A Citizen’s Guide

Editorial from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner:

By now it should be apparent to most everyone that there should not be a third special session this year to continue work on Gov. Frank Murkowski’s natural gas pipeline agreement with Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and BP. Time is short as it is, and many legislators have their re-election campaigns to run.

Anyone who had held on to the slim hope that there could be further legislative work on the gas agreement before the governor leaves office in December need only read about Thursday’s FBI raid on legislative offices to know that the end of the gas agreement is at hand for this year. The FBI probe into the legislative relations of oil field services company VECO, an industry powerhouse and political heavyweight, means there is little chance the public would have trust in a gas contract concluded at this time.

Additional news on Friday only worsened the situation. The Associated Press, which obtained a copy of a search warrant, said the federal agents were looking for items “from the period of October 2005 to the present, any and all documents concerning, reflecting or relating to proposed legislation in the state of Alaska involving either the creation of a natural gas pipeline or the petroleum production tax.”

And let’s not even begin to talk about the reported existence in the capital of items bearing a tasteless name of some make-believe club or caucus of corrupt officials. The FBI, apparently not amused, was looking for those, too, as part of its inquiry.

Alaskans have no choice but to sigh, monitor the federal investigation, hunker down for the general election campaign, and see what the candidates for governor and the various seats in the Legislature have to offer.

There is no way the Legislature can or should—or even want to—continue work on Gov. Murkowski’s natural gas pipeline agreement this year.

The agreement needs to go up on the shelf, though just until a new team arrives in the capital. Then it must be brought down and placed at the top of the “to do” list.

Seeing the process come to an end for the year isn’t a failing of the Legislature as a whole, however. Many legislators took time to try to understand the proposed gas line agreement, but the clock quite simply ran out on their methodical and thorough vetting of not only the governor’s proposal but of a leading alternative. Legislative work on the gas contract needs to evolve at its own sometimes cumbersome pace; trying to compress that work into the artificial confines of an election calendar won’t work. And that’s what was being attempted.

Alaskans who want to see a natural gas pipeline built—and there’s not much opposition to the general idea of a gas pipeline—shouldn’t hold it against legislators if they choose not to call themselves into special session of if they answer a summons by the governor, do nothing, and then go back home. The governor, the last Alaskans had heard, was leaving it for legislators to decide whether to come back rather than call them back himself, which he has the legal authority to do but for which he is rather short of political authority since his resounding defeat in the Aug. 22 primary.

There’s been some hinting lately that the governor might indeed call the third special session, for Sept. 19, and that the announcement could come Monday.

Alaska doesn’t need a third special session. There’s no chorus of demand from legislators to have one, and there’s no insistence from the public, either.

So what does Alaska need instead?

What it needs, and quickly, is for each gubernatorial candidate to provide a detailed plan for salvaging the gas pipeline process, engendering public confidence in it, and getting the pipeline project moving in a timely manner at the outset of the next legislative session in January.

It is particularly important for Alaskans to hear the plans of Republican candidate Sarah Palin and Democratic candidate Tony Knowles, the candidates with the greatest chance of winning in November. They need to provide their ideas now, in detail, so they can be considered well in advance of Election Day.

Alaskans will be waiting.