Valley residents: Alaska needs to keep gas

PALMER — The Legislature’s gas line road show rolled through Palmer Tuesday and the message from the Mat-Su was mostly uniform: Alaskans need gas.

“Alaskans need gas now,” said April Moore, a Valley resident and opponent of Republican state Rep. Mark Neuman in this year’s election. “Do we care if we get the very best tariff possible if we don’t get the gas coming off the line?”

The issue before the Legislature for its special session revolves around one question: should TransCanada Corp. be given a license to build a natural gas pipeline tapping into the state’s vast North Slope resources?

The public came down on both sides Tuesday. Moore, for one, does not support the TransCanada project — Gov. Sarah Palin’s Alaska Gasline Inducement Act — preferring instead an all-Alaska line running from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. The TransCanada proposal is for a gasline with a terminus in Alberta, Canada.

But not all locals voiced disapproval of AGIA.

“I urge you to give the Trans-Canada project a license,” said Don Benson, a Palmer resident and board member for the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority.

Dave Cheesum, another Palmer resident and a candidate for the Alaska House of Representatives running against Rep. Carl Gatto, said he supports AGIA, the legislation that brought the process of building a line as far as it’s come.

“The producers believe that free enterprise is about certainty,” Cheesum said, adding it’s really about a “stable, open environment free of backroom deals.”

Noel Woods said he trusts lawmakers to vote the right way, but is concerned about Palin’s administration and worries about the effect it could have on finding gas to put in the line.

“Producers would not show up because of the antagonistic relationship with the administration,” he said.

Ideas have been bandied about for how to keep some of the gas that might flow through the line in-state for Alaskans to use and reduce energy costs. A smaller line could be built off of the Trans-Canada line.

The majority of those giving their 2-cents-worth at Tuesday’s meeting in one way or another advocated keeping at least some of the gas in state no matter what project is eventually chosen.

Valdez Mayor Bert Cottle said he believes the state has a problem when rural residents pay triple or more what Alaska city dwellers pay for power.

“Alaska’s gas for Alaskans. That maximizes the benefit to Alaska,” he said. “People are moving out of rural Alaska,”

Mat-Su Borough Mayor Curt Menard took his turn at the microphone and said he was speaking for himself, not the Borough, in urging the Legislature to grant Trans-Canada a license to keep the process rolling.

“We can negotiate many of the details as we go along,” Menard said. “But we do need gas.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiers-man.com or 352-2270.