ADN OpEd by Jeff Cook.  (Author's note: Ill informed consumers--often let by politicians with special interest agendas--sometimes accuse energy providers of rigging prices.  While such a regretable circumstance is always possible, it is rare, due partly to the web of regulatory and statutory constraints guarding against bad practices.  Increasingly, as politicians make energy prices more expensive by increasing regulatory burdens and blocking domestic exploration and attempting to subsidize uneconomic alternate energy industries, they will attempt to demonize the fossil energy producers, manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors.  The lesson to be learned [...]

ADN, by Don Hunter.  Mayor Dan Sullivan has appointed a nine-member task force to study energy problems he says lie ahead for the city.  ... "The energy situation in Southcentral Alaska is one of the most pressing issues that we as a city have to deal with," Sullivan said in an e-mailed statement Friday morning. ... Sullivan's statement today says the city came "dangerously close to failing to meet the needs of its gas customers the past few winters when temperatures dipped below zero." The members of the task force are: • Judy Brady, former executive [...]