I Once Caught a Fish This Big
October 26, 2005
by: Graham McLaughlin

Wastewatcher, 5-Oct

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) just caught one of the biggest fish in history:  It cost $500,000, flies on the side of an airplane, and federal taxpayers were hooked as the bait. 

The federally-funded Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board (AFMB) recently gave Alaska Airlines $500,000 to paint a giant king salmon on one of its jets and to distribute fishing industry-themed bookmarks to passengers.  Like any good fish story, this one is told best with the heart-stopping details.  A typical plane costs approximately $50,000 and takes about a week to repaint.  The “Salmon-Thirty-Salmon,” as the airline calls it, took a team of 30 painters 24 days to finish and required more than 140 gallons of paint.  The plane is not the only fishy thing about the AFMB and its grants, as detailed by Liz Ruskin of Anchorage Daily News.

Sen. Stevens created the AFMB with a congressional earmark in 2003 to help revive the Alaskan fishing industry.  Since then, the Alaska delegation has cast 29 million federal dollars into the murky waters of the AFMB’s budget.  The group has not produced an annual report for public review, nor does it have an official website.  Its meetings are open to the public, though the dates and times are not advertised.  Even the location of the meetings is hard to pin down.  According to its bylaws, the principal office is in Juneau, but executive director Bill Hines has told reporters the main office is in Anchorage.  While Hines lives in Juneau, he is not inconvenienced because AFMB pays for him to have an apartment in Anchorage and covers his cell phone bill. 

Bill Hines is not the only benefactor of taxpayers’ forced generosity for the AFMB.  Each member of the board is given $500 per meeting.  Members include business partners Trevor McCabe (former aide to Ted Stevens) and state Sen. Ben Stevens (son of Ted Stevens).  The AFMB has received $29 million from federal taxpayers since 2003.  Although its complete expenses are not clear, the AFMB has given $12 million to salmon processors.  Half of that $12 million has gone to the four largest salmon firms in the state.  The allocation is the result of a “performance-based” system in which “the more (fish) you purchase, the more (grant money) you get,” Hines says.

Pointing to the cost of hurricane recovery and the unlikely chance of another federal appropriation in fiscal 2006, Bill Hines concedes that “We (the AFMB) have run our course.”  Flying fish are not necessary to keep the Alaskan salmon industry thriving.  Salmon producers can pool their own profits to market the industry if they so desire.  It is time for taxpayers and fiscally responsible members of Congress to put an end to this fish story.  But if history is any guide, the Alaska delegation is still bent on turning federal tax dollars into the “ones that got away.”