Andrew Halcro's blog

Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Irwin is right when he says regarding Gov. Sarah Palin’s plan to bring about the North Slope natural gas pipeline, “Anyone else have an idea?” He adds, to emphasize the importance the administration places on its plan, that construction hasn’t yet started on the gas line despite the fact that the major oil companies have held leases to the North Slope’s gas for a few decades.

The cumulative effect of those points, however, is to suggest that the leaseholders — ConocoPhillips, BP and Exxon Mobil — could have brought that gas to market at any time during the long decades since those leases were signed. That simply isn’t accurate. The price of natural gas, by Mr. Irwin’s own statement while visiting Fairbanks on Thursday, only reached the tipping point somewhere in the early part of this decade to make the gas line, in the state’s view, profitable.

Those yummy, yummy sound bites. But just how healthy are they for you and exactly what's in them?

On the front page of yesterday's Anchorage Daily News was an article titled "Gas line bill squeezes lawmakers". Throughout the story there was a bounty of delicious sound bites served up.

It was a question that was whispered quietly during the first few weeks of AGIA testimony. During the last few weeks of AGIA testimony, the question has been raised publicly.

Where is the voice of Lt. Governor Sean Parnell?

 

Two wrongs don't make a right, nor can they build a gas pipeline.

Unfortunately, the state is headed in that direction. Such a move could cost Alaska another decade of lost time in its 40-year quest for a pipeline to turn North Slope natural gas into billions of dollars of tax and royalty revenues. Plus jobs. Plus new oil and gas exploration. Plus a tremendous new gas supply for Lower 48 consumers.

After two hours of talking strategy with Governor Sarah Palin's gas line team, we all left the meeting same way we arrived, from totally different directions. Suffice to say, reasonable people continue to disagree on AGIA.