Category Archives: Immediate Reactions

A friend this morning asked for closing arguments from a few of his on Proposition 1.  This was mine: Continue reading →

Sometimes I think I am in a unique position. I don’t have a state job or contract and don’t want one. I have never asked the Alaska state government to fund a pet project or cause because I believe those are private (not state) responsibilities, and so, contribute my own funds and if it is bigger than me, invest my time to raise the remaining funds privately from others. Continue reading →

Click on icon above for podcast (starting at 10:05)

Over the past few years I have done a number of radio — and even television — interviews  on Alaska oil policy, and as it was being formulated and after it passed, SB 21, Alaska’s current approach to oil taxes.

In all that time, however, I don’t recall doing a better, more focused and succinct  interview on the topics than this past Tuesday with Chris Story on 700 AM KBYR, News and Talk of Alaska.  A podcast of the interview is available here (starting at 10:05, running to 30:40). Continue reading →

After listening to Jimmy Carter ramble on inaccurately again about some issue during the single Presidential debate of 1980, Ronald Reagan turned to him, smiled, shook his head a little in the way that only Reagan could and said simply to Carter, “there you go again.”

That moment came to me the other day as I was reading yet another press release from Governor Parnell’s office claiming success in keeping “Alaska’s fiscal future strong.”

Clearly, Sean Parnell has become the Jimmy Carter of our time.  When it comes to the state’s fiscal position, Parnell, like the Carter of old, seems capable only of repeating over and over again the same old, tired — and completely inaccurate — mantra.  As President Reagan would have said to Parnell when reading his most recent press release, “there you go again.” Continue reading →

Click on graphic to enlarge.

As mentioned in Amanda Coyne’s column Friday, Governor Parnell has been sending out campaign material and otherwise taking credit for exercising sound fiscal policy during the last legislative session. As I was doing some calculations this morning, I thought a look at the Governor’s real fiscal record might be helpful when evaluating his claims. Continue reading →

For the past several years I have contributed a lot of money to a lot of candidates (often at the maximum level).  With the beginning of the current election season, the inevitable invitations to various legislative, gubernatorial and party fundraisers have started to appear again (by mail, email, Facebook, calls and in some cases even txt). Continue reading →

As is the right thing to do, Alaskans insist that the oil and other industries adopt global best practices when operating in the state.

But is Alaska itself,  particularly now that it has decided to become a co-investor in the Alaska LNG project, following global best practices in its dealings with the industry.  The answer may be no.

One of the most successful governments in the world in terms of maximizing benefit to its citizens from the development of its resources is Norway.   By partnering with industry, Norway has both successfully slowed the decline curve in oil and gas production and successfully developed a global gas and LNG industry.   In addition, Norway is maintaining a strong  exploration program at a time that, even under SB 21, Alaska’s continues to struggle. Continue reading →

As readers of this blog’s “Page Two” will know, during the last few days of the session — and on into overtime — I have been building and populating some Excel spread sheets to put the budget being worked on this session (for FY 2015) and the one previous — in other words, the two budgets passed by this (the 28th) Legislature) — in a historical context.

Although this session is not quite finished — as of this writing the conference committee required to finalize the FY 2015 capital budget has not yet met — at this point the differences appear to be in a small enough range so as not to materially affect the overall outcome.

While the posts on Page Two have examined the data in additional ways, for many readers the most interesting questions appear to arise when the data is broken down by Governor.  As a result, in addition to presenting the data by year, in the far righthand columns the following table also summarizes and averages the data over the term of each Governor. Continue reading →