Category Archives: Speeches & Testimony

It is ironic that a Governor who is trying to increase Alaska’s competitiveness for oil investment dollars with the one hand is undermining it with the other.  Yet, that is exactly what Governor Parnell is preparing to do in the coming legislative session.

The Governor correctly has identified Alaska’s current oil tax structure as an impediment to attracting the investment dollars that Alaska needs to stabilize Alaska’s current oil production levels.  Most anticipate that he will announce specific proposed reforms to address the problem sometime this coming week. Continue reading →

I had the opportunity yesterday to present before the second day of Lead: North’s “Investment Inquiry.”  For those that aren’t familiar, Lead:  North is a project of the Institute of the North, which is designed to “act as a platform from which young Alaskans, ages 21-40, are educated about – and engaged in – their responsibilities to one another, their community, and state.” Continue reading →

On Thursday (January 26), Ira Perman, the Chairman of the Institute of the North, Nils Andreassen, the Executive Director, and I made two presentations regarding the Institute’s fall 2011 Norway Policy Tour.  The focus of my segment was on the potential lessons which can be learned from Norway’s oil & gas policy and, in the presentation before House Economic Development, Trade & Tourism, some thoughts on the manner in which some of lessons could be adapted to Alaska.

The first presentation was before the House Economic Development, Trade & Tourism Committee.  The Gavel-to-Gavel (video/audio) archive of the presentation is at Hearing Before House Economic Development, Trade & Tourism (January 26, 2012).  The documents considered by the Committee, including the slide deck accompanying the presentation, are at Hearing Documents.  My portion of the presentation starts at (minute) 19:00.

The second presentation was before an open “Lunch & Learn,” sponsored by House Resources.  The Gavel-to-Gavel (video/audio) archive of the presentation is at  Lessons Learned from Norway Presentation by the Institute of the North (January 26, 2012).  The slide deck accompanying the presentation is at Norway Report Legislative Lunch & Learn.

As these pages previously have discussed, the Institute of the North led a policy tour of Norway last fall.  Now, moderated by Institute of the North Chairman Ira Perman, some of those who participated in the tour are reporting on the results.  My focus in those presentations is to discuss some of the lessons learned on oil issues, and their potential applicability to Alaska.

Collected here are the slide decks from two of the most recent presentations — the first from a full briefing covering a number of areas presented to a group at the Port of Anchorage on January 7, 2012, the second a more focused presentation before the Alaska World Affairs Council on January 13, 2012.  For those interested primarily in the lessons learned on oil and gas issues,      included here as separate sets are the slides from the AWACS presentation that focused on oil & gas issues, and from the Port presentation that focused  on some thoughts for how these lessons may be applied in Alaska.

I was the speaker at this week’s Thursday morning meeting of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance.  The subject was Judge Gleason’s recent decision on TAPS — what the decision says, and more importantly does not say.  Since its issuance, the decision has been the subject of a great deal of political spin.  See, e.g., “Paskvan says court ruling shows bright future for Alaska oil development,” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Dec. 31, 2011.  I believe the spin is unfounded and explained why in the Alliance presentation.  The slide deck from the presentation is here.

In preparation for a meeting this past weekend, I put together a few thoughts on where Alaska’s current oil enterprise model fits in a global context.  The results are available at Alaska’s Oil Enterprise model (Jan 7 2011).