WASHINGTON — Snow-covered Alaska is a long way from the deserts of Iraq, but that doesn't worry Janet Reiser, the president of an Anchorage-based company planning to help rebuild the war-torn country.
Because of the efforts of Sen. Ted Stevens, Alaska Native-owned businesses like Reiser's are allowed to receive government contracts of unlimited size without going through the normal bidding process. Pentagon officials are turning to them to speed up the rebuilding of Iraq.
"If you exchange snow for sand, work in Iraq is similar to the work we've done in Alaska," said Reiser, whose Nana Pacific engineering company is in the final stages of negotiating a multimillion-dollar contract that will be awarded without competitive bidding. "We know how to do logistics in remote areas."
Over the years, Stevens, the Alaska Republican who is the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has made sure that Nana Pacific and other small businesses owned by Alaska Native corporations and Native Americans enjoy special benefits in government contracting.
Their unique ability to land government contracts of any size, free of the bidding process -- which no other minority- or women-owned small businesses enjoy -- was a largely unknown part of contracting law until last fall, when Congress passed an $18.6-billion aid package earmarked for Iraqi reconstruction that contained restrictions calling for full and open competition.
Stevens, however, made sure the final bill contained language to protect Alaska Native corporations' ability to win no-bid contracts under federal law, according to Republican and Democratic budget analysts familiar with the process.
At the same time, Alaska Native officials and their lobbyists frequented industry conferences, the Defense Department and Capitol Hill in an effort to drum up Iraq business.
Some Pentagon officials responded by pushing the Alaska Native corporations as a way to quickly get work accomplished without going through the bidding process, which can take months.
Although only a handful of Alaskan and small tribal businesses have sought contracts to date, Pentagon officials said they hoped the number would increase. So far, many contracting officers have been skeptical of the companies' abilities to win no-bid contracts.
