Alaska Gov. Murkowski to Call Gas Pipeline Legislative Session

Source: Foxnews.com

JUNEAU, Alaska —

Gov. Frank Murkowski won’t head into retirement quietly.Murkowski plans to call state lawmakers into a new session to push through what would be the defining act of his term: A contract setting the terms to build a $25 billion North Slope natural gas pipeline.

It may be the governor’s last chance to move the deal through a reluctant Legislature before he closes a career that spans 22 years as a U.S. senator and four as Alaska’s governor. Murkowski finished third in the state’s GOP primary this week.

The special session is likely to be late next month.

“We’re going to let him go duck hunting but we’re going to get him in here in September,” Murkowski spokesman Will Vandergriff said Thursday. “He’s very determined to get this contract moving now because he believes and we believe it’s the best deal that’s ever going to come down the pike.”

Both parties’ nominees for governor questioned the insistence by the lame-duck incumbent that the Legislature vote on his contract after voters rejected him. Murkowski’s loss also represents a rejection of the contract, which was the center of his campaign, said Sarah Palin, who won the Republican primary.

Both Palin and Tony Knowles, the Democratic nominee and a former governor, have called for opening the negotiating process to include more pipeline proposals for consideration.

“I interpret the vote of the people to say we want a more sensible project to be considered,” Palin said Thursday. She said she’ll ask Murkowski to apprise her on the talks and to include her in future negotiations.

Knowles said Murkowski has the right to call a special session, but that the governor should release the revised contract before ordering lawmakers back to Juneau.

“This is clearly the 11th hour for his administration and the 11th hour for many people in the Legislature,” Knowles said. “I think Alaskans will universally say ‘Show me the contract.”‘

Murkowski’s proposed contract sets tax terms and incentives meant to entice BP PLC, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp. to build the pipeline to Canada. But some provisions Murkowski’s team negotiated in the first draft — including a long-term freeze on the companies’ oil taxes and weak commitments for the companies to actually build the pipeline — have garnered unfavorable reviews among some state lawmakers.

Other disputed provisions would have the state taking its royalties and its 20 percent ownership share in gas instead of cash, meaning Alaska would have to turn around and sell that gas to fill its treasury.

The structure of the company that runs the pipeline, of which the state proposes to own 20 percent, is still being negotiated. That is a separate, but key, part of the deal that lawmakers want to see before voting on the contract.

Murkowski, stung by the Legislature’s refusal to consider his deal earlier this summer, is revising it.

Revenue Commissioner Bill Corbus said he expects the revised contract, the final fiscal interest findings and the pipeline ownership agreement will be completed by the time the governor plans to call lawmakers into session.

State negotiators are still processing and making changes based on public comments about the first draft of the proposal, changes that will have to be agreed to by BP, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil.

Ken Konrad, the gas business unit leader for BP’s Alaska subsidiary, said his company’s preference is to improve this deal with revisions based on the public comments and get started on the contract as soon as possible.

“If people decide they want to open (negotiations) back up and wait a few more years, that’s not our choice,” Konrad said. “If it doesn’t happen this year, we’ll work wherever and whenever because it’s good for us and we think it will be good for Alaska and for the rest of the nation.”

ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Natalie Knox said her company will also continue negotiating with Murkowski’s administration, although the company recognizes that changes are coming.

“We look forward to working with whoever is the new governor and his or her administration to make it a reality,” Knox said.

Governor Finishes Third in Alaska G.O.P. Primary

Source: New York Times

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

ANCHORAGE, Aug. 23 — Gov. Frank H. Murkowski was decisively defeated in a Republican primary on Tuesday, a loss the governor interpreted as a rejection of his leadership style but one that also echoed an anti-incumbent mood elsewhere in the country.

Mr. Murkowski, 73, a former United States senator who left Washington in his fourth term to run for governor in 2002, won 19 percent of the vote in his bid for a second term, placing third in a three-way race, according to partial results released Wednesday.

Sarah Palin, 42, a former mayor of the little town of Wasilla who rose to prominence as a whistle-blower uncovering ethical misconduct in state government, won the nomination for governor with 51 percent of the vote.

John Binkley, a former state senator, received 30 percent. Mr. Murkowski promised to support Ms. Palin in November, when she faces former Gov. Tony Knowles, a Democrat who left office in 2002 because of term limits. Mr. Knowles, who made an unsuccessful bid for the United States Senate two years ago, won the Democratic primary with 69 percent of the vote.

In a brief interview on Tuesday night, after having told supporters at his campaign headquarters that he would concede, Mr. Murkowski suggested that his style in the Senate, where he unsuccessfully fought to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and natural gas exploration and to expand logging in Tongass National Forest, had not translated well to the state capital.

“Maybe they just weren’t used to somebody who calls them as he sees them,” he said of the voters who rejected him.

The dominant policy debate of the Republican primary centered on the longstanding goal of building a pipeline for natural gas from the North Slope into Canada, a development that many people here say is critical for the state’s economy as oil production declines.

“It has to be pushed hard,” Ms. Palin said in an interview. “It is the future of the Alaska economy. But we have to have a shift of emphasis.”

While Mr. Murkowski’s defeat suggested a rejection of his plan, which would give generous incentives to oil companies that invest in the pipeline, many people linked the loss more closely to the governor’s brazen ways and missteps.

Several moves cost him support. He appointed his daughter Lisa to complete his Senate term. He eliminated a “longevity bonus” for the elderly that had been intended to keep them from leaving the state.

He proposed taking money from a reserve account financed by oil taxes to balance the budget. And, after state and federal agencies rejected his efforts to buy a jet for the use of the governor’s office, he took out a line of credit from a bank and bought the plane anyway.

Dennis Fradley, a chief of staff in Mr. Murkowski’s Senate office in the 80’s and his communications director as governor, noted that two other longtime lawmakers in Alaska lost state legislative races on Tuesday.

“I don’t know if it was ‘throw all the rascals out,’ but I do think it’s wanting new faces,” Mr. Fradley said. “I think his timing couldn’t have been worse that way. He was giving people a reason at the same time people were giving less weight to seniority and history.”

The governor did not announce his re-election bid until late May, a fact that aides said hurt his fund-raising and limited their ability to polish his image. In the short summer campaign, Mr. Murkowski appeared in television commercials in a confessional mode, suggesting in one that he might need a “personality transplant.”

Senator Lisa Murkowski, who won a full term in 2004, noted that new residents had flooded Alaska since her father and the state’s two other Republican giants, Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Don Young, were first elected decades ago.

“They’re brand new,” Ms. Murkowski, 49, said. “They’re seeing these older people leading the state, and they’re saying, ‘Hey, I want some new blood.’ And I think Sarah was that fresh face.”

Stephen Haycox, a professor of history at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and the author of “Frigid Embrace: Politics, Economics and Environment in Alaska,” said Mr. Murkowski’s defeat was a manifestation of a developing pattern. “I think the sense that change is desirable is a transcendent theme,” Professor Haycox said.

Paul Pierson, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, said Mr. Murkowski’s loss, while rooted in local issues, might show something broader about voters as polls show high disapproval over how some incumbents handle issues like the Iraq war.

“That seems like the link that would be worth exploring,” Professor Pierson said, “that people are in a sour mood and they’re willing to look beyond the presumption they would usually give incumbents.”

Alaska governor’s defeat latest sign of surly electorate

Source: USA Today

By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski’s defeat in his state’s Republican primary is the latest sign that incumbents are facing tougher races than usual, political analysts said Wednesday.

Murkowski got 19% of the vote Tuesday, placing last in a three-way race. His loss sets up a fall contest between Republican Sarah Palin, 42, the former mayor of Wasilla, and Democrat Tony Knowles, 63, who held the governor’s seat for two terms from 1994-2002.

Murkowski was burdened by a number of controversies of his own making, including his decision to appoint his daughter, Lisa Murkowski, to succeed him in the U.S. Senate. Even so, the decisiveness of his defeat is an indication of the “surly” mood of the voters, according to Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the non-partisan Cook Political Report.

“Generally speaking, incumbents get the benefit of the doubt from voters,” Duffy said. “They’re not getting it this time.”

Alaska Governor Latest Incumbent Ousted

By MATT VOLZ

The Associated Press
Wednesday, August 23, 2006; 9:52 PM

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The defeat of Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski in Alaska’s GOP primary may have resulted from missteps throughout his first term _ but vulnerable incumbents should take heed, political observers said Wednesday.

Murkowski was trounced in his own party’s primary Tuesday, finishing last in the three-way race. Sarah Palin, a former Wasilla mayor, won with more than 50 percent of the vote and will face former Democratic Gov. Tony Knowles in November.

Murkowski took just 19 percent of the vote, which is “literally almost unprecedented for someone who is not indicted,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Popular opinion turned on Murkowski after missteps that constantly thrust him into battle with his political opponents and his own Republican-led Legislature, including: appointing his daughter to his U.S. Senate seat, unpopular budget cuts his first year and a highly publicized fight to buy a state jet.

The governor spent 22 years in the Senate before becoming governor, and Sabato said he may not have been used to the spotlight of state politics, like other senators who have become governor.

“Being a senator is easy. You’re not covered daily, much less hourly,” Sabato said. “He never believed he could be beaten and that’s why he was beaten so badly.”

The Alaska governor is the fourth incumbent this month to be unseated in a major national primary election. Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and Republican Rep. Joe Schwarz of Michigan also lost their primary elections this month.

Sheila Krumholz, acting executive director for the Center for Responsive Politics, said time will tell if Murkowski’s defeat is an exception or if that and other incumbent losses are harbingers of a groundswell.

“At this point in the cycle there is a sense of kind of a potential for big problems for the GOP and opportunities for the Democrats,” Krumholz said. “That can change so quickly, though.”

Phil Musser, executive director of the Republican Governors Association, said although some incumbents have been defeated this year, Murkowski’s ouster is not part of a nationwide trend.

“Governors races are really state-specific affairs and are really tied to local affairs,” Musser said. “Frank Murkowski has offered a lifetime of service to the citizens of Alaska … and we wish him the best.”

Decision 2006 - Republican Candidate Round Table

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Part 1: Introductions and openers 18 mins

Part 2: Oil taxes and budget 16 mins

Part 3: Gas line 11 mins

Part 4: Ethics 11 mins