4-25-16 Leftist Alberta Government Now Sees the Light: Pipelines Are Necessary!

Calgary Herald by Don Braid.

KANANASKIS VILLAGE — Premier Rachel Notley figures her pitch to the federal cabinet on Sunday was a limited hit.

“It’s not like I was accosted by a bunch of combative questions,” she said afterward. “They were lovely in there.”

Invited to speak at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet retreat, Notley encouraged pipeline approvals, explained Alberta’s desperate need for market access, and outlined the NDP climate change plan to ministers, especially the easterners, who are dimly aware of it.

Notley loaded them up with facts and figures. An Alberta document given to the ministers warned that without new pipelines, the province’s capacity to export oil will be constrained even within North America by early 2017.

Notley said this will cause a further royalty loss of $227 million, one factor in the record-low royalty take of $1.4 billion expected in 2016-17. Only two years ago, Alberta’s royalty harvest was $9.6 billion.

The document also said that…. (Read More: http://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/braid-notley-pitches-pipeline-approvals-to-full-federal-cabinet)

From today’s Alaska Headlamp: … The Alaska Dispatch News profiled Deral Wise, a former electrical designer for CH2M Hill on a North Slope oil field project who was recently laid off. Wise is one of hundreds of casualties who have lost their job in the Alaska oil patch in the last year, a victim of low oil prices that have forced companies to slash projects and personnel to survive. The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development (AKDOL) expects layoffs in the state’s oil and gas industry to surpass 2,000 by the end of this year –coming off record-high employment levels of 14,800 in March 2015. The DOL response to job loss has been to implement more restrictive hiring policies, instead of promoting policies that would increase jobs. Alaska’s oil and gas industry consistently maintains a 75-80% Alaska hire rate. With lawmakers already threatening the industry with aggressive tax proposals, the focus should be on making the pie bigger instead of getting a piece of a shrinking pie.

Think critically before acting irrationally. In the current low-price environment, Alaska’s revenue sharing program is at serious risk. Faced with a $4.1 billion budget deficit, the Alaska Legislature has restructured the revenue-sharing program to pay out half the amount held in the fund since it was established in 2008. In placeslike Yakutat, an isolated Southeast community of about 600 people on the coastal lowlands of the Gulf of Alaska, revenue sharing makes up 16 percent of the city’s $2.5 million budget. City manager Jon Erickson said he’s having a hard time writing a budget without knowing whether there will be a stable funding source for the revenue-sharing program. State payments to Alaska communities date back decades, but the most recent version of the program was established in 2008 and drew from oil tax revenue, hence the name “revenue-sharing.” When Alaska’s oil industry is hurting, Alaska is hurting. There are hundreds of communities that depend on programs infused with oil revenue to maintain their way of life. While we can’t control macroeconomic forces, we can control how we respond to them — Alaska’s lawmakers need to think critically about the damage increased taxation on the oil and gas industry would do to communities across the state.

About the Author: wpnorthern

Dave Harbour, publisher of Northern Gas Pipelines, is a former Chairman of the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, a Commissioner Emeritus of NARUC, NARUC's Official Representative to IOGCC and Vice Chairman of NARUC's Gas Committee. He served as Gas Committee Chairman of the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners. He also served as commissioner of the Anchorage Bicentennial Commission and the Anchorage Heritage Land Bank Commission. He earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree: English, at Colorado State University, a Master of Science Degree: Communications-Journalism at Murray State University and graduated from Utility Regulatory School for Commissioners at Michigan State University. He served as a Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs at Alaska Pacific University, taught bank marketing classes at the University of Alaska and was an English teacher at Los Alamos High School. Harbour served in ranks of Private - Captain during a 4-year assignment with the Army in Korea, Idaho, Georgia and Fort Meade and received the Meritorious Service Medal among other commendations. Harbour is also a past Chairman of the Alaska Council on Economic Education, the Alaska Oil & Gas Association Government Affairs Committee, the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, the Export Council of Alaska and the Department of Commerce's District Export Council. He is a past President of the Alaska Press Club, American Bald Eagle Foundation, Consumer Energy Alliance-Alaska and Common Sense for Alaska. Harbour was instrumental in founding the American Bald Eagle Research Institute (UAS), the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, the Downtown Anchorage Business Partnership, and Arctic Power. He also served as CEO of several small Alaska organizations, including the Anchorage Parking Authority and Action Security, Inc. Harbour is also Chairman Emeritus of the Alaska Oil & Gas Congress. Harbour's wife, Nancy, is a professional, performing arts administrator and his three boys, Todd, Benjamin and William work in the fields of environmental management, energy marketing and medicine.