Senators detail additional federal funding

ANCHORAGE — Alaska’s delegation in the United States Senate joined Gov. Mike Dunleavy on his daily COVID-19 press conference on April 27 to discuss additional federal funds made available through Congress’ second CARES act. Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski detailed the $310 billion package in the second round of funding provided by the Federal government.

“We’re battling this pandemic on many fronts and I think last week we had some decent progress in a couple of key areas that matter for our state,” said Sullivan.

Sullivan reviewed the initial process of the Paycheck Protection Program that reopened on April 27 with an infusion of $3 billion and noted how nearly 5,000 Alaskan small businesses received nearly $1 billion in funds during the first round of distribution.

Sullivan said he has been in nearly constant discussions with members of his Senatorial delegation, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence where he illustrated the difficulty for Alaskan fishermen in applying for loans.

During the slower spring months when the loans were originally calculated, small tourism businesses and fishermen were not employing as many people.

“For our seasonal small businesses, when they hire most of their workers in the summer, that formula wasn’t really working. As a matter of fact we were arguing it was unfair to a lot of Alaskan small businesses who really have their employment surge and their economic activity surge in the summer,” said Sullivan. “That is a much bigger loan that they can use to then cushion themselves through the challenging times that we’re going to have during our summer tourist season.”

Murkowski recalled how the original disbursement of Paycheck Protection Program funds took only two weeks before monies had been expended. Murkowski said that similarly to the original CARES act, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan received an influx of $60 billion that will leverage an additional $350 billion in loans.

“The need to replenish quickly was important and we now have as [Senator Sullivan] has mentioned an additional $310 billion into that account,” said Murkowski.

Murkowski said that additional funds were granted to airports who will not see as many travelers in 2020 due to the travel restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Murkowski noted that people have become frustrated with errors attempting to file for loans, but stressed that Alaskans should not give up because residents in the Lower 48 are also affected by the high demand of loan applications.

“It is important to note that many of these funding opportunities that Alaskans had been looking anxiously to and then were very disappointed when the funds ran dry, know that as of today you have an opportunity to either get back in the queue or to submit your application,” said Murkowski.