Alaska's pipeline regulators: who are they and what do they do?

• Author: McCorkle, Vern C.
• Position: Cover story

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Unlike it has often been in the past, when regulatory agencies of Alaska's basic natural resources viewed the state with disdain or a certain air of colonization, now, when it comes to Alaska's natural gas pipeline, the regulators are either all-Alaskan or often work and speak favorably for the development of the potential project.

In this context, recent remarks by Joseph T. Kelliher, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), based in Washington, D.C., are remarkable:

"I commend the progress the State of Alaska has made under the leadership of Gov. Sarah Palin in recent months." Further, "I'm hopeful that the new state process will encourage the development of a natural gas pipeline project in Alaska," he said. Kelliher was referring to Palin's Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA), which has been upheld by the District of Columbia Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. AGIA, a revision of the ill-fated, closed-door contract of (then) Gov. Murkowski and oil producer companies' production tax program, was founded on proposed fiscal certainty, but never was brought to a vote of the Legislature. (What later passed was a petroleum production tax (PPT) that has since been shown to possibly be tainted by alleged scandal and bribery by a few legislators and formerly Anchorage's VECO Corp.)

No fewer than three other agencies hold mandates to work the project and include the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects (OFC), of which Alaskan Drue Pearce is the coordinator working from Washington, D.C., and Anchorage; the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) with Deputy Commissioner Marty Rutherford as lead point person for Gov. Palin and DNR Commissioner Tom Irwin; and potentially, the Alaska Regulatory Commission (ARC), of which Commissioner Anthony A. Price is chairman.

WHAT FERC DOES

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas and oil. FERC also reviews proposals to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and interstate gas pipelines, as well licensing hydropower projects, to enumerate only a few of its responsibilities and powers.

FERC is comprised of five members, including the chairman, all appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate, and must have its principal office in or near the District of Columbia where general sessions are...