Post by ferryfast admin on Feb 13, 2006 23:19:20 GMT -5
Alaska threatens to yank ferry over ANWR
Bellingham port officials plan to defend terminal
JON GAMBRELL
THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
www.bellinghamherald.com/
A partisan political battle over oil drilling in Alaska could end up stripping Bellingham of its Alaska ferry stop.
A resolution introduced in the Alaska state House of Representatives calls for terminating Washington state's involvement with the Alaska Marine Highway System, which ferries passengers and vehicles between Alaska, Canada and the U.S. mainland.
Alaska Rep. Kurt Olson, the legislator who introduced the bill, said he hoped it would inspire conversation between congressional members from the Evergreen State and the last frontier on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The refuge, encompassing 19.2 million acres in northeastern Alaska, has been a focus of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. She successfully fought a battle in the Senate to prevent oil drilling there, to the ire of Alaska's Republicans.
"We've been hamstrung by your congressional delegation on ANWR," said Olson, R-Kenai. "Our relationship is really one-sided."
Olson said only 2,000 acres of the refuge would have to be developed to pump oil out of the region, which could provide jobs for Puget Sound.
"It boggles my mind we are sitting on so much oil and gas up there," he said.
Charla Neuman, a spokeswoman for Cantwell, said her office hadn't heard of the Alaska Legislature's resolution.
"Certainly, we appreciate the ferry run," Neuman said. "We don't have any reason to believe it won't be here."
If Washington lost its stop in the ferry system, it would end Bellingham's 17-year run as the system's southernmost port of call. The Port of Bellingham won a competition with Tacoma and the Port of Seattle for the route in 1988. The port later spent more than $10 million to construct the Bellingham Cruise Terminal, located at the foot of Harris Avenue.
Port Commissioner Doug Smith said officials soon plan to travel to Alaska to speak with legislators about the ferry system.
"I can understand Alaska's irritation," Smith said. "They feel somehow Washington state's federal representatives are working in a direct way that is ultimately going to harm them."
However, Smith worries about the port irritating either Alaskan legislators or Whatcom County's congressional delegation. He said Cantwell, as well as U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens, provide much-needed federal funding to redevelop Bellingham's waterfront.
Currently, the resolution sits in the Alaska state House's Transportation Committee. Though Olson stresses the resolution is meant to spark conversation, Republicans do have a political muscle to flex - the party controls Alaska's state House and Senate, as well as the governor's mansion.
"It's a sign of the frustration many Alaskans show with Sen. Cantwell and her stance on ANWR," said Mike Chambers, a spokesman for Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski. "It's highly unlikely we'd cut off our nose to spite her face."
Reach Jon Gambrell at jon.gambrell@bellinghamherald.com or call 715-2263.
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REP. KURT OLSON'S RESOLUTION
REP. KURT OLSON
w3.legis.state.ak.us/house/24/OLL.php
www.akrepublicans.org/olson/dis-olson.php
00 HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 12
01 Requesting that the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities
02 terminate the State of Washington's involvement in the Alaska marine highway system.
03 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
04 WHEREAS the State of Washington has not supported the State of Alaska in issues
05 of concern to Alaska in the United States Congress; and
06 WHEREAS the Alaska marine highway system provides a valuable service to the
07 state of Washington with its ferry service to that state; and
08 WHEREAS the State of Washington financially benefits from its relationship with the
09 Alaska marine highway system;
10 BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives that it is requested that the
11 Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities terminate the State of
12 Washington's involvement in the Alaska marine highway system.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
White House says ANWR lease revenue could triple
Rose Ragsdale
For Petroleum News
www.petroleumnews.com/
Drilling for oil on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge figures prominently in the Bush administration’s fiscal 2007 budget proposal, thanks to lease sale revenue estimates that triple the $2.4 billion projected a year ago.
The U.S. Department of the Interior said Feb. 6 it expects to collect more than $7 billion from leasing tracts in the barren, but potentially oil-rich, 1002 Area of ANWR based on revised calculations from the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Budget Office.
The $7 billion figure, to be split 50-50 with Alaska under terms of the current budget proposal, is drawn from a recent Congressional Budget Office report on the long-term projected price of oil exceeding $50 per barrel in 2010. Interior previously estimated the first sale would attract $2.4 billion in bids, based on $25 per barrel oil.
If Congress approves oil drilling in ANWR this year, the first sale would occur in 2008. A second sale in 2010 could generate nearly another $1 billion, according to Interior.
“The issue of ANWR is one that continues,” Interior Secretary Gale Norton told reporters in releasing the department’s proposed fiscal year 2007 budget. “There will be a number of opportunities this year to move ahead.”
Higher revenue proposal
Pro-ANWR lobbyist Roger Herrera said it was Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who brought to the Bush administration’s attention the higher revenue potential of drilling in the refuge’s 1.5-million-acre coastal area.
The report resulted after Stevens requested in mid-December that the Congressional Budget Office re-examine the revenue projection for ANWR in light of recent higher oil prices.
“The CBO actually came back with a calculation of $10 billion, but they listed a more conservative figure of $6 billion,” Stevens’ aide, Courtney Boone, said Feb. 8.
This year, the Energy Information Administration came up with the higher calculation based on its own model, Boone said.
The administration’s fiscal 2006 budget request assumed the first sale would generate $2.4 billion and a total of $5 billion over a five-year period, also to be split 50-50 with Alaska. That was the basis for including ANWR drilling in the Senate’s filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process last year. But ANWR ran into trouble in the House of Representatives after passing the Senate and fell short of the final budget package.
Domenici to lead effort
Longtime ANWR supporter Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has said he will lead another effort to move ANWR drilling through the congressional budget process this year, based partially on recent Iranian oil-supply disruptions.
“Clearly, the administration continues to recognize ANWR’s importance,” Boone said.
Though it is widely accepted that Republican leaders will make another push to get ANWR drilling through Congress this year, Herrera said no plan has yet crystallized. “If you listen to the grapevine in D.C., it’s accepted that another effort will be made. … There are all sorts of options. … Beyond that, it’s just rumor and supposition, and I don’t think that has much value at this early stage,” he added.
Additional Interior monies
Interior’s budget proposal also asked for an increase of $12.4 million for Bureau of Land Management activities on the North Slope, based on the assumption that Congress will authorize ANWR energy development in 2006. The additional funds will support the required environmental analyses and other preparatory work in advance of the first ANWR lease sale in 2008.
The request will support BLM’s leasing, inspection, and monitoring program in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and BLM’s participation in the North Slope Science Initiative. BLM also will use funds to respond to the environmental threat posed by abandoned legacy wells and related infrastructure on the North Slope, according to Interior.
The 2007 budget proposal also includes an increase of $6.5 million for the Minerals Management Service to meet new responsibilities for offshore renewable energy development. The budget proposes $3.8 million in increases in BLM and the U.S. Geological Survey for oil shale development and a $1.9 million package of increases for gas hydrate research and development by MMS, BLM and USGS.
Environmentalists blasted the budget proposal as contradicting President Bush’s January State of the Union address in which he declared America is “addicted to oil,” and called the projections wildly inflated.
“Last week the president had what we thought was a landmark speech about our addiction to oil,’ Brian Moore of the Alaska Wilderness League told E&E Daily. “It turns out we may be addicted to oil, but he’s standing on the corner looking for a fix.”
“We shouldn’t even be talking about this,” Moore said. “How many times has Congress said no to this thing?”
Bellingham port officials plan to defend terminal
JON GAMBRELL
THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
www.bellinghamherald.com/
A partisan political battle over oil drilling in Alaska could end up stripping Bellingham of its Alaska ferry stop.
A resolution introduced in the Alaska state House of Representatives calls for terminating Washington state's involvement with the Alaska Marine Highway System, which ferries passengers and vehicles between Alaska, Canada and the U.S. mainland.
Alaska Rep. Kurt Olson, the legislator who introduced the bill, said he hoped it would inspire conversation between congressional members from the Evergreen State and the last frontier on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The refuge, encompassing 19.2 million acres in northeastern Alaska, has been a focus of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. She successfully fought a battle in the Senate to prevent oil drilling there, to the ire of Alaska's Republicans.
"We've been hamstrung by your congressional delegation on ANWR," said Olson, R-Kenai. "Our relationship is really one-sided."
Olson said only 2,000 acres of the refuge would have to be developed to pump oil out of the region, which could provide jobs for Puget Sound.
"It boggles my mind we are sitting on so much oil and gas up there," he said.
Charla Neuman, a spokeswoman for Cantwell, said her office hadn't heard of the Alaska Legislature's resolution.
"Certainly, we appreciate the ferry run," Neuman said. "We don't have any reason to believe it won't be here."
If Washington lost its stop in the ferry system, it would end Bellingham's 17-year run as the system's southernmost port of call. The Port of Bellingham won a competition with Tacoma and the Port of Seattle for the route in 1988. The port later spent more than $10 million to construct the Bellingham Cruise Terminal, located at the foot of Harris Avenue.
Port Commissioner Doug Smith said officials soon plan to travel to Alaska to speak with legislators about the ferry system.
"I can understand Alaska's irritation," Smith said. "They feel somehow Washington state's federal representatives are working in a direct way that is ultimately going to harm them."
However, Smith worries about the port irritating either Alaskan legislators or Whatcom County's congressional delegation. He said Cantwell, as well as U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens, provide much-needed federal funding to redevelop Bellingham's waterfront.
Currently, the resolution sits in the Alaska state House's Transportation Committee. Though Olson stresses the resolution is meant to spark conversation, Republicans do have a political muscle to flex - the party controls Alaska's state House and Senate, as well as the governor's mansion.
"It's a sign of the frustration many Alaskans show with Sen. Cantwell and her stance on ANWR," said Mike Chambers, a spokesman for Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski. "It's highly unlikely we'd cut off our nose to spite her face."
Reach Jon Gambrell at jon.gambrell@bellinghamherald.com or call 715-2263.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
REP. KURT OLSON'S RESOLUTION
REP. KURT OLSON
w3.legis.state.ak.us/house/24/OLL.php
www.akrepublicans.org/olson/dis-olson.php
00 HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 12
01 Requesting that the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities
02 terminate the State of Washington's involvement in the Alaska marine highway system.
03 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
04 WHEREAS the State of Washington has not supported the State of Alaska in issues
05 of concern to Alaska in the United States Congress; and
06 WHEREAS the Alaska marine highway system provides a valuable service to the
07 state of Washington with its ferry service to that state; and
08 WHEREAS the State of Washington financially benefits from its relationship with the
09 Alaska marine highway system;
10 BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives that it is requested that the
11 Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities terminate the State of
12 Washington's involvement in the Alaska marine highway system.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
White House says ANWR lease revenue could triple
Rose Ragsdale
For Petroleum News
www.petroleumnews.com/
Drilling for oil on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge figures prominently in the Bush administration’s fiscal 2007 budget proposal, thanks to lease sale revenue estimates that triple the $2.4 billion projected a year ago.
The U.S. Department of the Interior said Feb. 6 it expects to collect more than $7 billion from leasing tracts in the barren, but potentially oil-rich, 1002 Area of ANWR based on revised calculations from the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Budget Office.
The $7 billion figure, to be split 50-50 with Alaska under terms of the current budget proposal, is drawn from a recent Congressional Budget Office report on the long-term projected price of oil exceeding $50 per barrel in 2010. Interior previously estimated the first sale would attract $2.4 billion in bids, based on $25 per barrel oil.
If Congress approves oil drilling in ANWR this year, the first sale would occur in 2008. A second sale in 2010 could generate nearly another $1 billion, according to Interior.
“The issue of ANWR is one that continues,” Interior Secretary Gale Norton told reporters in releasing the department’s proposed fiscal year 2007 budget. “There will be a number of opportunities this year to move ahead.”
Higher revenue proposal
Pro-ANWR lobbyist Roger Herrera said it was Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who brought to the Bush administration’s attention the higher revenue potential of drilling in the refuge’s 1.5-million-acre coastal area.
The report resulted after Stevens requested in mid-December that the Congressional Budget Office re-examine the revenue projection for ANWR in light of recent higher oil prices.
“The CBO actually came back with a calculation of $10 billion, but they listed a more conservative figure of $6 billion,” Stevens’ aide, Courtney Boone, said Feb. 8.
This year, the Energy Information Administration came up with the higher calculation based on its own model, Boone said.
The administration’s fiscal 2006 budget request assumed the first sale would generate $2.4 billion and a total of $5 billion over a five-year period, also to be split 50-50 with Alaska. That was the basis for including ANWR drilling in the Senate’s filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process last year. But ANWR ran into trouble in the House of Representatives after passing the Senate and fell short of the final budget package.
Domenici to lead effort
Longtime ANWR supporter Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has said he will lead another effort to move ANWR drilling through the congressional budget process this year, based partially on recent Iranian oil-supply disruptions.
“Clearly, the administration continues to recognize ANWR’s importance,” Boone said.
Though it is widely accepted that Republican leaders will make another push to get ANWR drilling through Congress this year, Herrera said no plan has yet crystallized. “If you listen to the grapevine in D.C., it’s accepted that another effort will be made. … There are all sorts of options. … Beyond that, it’s just rumor and supposition, and I don’t think that has much value at this early stage,” he added.
Additional Interior monies
Interior’s budget proposal also asked for an increase of $12.4 million for Bureau of Land Management activities on the North Slope, based on the assumption that Congress will authorize ANWR energy development in 2006. The additional funds will support the required environmental analyses and other preparatory work in advance of the first ANWR lease sale in 2008.
The request will support BLM’s leasing, inspection, and monitoring program in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and BLM’s participation in the North Slope Science Initiative. BLM also will use funds to respond to the environmental threat posed by abandoned legacy wells and related infrastructure on the North Slope, according to Interior.
The 2007 budget proposal also includes an increase of $6.5 million for the Minerals Management Service to meet new responsibilities for offshore renewable energy development. The budget proposes $3.8 million in increases in BLM and the U.S. Geological Survey for oil shale development and a $1.9 million package of increases for gas hydrate research and development by MMS, BLM and USGS.
Environmentalists blasted the budget proposal as contradicting President Bush’s January State of the Union address in which he declared America is “addicted to oil,” and called the projections wildly inflated.
“Last week the president had what we thought was a landmark speech about our addiction to oil,’ Brian Moore of the Alaska Wilderness League told E&E Daily. “It turns out we may be addicted to oil, but he’s standing on the corner looking for a fix.”
“We shouldn’t even be talking about this,” Moore said. “How many times has Congress said no to this thing?”