2-08-12 - NEW BULLET LINE, SOUTH TO NORTH? - Senator Murkowski - Jim Clyburn - NARUC
NARUC, Washington, D.C. (Report and comment by Dave Harbour). Yesterday, NARUC president David Wright (NGP Photo) introduced Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (NGP Photo) to about 1400
attending the winter meeting at the Renaissance Hotel here of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. “Your association has now been a major contributor to the development of energy policy for almost 125 years", Murkowski said. "We count on you to present your views in the federal arena, as you have always done, with vigor and precision. Regulatory Commissioners have a solemn duty to balance the interests and needs of customers and investors according to the rule of law. It is appropriate that your organization has the scales of justice on its seal." We note that current testimony before the Alaska State Senate, linked below, points to decisions reached by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska on pipeline tariff issues. “Without principled and judicious regulation," she continued, "maintaining and prudently expanding critical energy infrastructure would be 
impossible. Your responsibilities, always weighty, are now more challenging than ever. Today you must navigate a weak economy, and a host of new and ever more demanding environmental regulations. And as if that weren’t enough, you have an additional task. Like all of us in public life with responsibility for energy policy, you must find ways to reasonably balance our nation’s energy needs with our environmental concerns – and the sometimes very real conflicts that emerge from the laws and policies governing each of those areas."
(Note: we are preparing this enroute Washington-Anchorage and will complete the report as soon as possible. -dh)
bipartisan letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (NGP Photo) requesting new, expanded access to offshore energy production in order to create new American jobs, reduce our reliance on foreign energy and generate new revenue. Last November, the Obama Administration released a draft five year plan that closes the majority of the OCS to new energy production through 2017. The draft plan includes lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic—leaving portions of Alaska, the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts off-limits to new energy production and job creation. Next week the House is expected to consider the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act (H.R. 7), which would lift President Obama’s offshore drilling ban and require the Administration to lease offshore areas containing the most oil and natural gas. Click here to view a copy of the signed letter.Fairbanks News Miner, by Max Buxton. Last week, Fairbanks Rep. Bob Miller announced an ambitious goal of taking a hard look at building a pipeline from Cook Inlet to Fairbanks in order to bring the clean-burning fuel into the Interior years before construction could even begin on an in-state line. The only problem, however, that fellow Fairbanks Rep. Steve Thompson brought up is the state already conducted a study on that very issue years ago. Called the Beluga to Fairbanks pipeline, the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority under the direction of former Gov. Sarah Palin made some substantial headway on designing, studying and building a pipeline to the Interior before it was called off in 2010. ANGDA acting Chief Financial Officer Kirsten Sikora said the project came close to becoming a reality before concerns over lagging Cook Inlet gas reserves mothballed any hopes of bringing Cook Inlet natural gas to Fairbanks. “We would’ve already had shovels in the dirt if we had continued on,” she said. “But in fairness the global markets have been changing, it’s been a roller coaster ride over the last few years.”
In a press release last night, Alaska State Senate Majority Press Secretary Carolyn Kuckertz noted that, members heard the beginning of a presentation from Robin Brena, Counsel for the Fairbanks North Star Borough and Lead Counsel for the Municipalities in the 2007-09 Assessed Valuations Case for TAPS, and Craig Richards, Counsel for the City of Valdez and Co-Counsel for the Municipalities in the 2007-09 Assessed Valuations Case for TAPS. To watch the entire hearing, click here. Mr. Brena and Mr. Richards are scheduled to continue their presentation to the Senate Resources Committee at 3:30pm today.
A Bering Strait Vessel Traffic Service: Critical Infrastructure for an Opening Arctic (Part I)- The Arctic Institute, Robin Strader - Nations and multi-national corporations are positioning themselves to take full advantage of the Arctic’s Northwest Passage (NWP) and Northern Sea Route (NSR). However, there is every little safety infrastructure in place to ensure incident-free transit. Both of these Sea Lines of Communication terminate in the Bering Strait, the gateway to the Arctic. In this critical water space it is essential the United States and Russia begin considering how to manage traffic through this strategic choke point.
Another View: U.S. would be wise to push oil production - Green Bay Press Gazette - Canada's extraction and sale of its massive oil deposits. Getting that energy supply to market will be slowed, and the U.S. may reap less of an economic benefit from something that has the potential to turn North America into what Citigroup Global Markets calls "the new Middle East.
Shell still hopes to drill this summer in Arctic waters – The (Tacoma) News Tribune, Dan Joling - The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in December approved Shell's exploration plan for the Chukchi -- with a major caveat. Shell must stop drilling into hydrocarbon zones 38 days before ice is likely to move in, roughly Sept. 24, to have time to fix a wellhead blowout.
Other NARUC Winter Meeting Photos - 2012
Commissioner Bob Anthony
Jim Andrews
Sharon Reishus,
More photos coming....
