Alaska Native activist Etok Charlie Edwardsen, Jr. has died.
In the years leading up to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, Edwardsen testified before Congress on behalf of the Arctic Slope Native Association, saying that a land deal between Russia and the United States didn’t affect Iñupiaq ownership of their lands. He also led protests calling the land settlement “robbery.”
Edwardsen died in his sleep Friday night while at whaling camp. He was 71.
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday morning the FCC is ready to investigate how a company partly owned by Fairbanks-based Doyon won licenses to use the wireless spectrum while claiming it was entitled to billions of dollars in discounts. Critics say Doyon’s big corporate partner, Dish Network, is taking advantage of a program meant to help small businesses. Doyon says the program worked exactly as intended.
When the FCC wants to sell licenses to use the public airwaves it holds a spectrum auction. Spectrum is the real estate the wireless industry is built on. Dish Network, a big satellite TV company, did well at a spectrum auction that concluded early this year. Dish holds an 85 percent stake in two companies that placed the winning bids on many of the licenses sold at that auction.
Combined, the Dish-owned companies bid more than $13 billion. But the companies say they only have to pay $10 billion, because they qualify as small enterprises – or “designated entities” as they’re called in FCC rules — and thus entitled to a 25 percent discount.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai told a Senate panel it’s outrageous.
“What was once a well-intentioned program designed to help small businesses has become a playpen for corporate giants,” he said at a Senate Appropriation Subcommittee Hearing. “The FCC’s recent … spectrum auction is a shocking case in point.”
Commissioner Pai says the FCC should reform its “designated entity” program so this never happen again, and that the Commission should reject the discounts if it finds Dish didn’t comply with the rules.
“To be frank, I’m appalled that a corporate giant has attempted to use small business discounts to rip off American taxpayers to the tune of $3.3 billion,” he said.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told senators he agrees with Pai on this. Before the next auction he said he hopes to update the discount program.
“I was around when it was created in 1993,” Wheeler told the senators. “It has the right kind of philosophy, and it’s a mandate from the Congress that we need to make sure that there are opportunities created for small businesses. And the problem is that the world has changed a lot since then and our rules haven’t.”
Monday was the deadline for filing petitions objecting to the last auction. Seven objections are now pending against the two Dish-owned companies, SNR and Northstar Wireless. Now that the deadline has passed, the case is finally in the FCC’s hands, Wheeler said.
Northstar is 15 percent owned by Doyon Limited, the Alaska Native Corporation for the Interior region, and Doyon says it controls Northstar. Allen Todd, Doyon’s general counsel, says Northstar followed the rules. Todd also says the ownership percentage of Northstar is similar to that of past FCC bidders that received the “designated entity” discount.
“In Washington, occasionally success gets punished as much as doing something wrong and I suspect that the success in this case is what’s attracted a lot of attention,” he said.
Todd says there was no rip-off of the taxpayer at the auction. One of the goals of the designated entity program is to increase competition. Analysts had predicted the auction would attract no more than $20 billion in bids. Instead, it drew double that. The Doyon attorney says the “designated entities” helped bring in more bidders and more money.
“So we can certainly focus on $3.3 billion in bidding credits that were awarded,” Todd said in a telephone interview, “or we can focus on the U.S. Treasury, net of bidding credits, receiving an additional $23 billion in proceeds.”
The Senate Commerce Committee is also investigating the bid discounts.
Friday marked Victory in Europe Day, the 70thanniversary of World War II ending in Europe. In Washington, D.C. more than 50 vintage military aircraft flew over the national mall to the capitol.
In 15 formations, one every minute or so, came B-25 Mitchell bombers, P-47 Thunderbolts, even a B-29 Superfortress, believed to be the last of its breed still flying. On the capitol grounds, tourists mixed with Congressional staffers and school groups.
Donna Crum from Chicago said she was waiting for the B-17, to honor her father-in-law’s service.
“And so I’m shooting pictures to my husband to be able to show him on his phone,” she said. “And here they come!”
A deep rumble drew the crowd to its feet, every cell phone pointed skyward.
Overhead, in the second B-17, was Alaskan bush pilot Urban Rahoi, a homesteader, lodge owner and Fairbanks businessman. Rahoi answered his cell phone shortly after landing.
“Yeah, riding up in the front there, where the bombsight and all that is, so I could see better,” he said.
Rahoi flew the B-17, the Flying Fortress, in the war, and he flew one again a year ago. Flies just like a Supercub, he claims. He wanted to be at the controls for the Washington flyover, but he wasn’t allowed. Somebody imposed an age limit of 80. Rahoi is 96.
“I got a big kick out of it because I flew yesterday with them and the guy that flew it made a hell of a bad landing. Bounced pretty bad three times,” he said. “And the guy that flew it today he bounced and slammed it down pretty hard. They won’t let me fly it. I come in smooth.”
He laughed, but he wasn’t really joking. Rahoi says it was still a beautiful day.
“When we flew over the Capitol there by Reagan Airport up there, through all that towers and everything, you could see good,” he said. “There was lots of people on the ground. It was packed pretty heavy.”
Rahoi is planning to visit family while he’s in the Lower 48 but he can’t stay long. He’s planning a lot of dirt work this summer at his lodge near Tok and he has to start flying in his diesel.
The U.S. House today passed a military construction bill that includes $37 million for buildings at Eielson Air Force Base to support two squadrons of F-35s. They include an F-35 flight simulator and alterations to an operations and maintenance unit. A final basing decision for the F35 squadrons is expected next year.
Also included in the spending bill, according to Congressman Don Young, is $34 million to demolish and replace a boiler at Eielson’s heat and power plant. In addition, the bill has $7.8 million to improve the fitness center at Fort Greely, a building that Young’s office says dates to 1956. The bill next moves to the U.S. Senate.
