A Citizen’s Guide

The complaints about the agreement negotiated by Gov. Frank Murkowski for construction of a North Slope natural gas pipeline are many. This list is long enough that, with understandable reason, a number of Alaskans are wondering if there isn’t another group wanting to build the pipeline.

Negotiating an agreement with a group consisting of BP, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips was the right thing for the governor to do, however. The companies hold the gas and know the markets. The issue—and the source of festering uncertainty—is whether the governor should have embraced and worked with other proposals as well.

One of those other proposals comes from the voter-created Alaska Gasline Port Authority, which has recently begun an advertising campaign touting its own proposal and ridiculing the proposal by the oil companies. The port authority, of which the Fairbanks North Star Borough is a member, has no gas and is looking for a way to force the companies to provide it.

The fact that the port authority’s idea, which several consultants have found unworthy of support, is still lurking has become a distraction at this late stage of the pipeline debate. The governor and his aides, along with the oil companies, don’t like the port authority’s idea, which is to run a pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez and ship the gas in liquefied form to a yet-to-be-chosen receiving facility on the West Coast, likely in Canada or Mexico. The gas would then find its way into the Lower 48.

The governor and the oil company executives, backed up by some consultants, say the port authority’s idea flat out won’t work. The governor has put all his eggs in one barrel—that being the agreement he worked out with the oil companies—and told legislators, who will be asked later this year to ratify the agreement, that his is the only way. The agreement is the only agreement, at this point, that the Legislature will be asked to ratify.

And that, in the view of some, is the nut of what has become a potentially significant problem of perception.

The port authority’s plan has been able to crawl in from the fringe of the debate because it hasn’t had a full public review. It needs one, for the sake of the larger gas pipeline debate.

Had the port authority been subjected to a thorough legislative review on par with what the governor’s draft agreement is going through, perhaps the port authority’s plan would be dismantled in short order as unworkable. Until that happens, the port authority will act as a magnet, blindly attracting those hoping for an alternative to the governor’s plan.

The real damage from this failure to fully review the port authority’s plan in public is that, assuming the port authority’s idea truly is fatally flawed, its continued presence may unnecessarily hinder support for having the oil companies build and operate the line. Acknowledgment that the oil companies might be the best ones to build and operate the line doesn’t, however, equate with support for the agreement negotiated by the Murkowski administration. That review is still open.

A legislative committee—most likely the Senate Special Committee on Natural Gas Development—should have the task of vetting the port authority’s proposal. It should be given sufficient funds to conduct a thorough and impartial analysis. Sen. Ralph Seekins, chairman of that committee, made a similar statement on Thursday when he and other Interior legislators held a gathering at the Carlson Center to hear from the public about the governor’s gas line agreement. And a spokesman for the governor told the News-Miner last week that the governor would not object.

This request for a full legislative review doesn’t, however, mean the News-Miner endorses the port authority’s proposal. Far from it, in fact. Comments from consultants have cast substantial doubt on the port authority’s plan. What this request does mean is that Alaskans must be assured their state is taking the right course.

The port authority has been around for several years now, and it remains the only other gas line proposal with a real public presence. And while its project appears to have some shortcomings, it has served the overall gas pipeline debate well by keeping the issue in front of the public in the years prior to the arrival of the governor’s proposal. And, who knows, maybe the persistence of port authority leaders actually nudged the oil companies to the table—albeit to a table other than the one the port authority had set.

So let’s get on with a full review. If it proves the port authority plan to be unworkable, the public can move on. If the plan survives, however, the gas pipeline debate may be reshaped.

Whatever the potential outcome, Alaskans need to know more about the port authority’s plan and then quickly decide—should it stay or should it go?