Dear NGP Friends:

 
(Read down for a ‘call to action’ that may save your job and our kids’ future!)
 
All Alaskans are thankful for Alaska’s 50th Anniversary of statehood this

 year, made possible by the 1957 Swanson River oil and gas discovery.  Therefore, we should also be thankful for Alaska’s oil industry and support industry employees whose labors sustain our current quality of life.

 

We are also celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the very important Joint State/Federal Beaufort Sea Oil and Gas Lease Sale of 1979–the first time Beaufort Sea OCS became available to leasing.  Those of us who witnessed the hearings and sale will never forget the feeling of those events’ historical importance!   We should also shout kudos to members of the ALASKA SUPPORT INDUSTRY ALLIANCE, whose pioneering members testified and picketed and otherwise successfully supported that 1979 lease sale.  What a joy it will be to join Alliance members and supporters at the 30th Anniversary Annual Meeting on October 1!
 
It is hard to imagine what Alaska and America would be–what we would be and where we would be–without Swanson River.  Start with the fact that Alaska would not have become a state in 1959!  Without Statehood, there would have been no Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.  It is an equally awesome task to contemplate Alaska’s quality of life and our own circumstances without the safe and bountiful Beaufort Sea oil and gas exploration and development activity which has sustained the life of the Trans Alaska Pipeline since 1979 and will help support a future gas pipeline.
 
BUT OUR CHILDREN MAY NOT HAVE SUCH ADVANTAGES, IF WE ARE NOT SUCCESSFUL IN CONTINUING TO SECURE OCS LEASE SALES, WITH REVENUE SHARING. 
 
With ANWR’s remote prospects, with declining TAPS throughput, with plans for an ANS gas pipeline still years away, Outer Continental Shelf exploration and development stands like a warm but lonely beacon of light in the Arctic night…and a bright economic future for Alaska can create much good fortune down South!
 
This Monday–today–is the deadline date Secretary Salazar (NGP Photo during 4-09 Anchorage visit)  has set forSecretary Ken Salazar in Anchorage -4-09- by Dave Harbour receipt of comments on the MMS 2010-2015 OCS lease sale plan.  I know most Alaskans–good Americans that we are–have taken advantage of the comment period.  Like you, I’ve tried to do my part by assisting hundreds of Alaskans in sending in their comments. 
 
Here is a last reminder to our American readers, that your comment will help in the decision process.  If you haven’t already sent in a card or letter, please postmark a short letter or post card Monday indicating your support of an aggressive 2010-2015 oil and gas leasing program.  You can cite benefits that will include : a real stimulus to Alaska’s and America’s economy, 35,000 annual jobs here and many more indirect jobs nationally with other OCS activity, improved balance of trade position, more energy independence and better national security, and more…. 
 
 
Send your postcard or letter to:
 
Ms. Renee Orr
MMS-MS 4010
381 Elden St.
Herndon, VA 20170-4817
 
In the first sentence, say you are writing about "2010-2015 Oil and Gas Leasing in the Outer Continental Shelf” and include your name and return address.  

 

(If you’d like help with your letter, click here, here, or here)
 
If you wish to email me a copy of or a link to your Monday letter (or, your earlier one), I’ll be happy to post it/quote from it on this website.  
 
Sincerely,  
 
Dave Harbour