Q&A with Gov. Frank H. Murkowski.

• Position: Interview

After serving in the United States Senate for 22 years, Frank H. Murkowski was elected in 2002 as Alaska's 8th governor since statehood.

Gov. Murkowski grew up in Ketchikan where his father was president of the First National Bank of Ketchikan. Murkowski graduated from Seattle University in 1955 and returned to Alaska where he began a career in banking after serving in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Murkowski worked as a banker in Wrangell, Anchorage and Fairbanks, and is former president of the Alaska Bankers Association as well as the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce.

In 1967, Gov. Walter Hickel named Murkowski Commissioner of Economic Planning and Development. At the time, Murkowski was the youngest commissioner ever to serve.

Over the course of his career, Gov. Murkowski has focused on the issues of resource development, oceans policy, clean energy, transportation infrastructure and the health, safety and well-being of Alaska families.

ABM: You campaigned on economic development as one way to help solve Alaska's fiscal crisis. What economic development projects can we look to that has done this? Where are you on your expectations for economic development as it relates to Alaska's future?

Murkowski: Natural resource development is a slow and serious business with no quick fixes or easy shortcuts. That said, during the past 18 months I have engaged in definitive negotiations with North Slope oil producers and two large pipeline companies leading toward construction of a large-diameter natural gas pipeline running from Prudhoe Bay to markets in the Lower 48.

I have increased the acreage exploration companies can hold in Alaska, which will allow oil and gas explorers to work in several frontier areas at the same time. I've facilitated the development of heavy oil production within the Prudhoe Bay field, and I've encouraged gas exploration in the Susitna and Bristol Bay basins. I've taken steps to hold a lease sale off ANWR within the state's sovereign 3-mile limit, and I've scheduled an oil and gas lease sale for 2005 for the highly prospective onshore portion of the Alaska Peninsula.

Alaska's economy is based on oil revenue. So far, more than 15.3 billion barrels of oil and more than 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas have been sent to consumers in Alaska, Japan and the Lower 48. Revenues generated from this production have been used to build our state's transportation infrastructure and public facilities.

Lack of infrastructure remains a...