MEDRED, JOURNAL, APRN TAP GOLD
Craig Medred, who writes about all-things-Alaska at the website with the curious moniker, CraigMedred.news, picks up where Must Read Alaska left off in describing the tangled relationships and complicated history of the elusive Alaska gasline project.
https://craigmedred.news/2016/06/24/gaslinefinacingquestioned/
And the Alaska Journal of Commerce adds more information about the Walker Administration’s takeover of the AK-LNG project, a story first broken by APRN energy reporter Rachel Waldholz, and followed up here with an update.
Insiders say that Alaska Gasline Development Corporation President Keith Meyers, who is new at his job, may not have known he was leaking the biggest story of the year when he spoke with Waldholz.
“We need, as a state and as a project, we need to hit that window,” Meyers told Waldholz. “We need to be in service in that window.”
NATURAL RESOURCE COMMITTEE TO PROBE
Others weren’t so sure.
“A lot of people get hurt jumping through windows that aren’t open,” was the response of Larry Persily, an oil and gas advisor to the Kenai Peninsula Borough, who once held the title of Federal Gasline Coordinator.
The Senate Natural Resources Committee expects an update from Gov. Bill Walker’s gasline team on June 29 in the Anchorage Legislative Information Office. Sources have told Must Read Alaska that outgoing DNR Commissioner Marty Rutherford, whose last day is June 30, has been asked by the governor to not attend the briefing.
Both Senator Cathy Giessel, who heads the Senate commitee, and Finance Co-chair Anna MacKinnon, have expressed doubts about the radical new direction the governor seems to be taking, as reported by Tim Bradner in the Alaska Journal of Commerce.
“We were not informed about this,” Giessel told the Journal of Commerce, regarding the changes Keith Meyers released, while MacKinnon told attendees at Commonwealth North that legislators had been asking the governor for a long time about his intentions but have gotten no answers.
The meeting on Wednesday promises to be interesting, with the new DNR Commissioner Andy Mack taking up the role of lead witness, along with new AGDC President Meyers.
The gas project would be the largest project in North American history is is estimated to cost as much as $65 billion.