See Shell’s 5-14-10 Letter to MMS

FERC’s Extension Rejection: Alaska Dispatch, ADN

Comment: We detected deep divisions of policy among the three-member Congressional delegation yesterday but prefer to focus on the pro-business stances each took.  Senator Lisa Murkowski, in particular, focused like a laser on the flood of Obama Administration initiatives designed to drown free enterprise in the 49th state, which she dubbed an ‘assault’.  At the end of the presentation we asked if she would include a list of such assaults on Alaska on her website and she said she would (See video).  These are similar to our listing of the Administration’s ‘death by a thousand cuts‘ approach to resource development.  "On a daily basis," she said, "we are faced with challenges to Alaska’s ability to do business."  We asked –via another submitted, written question — if Senator Mark Begich would describe his position on Murkowski’s effort to nullify EPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions regulations (See video).  Earlier in his presentation he had assured the audience that, "I sit in my caucus daily and hammer on our Alaskan issues."  He said that those who consume have moral obligation to produce natural resources.  Congressman Don Young echoed the concern of the senators adding that Americans are ruled now more by regulatory law coming from unelected, unaccountable agencies than by statutory laws of Congress.  "We have many challenges," he said.  "We can solve them all.  We can solve them by saying ‘no’ more…" and he reminded the audience of Governor Wally Hickel’s words, "No more."  -DH       —         (More stories and photos below.)

Lisa Murkowski -Assault on Alaska- 5-17-10 – Chamber Cong Del – by Dave Harbour 001 from Dave Harbour on Vimeo.

Alaska’s senior U.S. Senator describes the regulatory assault on Alaska by the Obama Administration, comparing the State with the little Dutch boy defending the dikes protecting his people.

 

Alaska Dispatch by Craig Medred.  The Alaska Congressional delegation came home from the nation’s capital to say goodbye to Alaska icon and former Gov. Wally Hickel, and took the opportunity Monday to tell the Alaska Chamber of Commerce what most everyone there wanted to hear:  Offshore oil development needs to move forward in the north despite the ongoing, oil-spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Alaskans know how to do oil development in the environmentally correct way (even if those Outside don’t). And the only thing standing between Alaska and an energy-rich future is the boot of the federal bureaucracy on the throat of the last frontier.  Rep. Don Young (NGP Photo-r), the Republican congressman for all Alaska almost forever, got the day’s applause as he belittled Congress as "probably the worst place you can go to get facts," attacked federal bureaucrats as frighteningly powerful, and lionized Hickel for his long and tireless advocacy for state’s rights, most particularly the 49th state’s rights.  "This is Wally Hickel’s day," Young said. "We’re saying goodbye, but his legacy will live with us."  Everybody at the head table tried to grab a piece of that legacy. Sen. Mark Begich (NGP Photo-l), D-Alaska, criticized the Department of the Interior for spending money studying wilderness classification for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge at a time when the agency claimed to lack the money necessary to finalize surveys necessary before turning over to Alaska lands promised 50 years ago.  "There are millions of acres of land this state is owed since statehood," Begich said. The state would like those lands in ANWR if it could get them, but it can’t. Unable to do that, it wants to make sure ANWR isn’t declared wilderness, which could forever block access to what is thought to be millions of barrels of crude beneath the ground.  That the federal government would be in charge of such important decision for the future of Alaska seemed hard to take for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (NGP Photo). The state’s senior senator jabbed at big government back in Washington, D.C. for imposing health care, backing deficit-boosting stimulus plans, and considering potentially onerous regulations aimed at stopping climate change.  "We were going to be impacted in this state by the EPA," she warned. "Their regulations are coming at you."

ADN by Elizabeth Bluemink.  Alaska’s pro-offshore drilling congressional delegation is optimistic that federal regulators will give Shell Oil a green light to explore in waters off the North Slope this summer.   (More Event Photos Below….)

Anchorage Chamber of Commerce Event Photos

Mark Begich

and David Ramseur

Arliss

Sturgulewski

 

 

 

Judy Brady and          Rex Shadduck

Son Steven

 


Lisa Murkowski

Congressman Don Young

 

 

 

Pete Slaiby, Arliss Sturgulewski, Cam Toohey

 

 

 

Dan Sullivan and Bill Sheffield

 

Joe Henri

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Noll and Mark Neuman

 

Deborah Brollini