Rep. Mary Sattler Peltola has submitted Fiscal Year 2025 “Community Project Funding” requests for Alaska, with a list totaling $60.2 million in projects.
Most of the spending she wants would be for coastal communities, and most of the funding proposed is for rural Alaska.
The Senate refers to the funding as “Congressionally Directed Spending.” Others call them “earmarks.” Others know this spending as “pork.”
Earmarks were widely used when Congressman Don Young was in office, but were ended in 2011. In 2021, Democrats ended the decade-long earmark moratorium, against the wishes of many House Republicans.
These pork projects are still just appropriation requests and Peltola, still a newcomer in Congress, does not sit on the House Appropriations Committee and has little power in the House.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski is on the Senate Appropriations Committee as its third most senior Republican. She is the one who will have the most say on these projects, and she is a strong ally of Peltola, endorsing her in 2022. Sen. Dan Sullivan does not do earmarks.
The federal 2025 fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
Here’s the list of projects Peltola will be fighting for in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives:
| Title | Region | Description | Requested $ |
| In-season Genetic Analysis of Chum Salmon Bycatch | Unalaska | To operate a high-throughput, state-of-the-art genetics laboratory in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor, Alaska, to characterize the stock of origin of chum salmon captured in the inshore B-season pollock fishery. The information it provides will be used by industry to better avoid salmon bound for Alaska rivers while still achieving large benefits from the pollock fishery. | $5,000,000 |
| Gary Paxton Industrial Park Marine Haul Out Facility | Sitka | To construct a marine haul-out facility at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park (GPIP) located in Sitka, Alaska. This project is necessary to (1) continue to allow for local vessel haul-out options that have been historically provided in the community, (2) reduce safety risks, costs, and emissions for vessels having to travel to other severely backlogged regional shipyards, and (3) retain and grow local marine service sector jobs. | $5,777,493 |
| Seward Marine Industrial Center Waterfront | Seward | Funding for a 20-acre land expansion for future leases by companies performing marine work; shipyard fill and regrade; energy utility lines; public restroom construction and security fencing and cameras. | $3,700,000 |
| Acquisition of Facilities, Including Housing, Necessary to Establish Alaska State Trooper Posts in Rural Alaska | Statewide | New housing for the Alaska Department of Public Safety (DPS) in new and established remote post locations for troopers and Village Public Safety Officers (VPSOs) is being developed due to the increased need for a public safety presence in rural areas to serve high-poverty communities in Alaska. This will decrease response time that currently involves utilizing aircraft, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, and small boats. | $3,300,000 |
| Port MacKenzie Port Infrastructure Development Program | Mat-Su | Purchase of equipment and infrastructure to increase Port MacKenzie’s tonnage and vessel throughput by more than 200%, with a goal of reaching an increase over the current baseline of 300%. This will make the port capable of supporting the establishment of a central critical mineral processing facility that will create the demand signal needed to increase critical mineral production from across Alaska. | $5,000,000 |
| Multipurpose Emergency Shelter Building and Command Center | Kotzebue | To construct an emergency shelter for local community members and neighboring communities when natural disasters require evacuations. The school is currently used as the emergency shelter, which disrupts education | $12,000,000 |
| Cyril George Indigenous Knowledge Center | Juneau | Renovating a portion of the Egan Library at the Cyril George Indigenous Knowledge Center to bring together materials about Alaska Native culture, technology, literature, and art while also supporting Alaska Native language preservation and revitalization. | $1,592,000 |
| One Alaska: Removing and Sustainably Converting Ocean Plastics and Community Waste Plastics to Concrete Aggregate | Gulf of Alaska | To collect and remove toxic coastal plastic debris, coastal village, and urban community plastic debris, and convert it to concrete aggregate, better rehabilitating coastal habitat, removing toxic debris from Native villages, protecting critical subsistence resources, and relieving Alaska landfill facilities all while producing a product needed in the Alaska construction industry. | $7,236,498 |
| Homer Harbor Critical Float Replacement | Homer | Completes design and permitting to bring the Homer Harbor Float System 1 & 4 Replacement Project to construction-ready status. | $1,543,500 |
| Establishing a Network of Alaska Seafood Distribution Hubs | Western AK | To purchase mobile shipping containers where salmon can be frozen whole for distribution or custom-processed for regional markets. Custom processing will support operating costs, creating a sustainable system to uphold culture, address needs, and increase food security. | $565,400 |
| Deploying Imaging Flow Cytobots for the Detection of Harmful Algal Blooms in Coastal Alaska | Statewide | To purchase equipment that automatically and continuously monitors phytoplankton (microscopic marine algae) and detects any harmful algal bloom (HAB) species, which create toxins that are taken up into the marine food web, putting shellfish, fish, birds, marine mammals, and humans at risk. | $310,000 |
| Districtwide HVAC Controls Replacement Project | Northwest Arctic Borough School District | To replace malfunctioning automatic building controls in eight of 12 schools in the Northwest Arctic Borough School District. Current HVAC systems are manually operated due to control failures, resulting in inconsistent temperatures, inadequate ventilation, and increased energy costs. These issues affect 65% of the district’s students, mainly Alaskan Natives. | $9,800,000 |
| Bering Straits Workforce Development & Training Facility | Nome | To construct a 7,000-square-foot combination equipment maintenance and workforce development and training facility in Nome, providing a hands-on training space for jobs in construction, Commercial Driver License, mechanic, and heavy equipment operator fields, building a workforce to fulfill job opportunities created by the Port of Nome Expansion and the Graphite One Project. | $1,750,000 |
| Minto Teacher Housing Duplex Renovation & Addition | Yukon Koyukuk School District | To construct teacher housing in Minto and to renovate and expand an existing duplex on campus, which has been unusable due to mold and age-related decline. Currently, some educators cannot accept positions due to the lack of housing. | $2,075,000 |
| Whittier, AK Community Housing Asbestos Abatement & Removal | Whittier | For urgent ventilation and plumbing updates needed for Begich Towers, which houses a majority of Whittier residents. | $550,000 |
| Total: | $60,199,891 | ||
