Sarah Palin has repeatedly made the (false) claim that she “told Congress ‘Thanks, but no thanks’ on the bridge to nowhere.” Actually, when Palin campaigned for governor in 2006, part of her platform included supporting the bridge, even though by then it had already become a controversial symbol of federal pork. She didn’t change course on the bridge until September 2007, almost a year after she was elected, when it became clear that Congress would not allow the earmarked money to be spent on the original bridge project. But on Monday, ProPublica’s Paul Kiel reported that the Palin administration is still pushing for a bridge between the city of Ketchikan, Alaska and its international airport on nearby Gravina island:
Gov. Palin’s 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 Alaska’s Department of Transportation, said. In a process begun this past winter, the state’s 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.
ProPublica has more, including an Alaska Department of Transportation map of all the “different” bridges the Palin administration is considering building.
