This is interesting...

[Rance]

We are on our own power with the rig generators. We are sitting high and dry in the higher elevations of PA's statelands, which is equivalent to state moose range in AK. Road is open to our rig...but dang near every other rig in the state has shut down. Many of the local hires have gone home to deal with flooding. All bit truck traffic has halted due to road closures. I'm working nights this hitch so I'm just getting up.

2 years ago there wasn't enough work to keep a lowly contractor such as me working in state. I did take a lesser job for a couple months until I stumbled across this one. And really it's no different than working on the slope. I'm still gone for a couple weeks at a time, it just takes 7 to 9 hours to fly to work or home, rather than 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
I'm still surrounded by Texans, Oklahomans, and Louisianans. Fortunately I'm also surrounded by Canadians (my favs to work with eh). A unique feature here is PA requires the drilling companies to hire at least one local on any crew. Funny thing is not many of the locals want to work the long hours under harsh conditions. Some funny folks in this area. They'd rather sit at home or work a 9 to 5 for pennies on the dollar.

[starlite9]

During the Construction of the Trans Alaskan Pipeline in the 70's, to work on it, you had to have a State Residency card to show you were an Alaskan Resident.

What it did was foster a big black market for the coveted card, something like a $1,000.00 could buy you one. It was challenged in Court and was proven to be illegal. Any American Citizen has the right to work in any US state of his choosing, period.

Now some of the oil companies/contractors claim that they require their employees to have an in State address, and most do, a P.O. Box in Anchorage. But when you do their paperwork and need to put down their emergency number of who to get ahold of in an emergency, it is always their wives/girl friends/parents whom live stateside. Point is the Companies claim they are an "Alaska Hire" company, when in fact they aren't really, just on paper.

Many of those same folks file each year for the PFD when they don't qualify.

This is just another PR grab by people looking to seem they are pro hire locally, which to me is just more BS.