exact amounts have depended on the prevailing price of petroleum. As a result, state revenues doubled to $10 billion in 2008. Despite this, for the 2009 state budget, Palin gave a list of 31 proposed federal earmarks or requests for funding, totaling $197 million, to Alaska's senior U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. This was a major decrease from earlier years. Palin has said that her decreasing support for federal funding was a source of friction between her and the state's congressional delegation; Palin requested less in federal funding each year than her predecessor Frank Murkowski requested in his last year. Bridge to Nowhere In 2002, it was proposed that a for-profit prison corporation, Cornell Corrections, build a prison on the island. To connect the island with Ketchikan, it was originally planned that the federal government spend $175 million on building a bridge to the island and another $75 million to connect it to the power grid with an electrical intertie. The Ketchikan Borough Assembly turned the proposal down when the administration of Governor Tony Knowles also expressed its disfavor to the idea. Eventually, the corporation's prison plans led to the exposure of the wide-ranging Alaska political corruption probe, which eventually ensnared U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. The bridge idea persisted through the administration of former U.S. Senator and then-governor Frank Murkowski. The 2005 Highway Bill provided for $223m to build the Gravina Island Bridge between Gravina Island and nearby Ketchikan, on Revillagigedo Island. The provisions and earmarks were negotiated by Alaska's Rep. Don Young, who chaired the House Transportation Committee, and were supported by the Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Alaska's Senator Stevens. This bridge, nicknamed "The Bridge to Nowhere" by critics, was intended to replace the auto ferry, which is currently the only connection between Ketchikan and its airport. While the federal earmark was withdrawn after meeting opposition from Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, the state of Alaska still received $300 million in transportation funding, with which the state of Alaska continued to study improvements in access to the airport, which could conceivably include improvements to the ferry service. In 2006, Palin had run for governor with a "build-the-bridge" plank in her platform, saying she would "not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project ... into something that's so negative." Palin criticized the use of the word "nowhere" as insulting to local residents and urged speedy work on building the infrastructure