Governor will not attend Murkowski’s gasline meeting

Kay Cashman

Gov. Tony Knowles does not plan to accept Sen. Frank Murkowski’s invitation to meet with the senator, pipeline companies, North Slope producers and Alaska legislators in Washington, D.C., in early February but he will be sending a representative in his place, Bob King, the governor’s press secretary, told PNA Jan. 23. (See related story in the Jan. 20 edition of PNA.)

King said Pat Pourchot, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, will probably go in the governor’s place.

“Frankly, the governor has already held meetings with the producers and the pipeline companies and rather than retracing these steps, we think the senator’s time would be better spent focusing on the national energy legislation that the producers have sought from Congress to facilitate this project and making sure that Alaska’s objectives are included any such bill,” King said.

Murkowski invited the producers, pipeline companies, governor and state legislators to Washington, D.C., to meet about the proposed Alaska Highway gas pipeline from the North Slope to Canada and the Lower 48.

Among other things, Murkowski wants to determine who will build the gas pipeline — the three North Slope producers or the 10 major pipeline companies that are part of the Alaska Natural Gas Transportation System group.

State Sen. John Torgerson said Jan. 16 that he and other state legislators would accept Murkowski’s invitation. He said the Washington, D.C., meeting agenda will include trying to “work through some of the differences” between the pipeline provisions in the U.S. House energy package, HR 4, which has passed, and the proposed U.S. Senate version, S 1766, which is “quite different” from HR4.

“The idea is that we will be able to reach some consensus of what we would like to see out of the federal government,” Torgerson said.

The meetings are tentatively set for Feb. 4 and 5. Murkowski said BP, ExxonMobil and Phillips had agreed to attend the meetings.