4-17-14

Comment: We have long held that the White House Memorandum and Executive Orders establishing and implementing a new "Ocean Policy" was one of the Administration's first acts of federal overreach. Comment: The "Rule of Law" subject appears when we discuss "Ocean Policy", but arises as a theme wherever federal regulatory powers are exercised--including with an Alaska mining project on state land.  -dh Last week Pebble CEO Tom Collier spoke at the Alaska Miners Association conference in Fairbanks, updating attendees on the status of the Pebble project, discussing next steps, and addressing a major federal [...]

By |2016-12-22T22:29:38-09:00April 17th, 2014|Commentary, Federal Obstruction, Rule Of Law|0 Comments

4-8-14 What Do Underfunded Pensions Have To Do With An Alaska Gas Pipeline?

Remember this announcement, 5 years ago today?  ANCHORAGE, April 8, 2008 - BP [NYSE: BP] and ConocoPhillips [NYSE: COP] today announced they have combined resources to start Denali - The Alaska Gas Pipeline. The pipeline will move approximately four billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to markets, and will be the largest private sector construction project ever built in North America. The project combines the financial strength, arctic experience and technical resources of two of the most capable and experienced companies in the world. Globe & Mail.  The [...]

4-2-14

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) today released a report demonstrating that the Department of Commerce retains the power to modernize its regulations and allow condensate exports.   The report contains more than 40 pages of Commerce Department decisions from the 1970s and 1980s on expanded exports of residual fuel oil, petroleum coke, butane, specialty naphtha, and other petroleum-related products. Fairbanks News Miner by Matt Buxton.  Mayors from communities along the route of a proposed natural gas pipeline still are wary about the project’s impacts despite Gov. Sean Parnell’s creation of a project [...]

3-28-14

Juneau Empire.  Roger Marks (NGP Photo), a petroleum economist in private practice, gives the House Resources Committee his evaluation of Senate Bill 138 and the associated proposed North Slope natural gas commercialization proposals at the Capitol on Thursday. National Journal.  Two facts should keep Interior Secretary Sally Jewell awake at night. First, if Republicans win the Senate, Alaska's Sen. Lisa Murkowski (NGP Photo) will wield tremendous leverage over Jewell's department. She would lead both the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that oversees the department and the Appropriations subcommittee that controls its [...]

By |2016-03-13T03:51:55-09:00March 28th, 2014|Federal Obstruction, Interstate Gas|0 Comments

3-25-14 A Frontal Attack On States’ Rights

OP-Ed by Joseph Cafariello.  The EU’s 28 member states have mandated that the European Commission come up with a plan within three months to outline ways in which Europe can satisfy its energy needs without continued reliance on Russia.  (Energy Nation says, "Tell Congress To Increase LNG Exports"; Photo: Map of Ukraine gas pipelines bringing gas from Russia to the EU states.) U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, yesterday called the proposed EPA wetlands rule unfair, unwise and unnecessary.’  (Murkowski also opposes EPA rule.) U.S. [...]

By |2016-12-22T22:29:39-09:00March 26th, 2014|Commentary, Federal Obstruction|0 Comments

3-13-14

Alaska Public Media by Alexandra Gutierrez.  The latest version of a bill advancing a natural gas megaproject restores language concerning collective bargaining.  The Senate Finance Co-Chair Pete Kelly announced on Tuesday evening that the committee will scrap the less specific language they had planned to use when dealing with labor terms. Commentary: The following post by the Pebble Project precisely reflects the editorial position we have taken for several years.   We would add that the White House has no business lecturing Russia and other nations on the importance of [...]

3-12-14

Becky Booher, Associated Press: Draft Gas Pipeline/LNG Bill Proposes Changes To AGDC/Taxes Advice To Those Who Want A Vibrant Economy And Who Elect Politicians Competition Perspectives: Part III (Part I, Part II) by Dave Harbour Yesterday we finally finished a commentary on how important it is for a sovereign to pay attention to its competitive position as an investment climate.   ​​Links from the Alaska Gas Pipeline Office of The Federal Coordinator: Japan’s utilities increasingly invest in LNG projects Agreements move Alaska gas line forward Russia and Alaska share similar oil [...]

3-2-14 Is Global Cooling About To Overrun Global Warming? What Would Aristotle Say?

From Forbes Opinion by Peter Ferrara​ Dear Readers:  We have documented excesses in policy and deficiencies in decision making owing to the 'global warming' faith crowd.   Still, we must prize facts and science over politics in our search for 'Endless Progress'.  In this spirit, we ask our more knowledgeable friends to help us with a response or rebuttal to this reaction to Ferrara's commentary.    -dh (Our Comment: The Obama Administration departments -- including DOD -- base many changing policies on a bureaucratic faith in the siren calls of global warming.   [...]

2-28-14

Retired Executive Director of the Alaska Miners Association, Steve Borell, sent this pipeline map of the troubled Ukraine today, saying, "If you want to understand this mess very quickly, just look at the map."   Thank you, Steve.    Clearly, Russia has leverage over Ukraine.  Depriving Ukraine of energy supplies or reasonably priced energy could deal a devastating economic blow to the struggling country. The map also illustrates the importance of the United States and Canada reasonably developing their own energy resources.  Energy is the building block of an economy and all [...]

By |2016-12-22T22:29:41-09:00February 28th, 2014|Commentary, Federal Obstruction, Reader Comment|0 Comments

2-26-14 SUPPORT KEYSTONE XL

Governor Sean Parnell (NGP Photo) is former Chairman of the OCS Governor's Coalition.  This week we learned that Virginia's new governor, democrat Terry McAuliffe, has joined the coalition.  The governors are urging Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to open OCS areas for oil and gas leasing that the Administration has, to date, kept closed. Dear Readers: Our friends at the Resource Development Council (RDC) for Alaska have asked Alaskans (and our Canadian readers, too; why not?) to make their voices heard in support of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Why? Because North American [...]

By |2016-12-22T22:29:41-09:00February 26th, 2014|Commentary, Federal Obstruction|0 Comments

2-21-14 Canada Pressures Obama On Keystone; Murkowski Pressures For Arctic Ambassador

Lindsay Williams alerts us that Alaska Senate Resources Committee Chairman Cathy Giessel (NGP Photo) will hold a hearing Monday morning from 8-8:50 a.m. on SB 138 Gas Pipeline, AGDC, Oil & Gas Production Tax. Globe & Mail.  ​Prime Minister Stephen Harper was again rebuffed in his bid to press U.S. President Barack Obama to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline when he raised the issue during a North American leaders’ summit in Toluca, Mexico.  ***   Globe & Mail.   Tracts of land that had been set aside for reindeer grazing [...]

By |2016-12-22T22:29:42-09:00February 21st, 2014|Alaska Taxes, Federal Obstruction|0 Comments

2-19-14 Approve Keystone XL Pipeline Now!

(We found this way to support building of the Keystone Pipeline and encourage readers to review the website.  -dh) Alert the Federal Government You Support Building the Keystone XL Pipeline It is Time to Act.  Let's Make Our Voices Heard Today we'll be attending a CWN debate.   Be it resolved: The State of Alaska should take an ownership stake in a North Slope gas pipeline project.    The award - winning Seawolves will debate both sides of the issue followed by a vote of the audience. More to follow.... Thousands of construction [...]

By |2016-12-22T22:29:42-09:00February 19th, 2014|Federal Obstruction|0 Comments

2-4-14 Senator Murkowski’s Energy Committee Spokesman Analyzes O’Reilly/Obama Super Bowl Interview

Alaska Journal of Commerce by Tim Bradner.  Flint Hills Resources will cease refining operations at its North Pole refinery near Fairbanks this spring, the company announced Tuesday in a press release. Senate Energy Committee Spokesman, Robert Dillon, this morning provided us with an analysis of Keystone XL Pipeline labor benefits discussed during Bill O'Reilly's Super Bowl interview with President Barack Obama.  (Dillon's analysis follows:) In September 2009, President Obama declared, “I will not rest until anybody who’s looking for a job can find one – and I’m not talking about [...]

By |2016-03-13T03:50:47-09:00February 4th, 2014|Federal Obstruction, You Read It Here First|0 Comments

1-9-14

TODAY, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (NGP Photo) delivered the following opening statement at today’s Full Committee oversight hearing on “Obama Administration’s War on Coal: The Recent Report by the Office of the Inspector General.”  “We’re here today to discuss the U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Inspector General’s new report on the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement’s (OSM) rewrite of the 2008 Stream Buffer Zone Rule. By now, everyone on this Committee is very familiar with this rewrite, and it has been the subject [...]

By |2016-03-13T03:43:28-09:00January 9th, 2014|Federal Obstruction, You Read It Here First|0 Comments

1-7-14 Murkowski Releases New Energy White Paper In Washington Today

Calgary Herald.  Canadian oil and gas producers were “overly optimistic” heading into 2013, failing to predict a slowdown in business activity over the last 12 months and the job losses that have occurred as a result. Alaska US Senator Lisa Murkowski Releases Energy White Paper by Dave Harbour  Yesterday we briefed readers on a webcast speech Senator Lisa Murkowski (NGP Photo) would deliver today at 9 a.m. EST in Washington to a Brookings Institute audience.  Brookings promoted the speech as a discussion of the, "future of U.S. energy trade and its implications [...]

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