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Gov. Sarah Palin's signature accomplishment — a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 — emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows.
AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids
Here's another nail in the coffin of the "reformer". Remember bush billed himself as a "reformer with results".
Clip:
Gov. Sarah Palin's signature accomplishment — a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 — emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows.
Beginning at the Republican National Convention in August, the McCain-Palin ticket has touted the pipeline as an example of how it would help America achieve energy independence.
...
Despite Palin's boast of a smart and fair bidding process, the AP found that her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited the winner, TransCanada Corp.
And contrary to the ballyhoo, there's no guarantee the pipeline will ever be built; at a minimum, any project is years away, as TransCanada must first overcome major financial and regulatory hurdles.
In interviews and a review of records, the AP found:
_Instead of creating a process that would attract many potential builders, Palin slanted the terms away from an important group — the global energy giants that own the rights to the gas.
_Despite promises and legal guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders, Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate, including TransCanada.
_The leader of Palin's pipeline team had been a partner at a lobbying firm where she worked on behalf of a TransCanada subsidiary. Also, that woman's former business partner at the lobbying firm was TransCanada's lead private lobbyist on the pipeline deal, interacting with legislators in the weeks before the vote to grant TransCanada the contract. Plus, a former TransCanada executive served as an outside consultant to Palin's pipeline team.
_Under a different set of rules four years earlier, TransCanada had offered to build the pipeline without a state subsidy; under Palin, the company could receive a maximum $500 million.
Got news for you: previous governors have tried to start the natural gas pipeline talked about, and have not been successful. Alaskans are hoping that finally this one will take place within ten years. It will be a huge boost to the Alaska economy, much like the Alaska Pipeline has been for several decades, and one of the reasons why the economy of Alaska is still in the black while yours (your State) is dipping in the red.
Got news for you: previous governors have tried to start the natural gas pipeline talked about, and have not been successful. Alaskans are hoping that finally this one will take place within ten years. It will be a huge boost to the Alaska economy, much like the Alaska Pipeline has been for several decades, and one of the reasons why the economy of Alaska is still in the black while yours (your State) is dipping in the red.
I doubt many people will dispute that a new pipeline is good for Alaska, good for the rest of America in many ways. Jobs, resources, etc... However what seems to be the question here is that she is giving people the sense that cronyism lingers under her leadership as it has under that of the Bush administration.
It kind of reminds me of the neoconservative idea of spreading democracy in the Middle East. Spreading democracy is great unless your method includes the use of force or coercion in order to achieve it. It is then self defeating and not always do the ends justify the means.
Whether or not she did or she did not, it gives the appearance to the American voter that she may have interests other than just those of the people in mind, namely her own.
One of the things that I DO like about Palin is that she pushed the pipeline through and actually caused the oil companies to start looking at the gas pipeline as the necessity that the rest of Alaskans see.
They have delayed the building of the pipeline, saying that the economy wouldn't support the cost of the pipeline and have been burning off the gas on the slope. Now that the cost of natural gas has gone up, and the pipeline is shown to be more than economically viable, the oil companies are crying foul. They also rushed to put together a bid that would get them a lower royalty rate in "their" pipeline.
I work with a lot of these companies here in AK, and make a lot of money off of them. But they could have been more responsive when the state told them to get off of the dime 10 years ago.
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AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids
