The Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) is taking comment on the current revised 2007-12 lease sale program which contains a strong Alaska component.  Here is a web portal you may use to electronically transmit comment to the MMS .  From this site you can modify an existing letter to send your own letter in your own words, scroll to the bottom of the site. MMS is using a very brief period to build a record to help determine the fate of Alaska and other lease sale areas.  The comment deadline is Monday, May 3!

Yahoo Canada News.  Members of the independent federal agency, which regulates parts of Canada’s energy industries, have until September to decide if the 1,200-kilometre Mackenzie Valley pipeline should be built, and under what conditions.  … On Thursday, the board heard the last final argument from Imperial Oil’s lawyer, Don Davies, who congratulated the NEB for giving the chance to participate and keeping the hearings efficient.  However, Davies was less complimentary about other regulatory processes in the North.”How long will it take for northern regulators to review the project permit applications, for which approvals is required?” Davies told the board.  … That sunset clause, along with many more conditions of an NEB permit, are now in the hands of Chairman Kenneth Vollman and fellow panellists Gaetan Caron (NGP Photo) and David Hamilton.  “Now we have our work cut out for us,” Vollman said. “You can expect to receive our decision, with reasons, in September 2010.”

Edmonton Journal by Dave Cooper.  For Alberta oilsands producers, the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline is a crucial new outlet for expanding bitumen production.  But for B.C. First Nations fighting over land claims, and environmental groups fearing another Exxon Valdezsized oil spill on the Pacific coast and further oilsands expansion, Northern Gateway is a rallying point for protest.

Within weeks, Enbridge will set these competing economic and political interests on a collision course by filing an application to build the 1,200-kilometre-long line to carry more than a half-million barrels of oil a day from near Edmonton to tidewater in Kitimat, B.C.  … Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert said in an interview that the province “shouldn’t underestimate the challenges in B.C. I guess in some ways it could turn out to be a mini-Mackenzie Valley pipeline. … At the end of the day many of the challenges are the same as Mackenzie.”  … “We’re desperate here for jobs in the aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities,” said Kitimat Mayor Joanne Monaghan.  Her town once had 15,000 residents, but it is now down to 8,500 ….  Enbridge spokesperson Jennifer Varey said the firm won’t comment on the project ahead of their official submission to the quasi-judicial joint review panel, led by the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), which is expected in a matter of weeks.