Rep.Les Gara: "Pity the fool"

(2/10/09) Yesterday the Alaska State House of Representatives passed four different resolutions relating to the development of natural gas reserves in Alaska for in state gas use.

The resolutions sponsored by Fairbanks Representative Jay Ramras dealt with four areas of development including gas supply from the Gubik field, advocating for greater export capacity, promoting the re-starting of the Agrium Plant and working with the private sector to get a bullet line built.

I'm not a big fan of resolutions.

A resolution is simply a piece of paper that makes a legislative pronouncement that everyone already knows.   

Resolutions remind me of the final scene in Titanic, where Jack is on his last breath, floating in the icy cold water and he tells Rose he is going to send a stongly worded letter to the people at the White Star Line.

When I was in the legislature one year, I joked on the House floor that a resolution we were passing to send to Washington D.C. lawmakers supporting the opening ANWR would probably end up as a cocktail coaster for Ted Kennedy.

The fact is that resolutions are part of the legislative process and as such, will continue to be passed. However from yesterdays press coverage about the House floor actions, another useless legislative feature is also in no danger of becoming extinct; foolish lawmakers.

After the floor vote yesterday, Anchorage Democrat Les Gara told KTUU News:

"It was a good exercise today -- at least we all know that everybody wants a gas line," Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage, said. "But the question is whether we're going to do anything about it. Resolutions don't do anything about it.

"I hope people will roll up their sleeves and actually pass some real legislation this year that will move the project forward."

Move the project forward; how much of a fool can one lawmaker be?

Apparently for Gara, there is no limit.

So what has Gara done to help facilitate an environment where Alaska can attract the investment needed to build the largest oil & gas project in the world and supply in state gas?

In 2007, when ConocoPhillips submitted a natural gas pipeline proposal outside of the flawed AGIA process that Gara supported, he went on television and raged the proposal was "illegal," completely ignoring the fact that out of all of the proposals received under AGIA, not one bidder had the necessary components to build the pipeline, unlike ConocoPhillips.

Gara strongly supported the most expensive wild goose chase in state history by voting for AGIA and granting TransCanada $500 million. During legislative hearings last summer, Gara argued that Alaska needed an independent pipeline to protect us from Exxon, when TransCanada's CEO said immediately after the vote that they couldn't move forward until Exxon was happy.

Gara strongly supported doubling the oil & gas production tax rates above what Governor Palin had first proposed and then when it was all over complained about the whopping $1.5 billion tax hike. "In this building it's the best we could do," Gara told the Anchorage Daily News. 

Translation: If we only had more lawmakers who knew less about the economy than I do and more about killing the golden goose we could have taxed these guys right out of Alaska.

Gara has been the most anti-development lawmaker in Juneau, so for him to say that he hopes "people will roll up their sleeves and actually pass some real legislation that will move the project forward," is plain pitiful.

Pity the fool.