A Citizen’s Guide

The Murkowski administration’s revisions to a proposed natural gas pipeline contract were due Wednesday, but state law requires several steps before the contract can be released. Since those weren’t done, the deadline passed without action.

The deadline fell the day after a primary election in which Gov. Frank Murkowski lost the Republican nomination, ending his hopes for a second term. He has just more than three months left in office.

Murkowski has said he will bring the Legislature back into its third special session on natural gas pipeline contract issues in September. He will need a much-revised contract to present at that time if he hopes to make any progress, according to several legislators.

Those revisions were officially due Wednesday. That’s because, under the state’s gas development act, the state revenue commissioner has 30 days from the end of public comment to give an amended contract to the governor.

The deadline appears to have a few escape holes, though, and at least one legislator said the commissioner could take his time.

“I’m personally supporting giving the commissioner additional time to adequately address and respond to public comments,” said Sen. Gene Therriault, R-North Pole. “I hope they don’t feel they have to rush and slap something before the Legislature.”

House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez, also expressed some flexibility.

“I don’t think there’s anybody going to throw out a contract if in fact it’s a few days late or whatever,” Harris said.

While the gas act sets a 30-day deadline for any changes after public comment ends, it also says the commissioner first must secure “the agreement of the other parties to the contract.” The other parties, in this case, are the three major North Slope petroleum producers with which the administration has negotiated.

Therriault said those negotiations aren’t done. “I don’t think they’re much further down the line with the companies agreeing among themselves,” he said.

Also, the commissioner must submit a final contract to the governor only if he “determines that the contract is in the long-term fiscal interests of the state.”

And, before giving the revisions to the governor, the commissioner must certify that they “meet the requirements and purposes” of the particular gas act chapter that governs the process.

With those conditions unmet, Commissioner of Revenue William Corbus on Wednesday declined to submit a revised contract to the governor.

“It just has been physically impossible to complete it within the time frame allowed,” Corbus said late Wednesday afternoon. “We feel it is too important of a submission to submit it when it is not properly completed.”

The deadline appears to be more advisory in nature anyway, he said.

“I guess, in looking at the statute, that we don’t interpret it to mean that the 30-day requirement is a mandatory requirement,” he said. “There is no penalty or consequence set forward in the statute for failure to meet the deadline. The Legislature wanted us to do the job right.”

Sen. Ralph Seekins, R-Fairbanks, said the deadline resulted in a political flap at the end of the last special session earlier this month. House Democrats first sought a 180-day mandatory delay in the administration’s findings and changes to put their release after the gubernatorial election. When the House Republican majority declined to pass that, the Democrats killed a Senate-passed extension of 120 days. That left the original law’s 30-day deadline intact.

Seekins said he had suggested the administration simply extend the public comment period if it was worried about the deadline. “I’d just reopen public comment until I’d done a good job of synthesizing what was there,” he said.

The three legislators contacted Wednesday all expressed qualified interest in another special session.

“They could put forth something that could be attractive,” Therriault said of the administration.

Seekins, chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Natural Development, said the administration would have to present a completed contract with all information about the limited liability corporation that would own the line.

“Otherwise it would be fruitless,” he said.

Harris said he has an open mind, but the utility of a special session depends on what the governor brings to it. Freezing long-term gas production tax rates won’t fly, he said.

“If we don’t have anything different,” he said, “then there isn’t any sense in us going.”

Corbus said the administration is working to develop a revised, fully negotiated contract.

“I cannot give you a time certain at this juncture,” he said. “It would have to be before the special session.”

Harris also noted that the governor’s office has suggested convening an unofficial, bipartisan working group to talk with the administration, producers and Alaska Gasline Port Authority, without having all 60 legislators meeting in special session.

“We haven’t said ‘yea’ or ‘nay,’” Harris said.

Staff writer Sam Bishop can be reached at 459-7504 or sbishop@newsminer.com.