Fairbanks News Miner.  A U.S. Senate committee on Thursday approved two lands bills sponsored U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski by Dave Harbourby Sen. Lisa Murkowski (NGP Photo) that aim to facilitate energy projects in and near Denali National Park and Preserve.  The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on which Murkowski is the ranking member, passed legislation that would allow construction of a natural gas pipeline along the Parks Highway on the border of Denali National Park and a small land exchange in the park to allow the National Park Service to permit the construction of a micro-hydropower project to power privately owned Kantishna Roadhouse.  Murkowski, R-Alaska, first introduced legislation to permit a gas line to be built along the Parks Highway for the seven miles that the highway runs through the park near its entrance in 2010. The bill gives the National Park Service legal authority to permit a pipeline to be built within the park boundaries so the state and pipeline developers can determine the best route based on technical and economic grounds, not because of the legal uncertainty surrounding access for a pipeline running across National Park Service lands.  “This bill will overcome a key hurdle for a pipeline to run along the Parks Highway — the most direct route to Southcentral — and removes the uncertainty about possible permitting delays related to crossing federal lands,” Murkowski said in a news release Thursday.

 
ALASKA NORTHERN WATERS TASK FORCE: Nov 16 Reggie Joule by Dave Harbour, Alaska State House of Representatives, Northern Waters Task ForceWednesday Barrow 9:00 AM.  Location: Inupiat Heritage Center, Barrow
 
 Topics: Arctic Research and Arctic Changes
 
 9:00am — Introduction and comments from
 
 ANWTF Chair Rep. Reggie Joule (NGP Photo) and other task force members
 
 9:15am–Dan Fitzgerald & Robert Suydam, North
 
 Slope Borough; North Slope Science Initiative
 
 10:15am–Dr. Mark Myers, Vice Chancellor for
 
 Research, University of Alaska, Fairbanks; Oil
 
 Spill Research and other Arctic Research
 
 11:15am–Dr. LaBelle-Hamer, Associate Vice
 
 Chancellor for Research and Director of Office
 
 Research Integrity, University of Alaska,
 
 Fairbanks; Proposed Oil Spill Research Center
 
 12:15pm–LUNCH
 
 1:30pm–Michael Macrander, Shell Alaska, Venture
 
 Support Integration Group Science Team Leader;
 
 Shell’s Arctic Cooperative Science Efforts with
 
 the North Slope Borough, University of Alaska,
 
 Industry Partners, and Federal Agencies
 
 3:00pm–Barrow Arctic Science Consortium Tour
 
 (Task force members and staff only)
 
 5:00pm-6:30pm–Public Testimony