Dunleavy gas line plan calls for the feds to pay $4.5 billion for the $6 billion "first phase"

Gov. Mike Dunleavy's idea for an Alaska gas pipeline—based on getting more than $4.5 billion from the federal government to build a line to Fairbanks—is the worst gas line plan in the long and tortured history of gas line plans.

It’s not even a plan. It’s a press release straight out of Bizarro World. The news coverage of this debacle ought to make that clear, but I doubt it will happen. The Dunleavy plan calls on getting 75 percent federal funding for the $5.9 billion cost of the pipeline to Fairbanks, the Alaska Journal of Commerce reported.

“The funding for this is really based on the ability to achieve and received infrastructure funds that we hope will come out of Washington, D.C.,” said Frank Richards, president of the state-owned corporation.

One critical voice raised at the meeting was that of Joey Merrick, a former AGDC board member who is a partner with former Gov. Bill Walker in a private company that wanted to pursue the project, but was rejected by the state.

Merrick said their proposal doesn’t need a $4 billion to $5 billion subsidy to get to Fairbanks.

“The Fairbanks-only project just doesn’t pencil out as I think you all know. I mean the numbers don’t work,” Merrick said during public comments. The project has to have the LNG export market accessible to be financially viable.

Long ago people used to talk about “growing strawberries on Mount McKinley” as an example of what might be done with enough federal support for the private sector.

The pipeline to Fairbanks would be the first phase of the project to ultimately go to tidewater, according to the state. The project to tidewater would become more attractive to private investors once the first phase is built with a 75 percent federal subsidy.

Sure thing. Strawberry Fields Forever.

As you think this over, remember that Dunleavy and Alaska’s senators are in full attack mode against Biden, with Dunleavy claiming that the president and his allies want to destroy Alaska.

The AGDC meeting brought the first public announcement by the Dunleavy administration that former Gov. Sean Parnell and former Sen. Mark Begich were both hired last year by the state to talk up the virtues of an Alaska gas pipeline.

The Dunleavy administration should explain why it concealed these contracts—when you hire a former governor and senator at hundreds of dollars per hour, for a total of nearly $250,000, it’s worth revealing that to the public. The Alaska Landmine first reported on the details.

The lobbying contracts with Parnell and Begich raise some questions about their actions last year in endorsing and aligning themselves with Dunleavy as a pair.

In March, Parnell and Begich volunteered to be the leaders of Dunleavy’s so-called economic stabilization plan.

In April, they put their names on a press release, printed with no questions asked by many Alaska newspapers, that endorsed the overall Dunleavy solution to the pandemic—raid the Permanent Fund and distribute as much cash as possible.

Parnell’s consulting contract, paying him $450 an hour, began on April 30.

In July, Begich and Parnell put their names on a press release printed by the Wall Street Journal that attacked the ranked-choice-voting measure on the Alaska ballot, a position in line with Dunleavy’s.

Begich’s consulting contract began in September.