Alaskans Battle New Industry

Gov. Sarah Palin has signed her Alaska Gasline Inducement Act. Alaska is home free for more revenue. Right?

Wrong. Some wonder whether any company will offer to build the gas line from Prudhoe Bay, not for fear of rising construction costs but for fear of the cost of political clout needed to obtain construction permits.

A strong new industry has sprouted up to oppose development of any kind in Alaska. It's the professional environmentalists — the Sierra Club, the Alaska Coalition, the Wilderness Society, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council and others. One of the newest and most influential is the Alaska Wilderness League.

Officers, lawyers, consultants and staffers of those organizations make good money opposing Alaska development. The industry started its expansion in Alaska when it filed suit in 1970 to stop construction of the proposed trans-Alaska oil pipeline. After more than three years, a judge ruled for the environmentalists, blocking pipeline construction. So the issue went to Congress where permission to build the line passed by only one vote, that of Republican Vice President Spiro Agnew, who broke a 49-49 tie in the Senate.

Recently, environmental groups were successful in blocking construction of the Kensington gold mine near Juneau by obtaining a court decision against tailings disposal. The industry's organizations constantly fight against mining, logging and road building in Tongass National Forest.

Sen. Ted Stevens, a Republican, said last month that a second generation of rich lawyers in the environmental movement has grown up to block any development allowed under the revised Tongass Land Management Plan. Recalling the history of the oil pipeline, he is considering legislation to approve the upcoming revision of the Tongass plan.

Now we have the Alaska Wilderness League founded in 1993 by a group of environmental activists in the Pacific Northwest. Its honorary chairman is former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. Tom Compton, a Seattle sporting goods retailer, is chairman. Also from Seattle on the 15-member board is Marilyn Heiman, who was on the staff of Alaska's last Democrat governor, Tony Knowles. She also served in the Interior Department under President Clinton, who once vetoed ANWR development.

Lawyers and activists from other environmental organization comprise the board. According to its 2005 report, no director receives a salary but the League spent $107,000 on directors and expenses, plus $145,000 for travel. The 19-member staff does get paid. That took another $321,000. Consultants, some of whom are on the board, were paid $423,000.

Executive Director Cindy Shogan, in the League's Washington, D.C., office, earns $76,000 a year. She spammed Alaska with an e-mail Wednesday urging people to ask Alaska Congressman Don Young to support an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill by congressmen from New Jersey and Ohio that would ban road building in the Tongass.

Eighty-three percent of the League's $2.4 million in income in 2005 came from foundations and major donors such as Seattle's Wilburforce Foundation. It gave the League $110,000 in the past two years. Wilburforce receives its money from contributors who wish to remain anonymous. There are eight foundations in Seattle that make grants to Alaska environmental organizations.

See? There is money in anti-development in Alaska, and that industry won't sit quietly while the gas pipeline project advances.

The Alaska Wilderness League lists its goals as stopping oil development on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, blocking oil exploration and development in National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, blocking road building and logging in Tongass National Forest, and blocking offshore oil and gas exploration and development. It opposes extractive industry in Alaska.

For Gov. Palin, Sen. Stevens and most Alaskans, it won't be as easy getting the gas line approved as it was for the oil line in 1973, if one vote can be called easy.

It is difficult to understand Seattle's anti-Alaska development stand except that mostly Democrats comprise its congressional delegation. It led successful opposition to Sen. Steven's efforts last year to approve ANWR coastal plain development. It is like Washington State's six refineries — two each in Tacoma, Ferndale and Anacortes — don't need oil, and Washingtonians don't mind paying a premium for Democratic policy.

Memorial Day motorists around the Ferndale refinery paid $3.54 a gallon for regular gas. That compares with Memorial Day prices in Ketchikan between $3.43 and $3.50 per gallon. There was cheaper gasoline in Washington, like $3.21 a gallon near the Anacortes refinery, but there was higher, $3.78 at Point Roberts.

Not only do Washington's Democrat lawmakers fail to understand the need for oil, they fail to understand Seattle's major industries, such as Boeing.

That company's new Dreamliner is 50 percent carbon composite made from fossil fuels, mainly coal, from an extractive industry.

While on extractive industries, here is an interesting historical note that further mystifies us about Seattleites:

In 1901, John W. Nordstrom started a Seattle shoe store with Carl Wallin. The two had stampeded to the Klondike during the gold rush. Nordstrom's poke of $13,000 in gold, extracted from some creeks, started another major Seattle-based business.

Nordstrom recently announced an end to its annual sales trips to Ketchikan because of a lack of business. What does it expect with Seattle foundations giving grants to shut down Alaska.

The big question for Alaskans: Will the threatening presence of this new industry curb interest in bidding to build the gas pipeline and can Alaskans and any builder beat that new industry?

A strong new industry has sprouted up to oppose development of any kind in Alaska. It's the professional environmentalists — the Sierra Club, the Alaska Coalition, the Wilderness Society, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council and others. One of the newest and most influential is the Alaska Wilderness League. Officers, lawyers, consultants and staffers of those organizations make good money opposing Alaska development

We have those professionals here in Colorado. TThey claim to be grassroots, but they weren't here before a year or two ago, and the environmentalists who were had bare bones funding and little support.

These guys are well funded, and they own the papers, the governor and senator Salazar.

They've done a real number on the natural gas industry. They even come, uninvited, to business council meetings, and spontaneoulsy lecture us greedy capitalists on the living wage.

My question is, from where comes the money ?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.