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Heyworth funds company promoting all-Alaska gasline Poll paid for by “Our Gas, Our Future” finds Alaska super voters, particularly in Anchorage, favor LNG development Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
Scott Heyworth, an Anchorage longshoreman, is concerned about the way Alaska North Slope natural gas will go to market.
He is so concerned that he has founded — and funded — a company to be a watchdog for Alaskans on this issue.
Heyworth called an April 26 press conference to talk about his new company, “Our Gas, Our Future,” and about results of a poll he paid for to find out what route Alaskans favor for a natural gas pipeline.
He said he became interested in how Alaska’s North Slope natural gas could be developed about six months ago and said people he’s talked to don’t understand why the governor has chosen the highway route and said he bases his opinion on how gas should be developed on the Backbone study, “Alaska’s Gas Alaska’s Future,” published in January.
Heyworth said Our Gas, Our Future supports three things in any gas pipeline project: jobs for Alaskans, revenues for Alaskans and gas for Alaskans. He said he will be working to educate Alaskans on gas pipeline issues, and will do more polling to keep track of public views on the issue. He also believes the Legislature should get involved.
“The only way Alaskans will get a square deal is if the Alaska Legislature initiates, votes for and funds a best interest finding using outside industry experts to determine which route is best for Alaskan,” Heyworth said in a statement.
Jim Sykes of the Alaska Public Interest Research Group joined Heyworth in talking about gas development. He said his organization is concerned that because there are other sources of gas possible for the Lower 48, there could be so much new gas entering the market that the price could drop so low that Alaska would get no revenues. But, he said, the producers could still make a profit on the tariff for transporting natural gas. Sykes said Cook Inlet is an example of what not to do: we’ve given away gas at very low prices and now there is very little left, he said. Polling and education The April 21-22 poll commissioned by Heyworth was done by Ivan Moore Research, which asked 273 Alaska “super voters” three questions about Alaska North Slope natural gas. Moore, who talked about the poll results, said “super voters” are households where at least one person voted in three of the last four elections, including primaries.
The first poll question began with a statement that there as been discussion lately about options for transportation of North Slope gas to market, and asked: “Which of the following two proposals do you support most? A route that travels south from the North Slope to Fairbanks then east along the Alaska Highway to Canada and down to the Lower 48, or a route that converts the gas to liquid natural gas, or LNG, and follows the Alaska Pipeline corridor south to Valdez where it is shipped out by tanker?”
Moore said that statewide 24.5 percent of the 273 super voters polled favored a highway route, 18 percent were undecided and 57.5 percent favored the Valdez LNG option. Moore said 42 percent of those sampled were from Anchorage, and they were most in favor of the Valdez-LNG option: undecided dropped to 14.3 percent; highway route to 19.3 percent; those favoring the Valdez-LNG option climbed to 66.4 percent. “The sample size was too small to allow detailed breakout of other areas, Moore said, but Anchorage was the most heavily in favor of the Valdez route.
The second question said that since the route to Valdez was 100 percent within Alaska, it offered the potential for the pipeline to be owned by the state, an option not available for the Alaska Highway route. “Knowing that,” the question continued, “which of the two proposals do you support most, the Alaska Highway route, or the Valdez route?”
Undecided response dropped to 12.3 percent and those favoring the highway route to 16.1 percent, while those favoring the Valdez route rose to 71.6 percent. Nearly half of the highway route support disappeared in the second question, Moore said, indicating that opinion on the issue is “malleable and can be changed.”
The third question began by noting that Gov. Tony Knowles is publicly backing the Alaska Highway route and then asked: “Does this issue make your opinion of Gov. Knowles more positive, more negative, or does it make no difference to you?”
Only 4.7 percent said this made their opinion of the governor “more positive.” And while 36.9 percent said it made their opinion “more negative,” 58.3 percent said it made “no difference.” Those results, Moore said, indicated that the issue has the “potential to do some harm” to the governor.
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