to the road system. And the other is another mining road closer to Anchorage (the West Susitna Access Project) that would connect a different remote mining district to the road system. And, yeah, within the past year, AIDEA has authorized tens of millions to the mining roads and about $175 million for oil exploration on its leases in the Arctic.
CG: And as you you wrote in your story, the big question right now, this election season ... is what's going to happen to AIDEA with whatever different governor we might get. And so I want to talk about the difference of opinions that the candidates have. And I think probably the obvious place to start after reading your story is Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, the Democrat in that race, the only Democrat in the governor's race right now. What did he tell you, and what sense did you getvin your reporting of what he might do differently with AIDEA?
MG: Yeah, that was the big question for me. What's JKT going to do? He's the one Democrat. I haven't heard him speak at length about AIDEA or any of these three big projects that I just mentioned that AIDEA is involved in.
So he signaled that he, I mean, he said he wants to completely reassess everything AIDEA is looking at. He really signaled that he would take things, at least with board appointments, in a different direction from the current administration. He stopped short of specifics. He wouldn't comment on specifically how much AIDEA has authorized spending, like on oil leasing and exploration in the Arctic, and whether he would hope that that continues or not.
He wouldn't take a position on the Ambler Road or the West Susitna Access Project, which are two of those mining road proposals that AIDEA is (involved in). So, generally, he suggested that he would reassess things and move in a different direction. But, yeah, I couldn't get him to comment on specifics about AIDEA's role on those projects.
CG: I got a sense from reading your story that it sounded like he he would make significant changes to the board of AIDEA, right?
MG: Yeah, again, he sort of hedged and said he would explore all his options, but he didn't rule out pretty much completely overhauling the board or doing what was in his power to do that.
It's pretty typical, as far as I'm aware, for the boards of those state corporations like AIDEA to to turn over with a new administration, so it wouldn't be all that surprising if that happened with him. But yeah, he did indicate that he would take things in a pretty different direction.
CG: And so in this ranked choice voting world that we live in, there are three other candidates. There's four total. We talked about JKT. What about the other three? They're all Republicans, right? What did they tell you?
MG: Yeah, so two of them, Bernadette Wilson and Treg Taylor, didn't get back to me, and I didn't interview them. So I was just going off what they've generally said about resource development and some of what other folks who are watching the election think they do.
I did talk to Dave Bronson, the former Anchorage mayor, also a Republican, and he was more supportive than Kreiss-Tomkins, you know, of the current AIDEA. He said he thinks they've done a good job under this administration. He said, if anything, he would want them to be a bit more aggressive with resource development, and just said his philosophy is to to get things done, and that he would want to make sure that he's looking at all of their investments and spending decisions from a purely economic business perspective, you know, considering return on investment, that kind of thing. And that he would want them to to move ahead with any decisions that he thinks would be profitable for the state.
CG: You were able to include some analysis of of AIDEA's ability to generate a profit for the state, and what did you find there? You know, versus how much money they're spending.
MG: Yeah, I'd say it's hotly disputed. Critics of AIDEA — there's a study that Salmon State, the conservation group — released a few years ago by two economists that the takeaway there was that ADA has cost Alaskans $10 billion over four decades. And it's not just that it's lost $10 billion, but the analysis was that if that money had been invested elsewhere, Alaskans would have gotten a better return, and it would have generated a lot more than they've generated through AIDEA's investments.
AIDEA thinks that report was not great or accurate, and supporters of AIDEA say that the corporation has been generating profits and each year provides a dividend to the state. You know, that's $10 (million), $20 million that goes back into the main operating fund. Supporters say we need AIDEA to spur business and economic development, and that brings jobs, and there's other indirect benefits, also, that the critical reports don't take into account. Although the critics also say they do take those things into account.
CG: Well, other than what AIDEA is investing money in and projects that it's pursuing, there has been a question of oversight, right? And my understanding is, the current situation is, the governor has most of the oversight. That's who appoints board members. But what other questions, I guess, around oversight of AIDEA have there been recently?
MG: Yeah, the Legislature's taken this issue up at various points over the past few years, including when JKT was in the Legislature as a member of the House. And there have been bills introduced that would try to increase legislative oversight over AIDEA by doing things like requiring legislative confirmation of board appointees or legislative approval of AIDEA spending above a certain amount.
Those bills have not gotten very far. And I talked to some supporters of them in the Legislature, and they said one big reason for that is that there just was a sense that the governor would veto them really quickly and that there were other things that maybe had a better shot.
And so I do think that if JKT is governor, those might have a have a better chance of advancing. I mean, I think there's still a question of whether there'd be enough support across the Legislature, but I do think having a governor who's interested in those reforms could change their chances.
