Governor Walker sent a letter last week to legislators, in an effort to avoid a last-week-of-the-session brawl, explaining his revised emphasis on an in-state gasline project. It looks like he took a step back in his approach, stating the AGDC project is only a “back-up” plan. Several oil industry partners in the bigger pipeline project recognize, too, that the Governor’s AGDC project emphasis is a non-competitive one.
In his April 9 letter to legislators Walker said the state would be taking the lead on an expanded state project if it, rather than the industry projects, moves forward.
If the industry partners step back, however, the governor wants to be ready with a backup plan, a state-led gas pipeline. The state’s gas corporation, the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., has already done significant work on a smaller backup project designed to move North Slope gas to Interior and Southcentral Alaska communities with a maximum volume of 500 million cubic feet of gas per day.
Walker announced his own idea of scaling up that project to much higher volumes in a newspaper op-ed column, which has set off a testy dispute with state legislators over spending the money for it before it is known if the industry partners will proceed with the larger project.
The governor has fiercely defended his plan, however, arguing that the larger volumes will make for a more economic state pipeline and that he wants the scaled-up work to be underway sooner in the belief it will strengthen the state’s hand in negotiating important agreements on the larger project that are still needed.
The dustup with legislators is turning into a political brawl that is complicating the final days of the 2015 legislative session, which is due to end April 19 unless it is extended.
In his April 9 letter to legislators, Walker said he has emphasized his support for the larger project and that the backup plan is not a competing or parallel pipeline, “but a backup to ensure Alaska will not have to start over if the AK LNG Project does not proceed.”
That represents a step back from the governor’s comments during a press conference following the announcement of the new plan in the newspaper op-ed that his intention is to develop the state project on a parallel path and, in the end, compare the advantages of both and make a decision as to which project the state will support.
Those comments stirred up the Legislature as well as the industry partners, but since then the governor has backtracked to emphasize, now in writing, that the state gas pipeline is only a backup.
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