Rubini said there was no connection between Stevens' intervention on Elmendorf and Rubini's decision to move the senator into the Centerpoint deals.
"Clearly, a phone call from Sen. Stevens does not hurt," Rubini said, referring to the senator's contacts with the Air Force on his behalf.
"But there was no quid pro quo, plain and simple," he said.
Lifetime Annuity
Today, Centerpoint I is fully occupied as the new headquarters of the Arctic Slope Regional Corp., which is paying $6 million a year on a 20-year lease.
Arctic Slope is no ordinary tenant. A $1-billion-a-year business, it is the largest Alaskan-owned company in the state. More important, the company -- along with 12 other regional Native corporations -- was created through legislation the senator took the lead in drafting. And it has prospered through his continuing efforts in the Senate.
Arctic Slope and the other Native regional corporations were born in 1971 as part of a landmark bill called the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, hailed as a humanitarian alternative to the failures of traditional reservations.
Under the act, about 40 million acres and almost $1 billion in working capital went to Native corporations and to some 200 much smaller village bodies to settle their claims to land. They were to help their shareholders, the Native people living in their regions, by making investments, starting businesses and in other ways generating economic activity.
Many of the Native corporations have found it hard to fulfill their mission, but Arctic Slope, which represents Inupiat Eskimos on the oil-rich North Slope, gradually built a strong base providing support services to the giant oil companies at Prudhoe Bay.
And Stevens is now fighting to authorize oil extraction from the nearby Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where Arctic Slope owns petroleum rights to 92,000 acres.
Thanks to Stevens, Arctic Slope and the other Native corporations also enjoy preferences when seeking federal contracts that go well beyond anything available to blacks or Latinos, even though Arctic Slope ranks among the nation's 500 largest privately owned companies.
One set of preferences that Stevens inserted into his annual defense appropriations bills recently enabled Arctic Slope and another Native corporation to land a $2-billion Pentagon deal without competitive bidding.
Now money is flowing the other way -- to Stevens.
