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Oil Patch Insider: Three more key members of Dunleavy team know oil biz; AIDEA award; Lynden land swap
In addition to soon-to-be Chief of Staff Tuckerman Babcock and Commissioner of Natural Resources Corri Feige, there are three other key members of Gov.-elect Mike Dunleavy’s team who are knowledgeable about oil and gas - former Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, Rep. Dan Saddler and Brett Huber.
All three men are members of the transition team; Parnell as special adviser on the proposed $43 billion Alaska liquefied natural gas project, Saddler as director of the transition policy council, and Huber as both senior policy adviser and co-chair of the transition policy council. While Parnell and Huber will continue to serve in the position of special adviser on AK LNG and senior policy adviser/special assistant, respectively, after Dunleavy is sworn in on Dec. 3, Dan Saddler’s role “remains to be seen,” transition team spokesperson Sarah Erkmann Ward told Petroleum News Nov. 18.
According to Babcock the transition will not have separate teams working on each policy area like previous transitions. Instead, the policy council will form separate advisory teams as needed. The council’s job is to take the policy statements that Dunleavy made during the campaign and flesh them out for the commissioners of each state government department.
Sean Parnell ‘well positioned’ to work on LNG project Parnell, who was the state’s 10th governor from 2009 to 2014, will be analyzing the Alaska LNG project as it stands today and making recommendations to Dunleavy on the next steps.
Babcock said Parnell is “well positioned” for the task: “No one knows more about the project than the former governor. Sean Parnell, in his previous work on AK LNG, moved the project along to a point it had really never reached before. And he stands ready to evaluate where we are as we move forward and advise the governor-elect.”
The former governor took over from Gov. Sarah Palin when she stepped down to run for U.S. vice-president at the request of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
Parnell, who lost to current Gov. Bill Walker when he later ran for re-election, had served as Alaska’s lieutenant governor, an Alaska state senator, a state representative, deputy director of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources Division of Oil and Gas and also worked for oil and gas company ConocoPhillips. He has been an attorney in private practice for more than 20 years in the areas of commercial transactions and commercial litigation.
As a legislator in the 1990s, as lieutenant governor and as governor, Parnell was involved in negotiating and passing gas line legislation. As governor, he sponsored or helped pass several pieces of legislation creating and authorizing the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., or AGDC. While serving at DNR’s Division of Oil and Gas, Parnell served as an alternate lead negotiator on the state’s gas line team. As an attorney, his experience includes work on oil and gas transactions.
He currently works for the Anchorage law office of Holland & Hart LLP.
Dan Saddler: conservative, communicator, pro-resource development Saddler, R-Eagle River, who was defeated in this year’s Republican primary for Senate District G by Rep. Lora Reinbold, R-Eagle River, will leave his seat in the state House in January.
His professional experiences include being an engineering magazine editor, a newspaper reporter, a legislative staffer for four Republican lawmakers in Alaska, DNR spokesman, deputy press secretary for former Gov. Frank Murkowski and a public relations executive for Arctic Slope Regional Corp.
He has also served as an alternate member for the state of Alaska on the U.S. Department of Interior’s royalty policy committee, which advises Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on policy and strategies to improve management of the multibillion-dollar federal and American Indian mineral revenue program, including oil and gas policy and regulations.
Originally from Ohio, he got his bachelor’s degree from Miami University in 1983 and his master’s degree in journalism from Ohio State University in 1987. Saddler worked as a newspaper reporter in Ohio and later at the Anchorage Times, where he covered military, resource development and finance.
Saddler and his wife Chris raised their children in Eagle River where they have spent the last 26-plus years.
When running for the Senate earlier this year, Saddler said, “After my journalism career, I entered public service because I believe our founding fathers had it right - free men must step up and govern themselves to protect their God-given rights. … I’m a conservative, pro-life, pro-gun, pro-business, pro-resource development, small government kind of guy.”
Brett Huber: legislative, natural resources policy savvy Brett Huber Sr., a veteran legislative staffer who managed Dunleavy’s campaign, will be a senior policy advisor in the administration.
He has a low-key manner and years of experience in legislative and natural resource issues. He was chief of staff and policy advisor to state senators Rick Halford, Lesil McGuire and Pete Kelly as well as Dunleavy.
According to Must Read Alaska, Huber has an “in-depth knowledge of natural resource policy and fish and game management. He previously worked as executive director of the Kenai River Sportfishing Association and as a program director for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Huber is past president of the Alaska Outdoor Council and AOC Political Action Committee. He also served as chairman of the public advisory committee for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council.
- Kay Cashman
AIDEA gets prestigious national award The Council of Development Finance Agencies, or CDFA, recently announced the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) as winner of the 2018 CDFA Distinguished Development Finance State Agency Award.
“The CDFA Excellence in Development Finance Awards recognize outstanding development finance programs, agencies, leaders, projects, and success stories,” said Toby Rittner, president and CEO of CDFA. “These awards honor excellence in the use of financing tools for economic development, as well as individuals who champion these efforts.”
On hand to receive the award for AIDEA were CEO and Executive Director John Springsteen; Chief Investment Officer Alan Weitzner; Infrastructure Development Sr. Finance Officer Jeff San Juan; Business Development and Communications Director Michael Catsi.
- Kay Cashman
Ayakulik Island land swap benefits Lynden Ayakulik Island is partially owned by Jim Jansen, chairman of Lynden Inc., a shipping and logistics company. A funding bill recently passed by the U.S. Senate authorizing a land swap between the federal government and a private owner would give Jansen complete ownership of a roughly 11-acre stretch of federally owned tideland from Lash Dock to Shannon’s Point in Womens Bay south of the city of Kodiak, the Kodiak Daily Mirror reported.
The Coast Guard funding bill, if signed into law, would allow the swap of the privately owned Ayakulik Island off southwest Kodiak Island in the Kodiak Archipelago for the Womens Bay acreage.
Tiny Ayakulik Island is a nesting place for red-faced cormorants, a bird native to the Aleutian Islands but observed infrequently on Kodiak. The 11-acre island would be set aside for conservation under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The land in Womens Bay is in an area of Coast Guard activity. The Coast Guard has final authority on development in the area and can place “operational restrictions on commercial activity,” the bill states.
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan introduced the land swap provision in the bill.
“The land transaction could occur without congressional involvement, were it not for the need to provide the U.S. Coast Guard with the tools necessary to protect operations,” the senator’s office said in a statement.
More information can be found from: Kodiak (Alaska) Daily Mirror, http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com.
- Associated Press
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