HOMER -- Eyes all aglow, officials of various public and nonprofit agencies on the Kenai Peninsula are watching Congress with seasonal anticipation, contemplating a federal budget bill with millions of dollars for local projects placed there by U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.

Among the goodies: $5 million to revive the dormant Funny River bridge project across the Kenai River, $600,000 to subsidize operations of Kenai's Challenger Learning Center and $10 million for research at Seward's Alaska SeaLife Center.

The money sits in the draft budget that was released this week and awaits final action. The House is expected to take up the giant omnibus spending bill later this month, but the Senate may not act until January.

Money earmarked for the new Kenai River bridge, between Sterling on the north side and the isolated Funny River area on the south, would reopen a debate that sidetracked the project five years ago.

In 1998, a federal environmental impact statement concluded more land-use controls would have to be adopted by the Kenai Peninsula Borough, because the bridge was likely to set off a building boom in a relatively unpopulated stretch of river. Concerns for Kenai River habitat and diminished brown bear populations were discussed.

Since then, the Funny River bridge has not appeared on the state's annual listing of transportation priorities. Without a high ranking on that list, a project won't be in line for federal funds -- unless an appropriation is specially earmarked by Congress.

The omnibus bill has a $5 million earmarked line for the new bridge -- oddly enough, in a funding category for "replacement and rehabilitation of bridges," according to Stevens' office. The budget request was moved to that category by the House-Senate conference committee, Stevens' office said.

Cost of the bridge is estimated at more than $10 million. Tentative plans show the bridge crossing the Kenai River at the east end of Scout Lake Loop Road in Sterling.

There's some mystery attending the appearance of the money in the federal budget.

The state didn't ask for it.

Still, "it does fast-track things," said Mike Scott, central region director for the state Department of Transportation. "If there's an earmark, we'll move on it. This might move the conversation along."

Stevens' office said the bridge money was requested by the Kenai Peninsula Borough. But Borough Mayor Dale Bagley said the borough made no unusual lobbying effort other than to include the project in a wish list sent to Congress every year. Bagley, a supporter of the project, called the funds a "pleasant surprise."

Warren Hoflich, a property owner in the Funny River area, said residents sent letters to Stevens every year, but he knew of no other special lobbying. The area has more than 1,000 inhabitants, who must drive 17 miles along the south side of the Kenai River to reach Soldotna. The road to Soldotna was paved recently to ease transportation problems.

Advocates say a bridge would mean better fire, school and shopping access, disperse recreational use of the Kenai River and provide an escape alternative in case of a forest fire. But some residents say they prefer keeping their area rural and quiet.

The project stalled after the federal environmental study cited concerns about the lack of borough land-use planning, said John Lohrey, an engineer with the Federal Highway Administration.

Bagley bristles at that, saying the agencies were out of line.

The omnibus federal budget also promises a Christmas miracle to keep alive the space education program at Kenai's Challenger center.

With program revenues since its 2000 opening falling far short of expectations, the center made an unsuccessful bid this year for taxpayer support through the Kenai Peninsula Borough.

The $7 million center was built mostly with federal funds and is named the Ted and Catherine Stevens Center for Science and Technology Education.

The $600,000 in the new budget would fill the revenue gap over the next three years, giving the center time to develop its new business plan, said its new director, Sharon Gherman. She called it "bridge funding."

The Challenger center costs about $600,000 a year to operate, Gherman said. With revenues from school groups and corporate donations, the shortfall is around $200,000 a year, she said. She said the center plans to become self-supporting through greater use, facility rentals and use of the space-education program by corporations for teamwork-training sessions.

Other funds in the federal budget bill for the Kenai Peninsula include $2 million for the state to purchase or improve habitat along the Kenai River and $4 million to continue building a University of Alaska laboratory at Kasitsna Bay near Seldovia.

The federal government has already spent more than $8 million on the marine lab, said Ray Highsmith, the marine biology professor based in Fairbanks who directs the facility. The additional $4 million would be for a dormitory building, cabins and a classroom for researchers and students who use the remote facility.

The Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward stands to receive more of the big federal grants that have transformed the facility into a major research center. Designed and presented as a tourist facility whose revenues would support research, the SeaLife Center has been the opposite, with North Pacific research funds from Stevens helping keep the aquarium open.

The center is looking at a budget of around $12.5 million each year in the next few years, director Tylan Schrock said. About $2.5 million comes from visitors and fund-raising, he said. The rest is federal research money.

In addition to funding research for marine birds and animals, the budget includes $1 million to take in and rehabilitate stranded marine mammals. That always was part of the SeaLife Center's stated mission, Schrock said. But the effort -- a popular one with the public -- originally was handled out of other funds, without a special appropriation.