Alaska fights to keep wolf program
January 30, 2008
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is supporting state legislation to end lawsuits by groups opposed to the shooting wolves from planes.Supporters said the bill would simplify the language in Alaska’s predator control laws, aimed at boosting moose and caribou populations for hunters. Critics such as the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife said the legislation would allow predator-control expansion across the state, the Anchorage Daily News said Wednesday.
“It gives carte blanche for the Board of Game to move ahead based on a hunch,” Tom Banks of Defenders of Wildlife told the newspaper. “Based on a belief, really, that killing wolves in a particular area would be helpful.”
The aerial predator control program has resulted in the death of more than 700 wolves in the program’s five years. While it is mostly aimed at wolves, it has also included bears, the newspaper said.
Source: United Press International
Alaska’s Murkowski back to push pipeline
January 30, 2008
Former Gov. Frank Murkowski wants to be a player again in the high-stakes game of building a pipeline to tap North Slope’s natural gas. Murkowski has re-emerged after a year out of office and the public eye. When he was the state’s chief executive, he couldn’t garner enough legislative support for a deal with Exxon Mobil Corp. , ConocoPhillips and BP that he hoped would eventually lead to a pipeline. Now, Murkowski says he’s planning to meet with oil companies in an unspecified role as the Legislature moves forward on Gov. Sarah Palin’s gas line plan — a rewrite of Murkowski’s failed attempt. Read more
Focus on warming, not polar bears, federal official says
January 30, 2008
WASHINGTON - Even if polar bears are listed as threatened, the Endangered Species Act may not be the proper vehicle to slow global warming or, especially, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said today.
“The polar bear should not be the focus,” director Dale Hall said after he testified at a U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meeting. “The focus should be global climate change and global warming and how we address aspects of that, and that is greenhouse gas emissions. As a world community we need to be doing that, and in the United States, we need to be doing that.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service is just days away from a decision on whether to list polar bears as endangered - a classification that would make the bears a photogenic worldwide symbol of the effects of climate change.
Read the full story: Anchorage Daily News
DOE study sees high North Slope potential
January 29, 2008
Source: Oil & Gas Journal
US oil reserves could more than double by 2050 if commodity prices remain high and leasing restrictions ease on Alsaka’s North Slope, according to a federal government study.
A detailed assessment of the North Slope by the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy says exploration and development might add 28 billion bbl of economically recoverable oil and 125 tcf of gas during 2015-50. Reserves for all of the US now are 21 billion bbl of oil and 211 tcf of gas.
The forecast assumes continued high oil and gas prices, stable fiscal policies, and access by the producing industry to all areas of the North Slope. Congress has not approved oil and gas leasing of the promising coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
During 2005-15, exploration of currently accessible areas will add about 2.9 billion bbl of oil and 12 tcf of gas, the study predicts.
Total reserves additions for the whole study period, including reserves growth in known fields, could reach 35-36 billion bbl of oil and 137 tcf of gas under the least restrictive set of assumptions, the study says.
“For this optimistic scenario, the productive life of the Alaskan North Slope would be extended well beyond 2050 and could potentially result in the need to refurbish the [Trans-Alaska Pipeline System] and add capacity to the gas pipeline,” the study says. A pipeline for North Slope gas production is not yet in place.
The forecast reserves additions decline with changes of key assumptions:
— To 29-30 billion bbl of oil and 135 tcf of gas if the ANWR coastal plain is removed from consideration.
— To 19-20 billion bbl of oil and 85 tcf of gas if the Chukchi Sea Outer Continental Shelf also is removed.
— To 15-16 billion bbl of oil and 65 tcf of gas if the Beaufort Sea OCS is added to the removal list.
— To 9-10 billion bbl of oil if all those areas are removed and no gas pipeline is built.
Alaska Governor Introduces Health Care Transparency Act
January 28, 2008
Governor Sarah Palin has introduced the Alaska Health Care Transparency Act which will provide more effective tools to help Alaskans access affordable health care, and to ensure the health care system is responsive to changing demographics and market conditions.The Act includes some recommendations from the Health Care Strategies Planning Council and the Health and Social Services Certificate of Need Negotiated Rule Making Committee.
“I thank the members of these two committees,” Governor Palin said. “They worked diligently to evaluate the broad spectrum of the health care system in our state. After reviewing their work, I am establishing the Alaska Health Care Commission to further health care planning from a statewide perspective, by building on the work they have done.”
The bill would establish an Alaska health care information office to give consumers factual information on quality, cost and other important matters to help them make better-informed decisions about health care in the state. Recognizing that health care must be market-and business-driven, rather than restricted by government, Palin is proposing a repeal of the Certificate of Need program (CON).
CON is a regulatory process that requires certain health care providers to obtain state approval before offering certain new or expanded services.
Health and Social Services Commissioner Karleen Jackson concluded that the CON program does not benefit the citizens of Alaska, given the litigious environment surrounding it.
The reports from the two committees are available online at: http://www.hss.state.ak.us/commissioner/legislature/
Source: Government Technology
