Alaska Support Industry Alliance Op-ed by Dave Harbour.  Alliance eyes are properly focused now on the OCS.  OCS may be to 21st Century Alaska what the Trans Alaska Pipeline was to the last few decades.  Without OCS, our economy’s fate will rest only on the tenuous development of a gas pipeline or ANWR. Of the three, OCS is the most immediately promising. To make OCS reality, we must first face two big hurtles before us: First, we need to heed the Alliance’s promptings and have every employee, every family member and every neighbor write to the Interior Department before its Sept. 21 deadline for OCS lease sale comments.  Second, we need to assure that the Feds will share OCS rents, royalties and bonus bids with the states whose  infrastructure and services will support offshore activity.  This is going to require some soul searching: will  Alaskans agree that federal revenue sharing should go to the state treasury for the governor and legislature to properly allocate to OCS impacted areas, services and infrastructure? Or will special interests block OCS development unless elected officials agree to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars directly into their bank accounts? Are the rest of us willing to pay an OCS ransom from the state share in order to assure “protection from OCS obstruction?”  (Read full Op-ed here. …  Last week’s Richmond, Va. Op-ed.)

National Post by Claudia Cattaneo.  The conversation in this town of 3,500 in the Western Arctic should be about aboriginal self-sufficiency, environmentally responsible Northern development and a new clean-energy storehouse with immense potential. After all, the proposed $16.2-billion Mackenzie Valley natural-gas pipeline project was supposed to be under construction by now.  Instead, the talk is about the regulatory bungling, federal government inaction and fading industry interest in what would be one of Canada’s largest infrastructure projects.

Obama “Investment” of $10 Billion of Taxpayer Money to Help Brazil Produce Its Energy Resources Instead of Our Own Spurs Active Debate Online.   What About Alaska (8/12) blogs, “Now, this story is worth noting for a couple of reasons. Set aside the obvious ones – everyone should understand the absolute insanity involved in promoting ANOTHER COUNTRY’S offshore energy resources over the ones you have ready, willing and able to be produced back home.

Northern News Services by Andrew Rankin.  The mayor of Inuvik will keep his full-time salary after council rejected a motion to change the position back to part time at a special council meeting on Aug. 5.  In a 3-2 vote, council opted to maintain the status quo and reject the motion brought forward by councillors Vince Brown and Jim McDonald. Reducing the mayor’s job to part time would save the town about $40,000 annually.  Both stated at the meeting that there isn’t enough work for the mayor to support a full-time position, especially with the delay in the Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline project. … Councillors Brian McDonald, Clarence Wood and Deputy Mayor Chris Larocque voted to keep the mayor’s pay as is. Councillors Terry Halifax, Grace Loreen and George Doolittle were not present at the meeting.  Mayor Derek Lindsay opted out of the vote, citing a conflict of interest as he intends to vie for the mayor’s job again in October’s municipal election.

Financial Post.  A tiny Indian reserve in the foothills southwest of Calgary is trying to block a Petro-Canada sour gas development by implementing a bylaw barring pipelines within 1.5 kilometres of its boundaries.