Murkowski Ensures Alaska Receives Entire 2015 PILT Funds
Welcomes Additional Payments Essential to Alaska Communities
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today welcomed the announcement that Alaska municipalities will receive an additional $2.2 million from the Department of the Interior as compensation for federal lands within their jurisdictions. Today’s payment is in addition to the $26.2 million disbursed to Alaska communities in June 2015.
“PILT payments are essential to local communities with federal lands within their jurisdictions. In Alaska, over 60 percent of land in Alaska managed by the federal government,” said Murkowski. “Today’s announcement that communities throughout Alaska will receive the full amount of payments that was promised to them will ensure the continued operation of emergency services like fire-fighting, police protection, and search –and–rescue efforts.”
Murkowski, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, ensured today’s additional payments were included in her 2016 Interior Appropriations Bill. The full amount that Alaska received in 2015 for PILT payments is $28.4 million.
The Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program provides monetary compensation to local governments that contain National Forests, Bureau of Land Management public lands, National Parks and other lands dedicated to water resource development projects. The revenue helps local governments provide vital services, such as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads, and search-and-rescue operations.
