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Murkowski: Oil Lease Without Permit “Like Renting Apartment Without Getting Keys”CBS 11's Sean Doogan interviews Sen. Lisa Murkowski about how Chinese interest in Alberta oil sands could affect Alaska's gasline plans; importing gas into Anchorage; and healthcare for rural veteransRelated Content
VFTH June 29
Sen. Murkowski
Murkowski: Oil Lease Without Permit “Like Renting Apartment Without Getting Keys”
Energy Issues
KTVA: The Chinese are interested in oil sands in Alberta. The Canadians are looking at two separate pipelines to take gas to Texas, to Vancouver. Does this imperil our gas line plans?
Murkowski: Chinese are very direct, very open in their energy policy. If they don’t have the resource they’re looking around the globe for access to the resource and not just buying up gas itself but buying or building transportation infrastructure to get it to China. There’s a lot of discussion here in Congress about the Keystone pipeline. That pipeline is being held up by the secretary of state looking for additional environmental impact statement (EIS). This is a pipeline, which would bring Alberta oil into the country. It’s being held up because those who say the oil that comes out of Alberta is a greater contributor to climate issues, more emissions. Who’s going to buy that oil? The Chinese.
What does it mean to Alaska in terms of the markets and access? I think this is a situation where we in Alaska think we have great resource but also need to look for competition for resource.
KTVA: Sinopec, Chinese state-owned company invested in oil sands and the Keystone XL oil pipeline. With all this interest why aren’t they up here in Alaska?
Murkowski: Why aren’t we seeing greater interest from Chinese but others as well? How attractive are we when it comes to accessing our resources? Look at what Shell’s been trying to do for five years. That’s a company that’s invested billions of dollars and still has nothing to show for it in terms of ability to access it. Countries look at what’s going on in the U.S. and in Alaska and deciding where they’re going to access resources and it’s not coming here.
KTVA: Governor Sean Parnell is saying it’s a tax issue; that we take too much. You’re saying it’s a regulatory issue. Are these regulatory issues coming around? You and Begich have been working with the administration on this. Has anything changed?
Murkowski: When it comes to (ConocoPhillips) CD-5 permit will resolve itself. I’ve been working aggressively on this. I think there is some headway being made there. What we face in Alaska with trying to access resources on federal lands is this uncertainty that’s brought about by the regulatory process. The administration has made a big deal about efforts to make more land available for leasing. Leasing is not the problem. They can get those but can’t get the permits. It’s like renting an apartment from a landlord but the landlord doesn’t give you the keys. I think we are making headway in CD-5. We’ll continue to really highlight this as an opportunity where good things are made to happen. But we have to get federal bureaucracy out of the way. We’re utilizing some means through appropriations process to expedite that.
KTVA: You disagree with President Obama’s decision to draw down strategic petroleum reserve.
Murkowski: It’s there as an emergency stockpile to be accessed when there’s a supply disruption. That’s not well-defined. We do not keep emergency stockpile to be used for political purpose to alleviate for short-term prices. That’s what the president did when he said 30 million barrels would be released from SPR. Once after Hurricane Katrina, once after initial build-out of strategic reserve and only when we did see supply disruption.
The prices of oil both on the world market and what folks are paying at the pump have dropped down now over the past six weeks. If this was about price disruption then the president should have acted six weeks ago. I don’t think you ought to tap into this emergency stockpile because once you do that you are more vulnerable if you really do have an emergency. I looked at this and felt it was a political effort by the administration. We are not facing a supply disruption. Europe is seeing that because of flow of oil being shut off from Libya. Maybe president’s actions will help Europe.
KTVA: Senator, are you suggesting that the president waited until prices were coming down so he could fulfill his own prophecy. That by, tapping the SPR, it would reduce prices when prices were already coming down, so he could later go back, and go, 'Look, it worked.'
Murkowski: It worked...
KTVA: Is that what you are saying?
Murkowski: I don't buy into too many conspiracy theories. I am not suggesting that this is one, but that is a point that has been made by others. Again, I think you need to look very, very critically at how you access this emergency resource. I have suggested that we need to look critically at what the criteria are. Perhaps we need to legislatively address this: put some more concrete parameters on how you define a supply disruption or when the SPR may be accessed. I just don't think that it should be used for political purposes. And I believe that that is what has happened: this move in the past week.
KTVA: As senator of a state with a lot of resources what do you think about us importing gas into Anchorage?
Murkowski: Drives me crazy. Goes against everything you think is a reasonable rational scenario. We are a state with so many resources. We’ve been accessing natural gas in Cook Inlet for decades. It’s been keeping the lights on in South-central. We’ve had the longest export to Japan from natural gas. And now to think we’re going to be importing from Australia or wherever into Cook Inlet to supply South-central goes against everything I want to support. Very concerned about the situation in South-central: with cold dark winters, how do we keep the lights and power on?
KTVA: You wrote an op-ed piece about the VA, saying Alaska’s veterans need better. Eric Shinseki was here in Alaska. Senator Mark Begich said Shinseki had a moment of clarity about what rural means. What can we do differently to help rural veterans with healthcare specifically?
Murkowski: We need to work every day to make sure our veterans get the care they need instead of sending them outside. The military construction subcommittee we moved through the appropriations bill that provides for language that looks directly to this issue of how we provide for level of care that we do it in state. As I bring this issue up with colleagues on both sides of the aisle they’re quite shocked and horrified that our veterans would be expected to travel the lengths they do to go Outside to get care. We will continue to follow through and be very aggressive.
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Perry Donnifeld said on Thursday, Jun 30 at 4:08 PM
Murk is too happy to sell LNG at wholesale to Big Oil to be used solely to cook and upgrade Alberta syngas which is then sold at retail to Americans in L48 using a pipeline paid for by oil depletion allowances gouged out of taxes paid by L48r's, who only get $4.25 gasoline in return for their stolen life savings. Murk is too happy about 'VA and vets', when AK District Army Engineers are spending 12x more on military projects, like a $416M barracks, 12x for Big Mil than total of Fed-funded civilian projects across the State of AK. That's so bizarre, her priorities slavishly skewed towards Big Oil and Big Mil, ...and screw Alaskan and L48 taxpayers, 'You'll get what we decide is good for you, and you'll pay what we tell you to.' That's Socialism.
69970662jmacinak said on Friday, Jul 1 at 1:12 PM
..lots of talk, no ak-shun.. DO something senator, offer a bill and get a debate going to open this state back up from it`s lingering federal chains that are not only still hurting Alaskans, but are now going to hurt the nation (if we don`t get access to our own as well as federal resources in Alaska). Like an in-state gasline FOR INSTANCE! We tried to tell you when we created ANGDA, but you folks in Washington just didn`t get the message so here we lie, Planning to import gas to Alaska. You call that a political success Senator Murkowski?
70023696disbelief said on Thursday, Jul 7 at 7:40 PM
I know! Ive got another example: Its like buying lake front property from a convicted VECO conspirator, forgetting to report it to the government (oops My Bad), and not getting in trouble. Right Lisa?
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