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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (501996)	12/2/2003 9:13:36 AM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Respond to of 769667

More crony capitalism! Murkowski wants more subsidies. Murkowski wants a natural gas pipeline built along the Alaska Highway By Associated Press WHITEHORSE, Yukon Territory Alaska's governor said unequivocally Monday there will be a natural gas pipeline to the continental United States, and he wants it heading down the Alaska Highway through the Yukon. "There will be a gas pipeline. It will be built," Gov. Frank Murkowski said in Whitehorse. He said the pipeline will travel south from Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope, and "it has to come through the Yukon." Both the territory and Alaska have been pushing, off and on, over the last quarter-century for the pipeline to be built. With a high need for natural gas in the Lower 48 states, the resources in Prudhoe Bay have been eyed for filling that need. For the past few years, there have been discussions on whether an Alaska Highway pipeline would be built or whether the gas would be taken beneath the Beaufort Sea and down the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories, completely avoiding most of Alaska and all of the Yukon. But even with the Mackenzie Valley pipeline likely being built first to carry gas from the Northwest Territories, talk of a Beaufort Sea line has mostly vanished. Murkowski said he is very confident the Alaska Highway line will become a reality. He said construction of the pipeline would allow for a railway connecting lines in British Columbia with Alaska via the Yukon. "The idea of putting the railroad and the pipeline in a corridor is much more appealing from the standpoint of environmental sensitivity," Murkowski said. Fiber optic communications cables could also be included in the package, he said. He called the project a "corridor of opportunity." This has been an idea Murkowski has advocated since he was a U.S. senator representing Alaska. Murkowski was elected governor a year ago. Murkowski was asked about the possibility of a pipeline being built since the most recent U.S. national energy bill only had $18 billion in loan guarantees for the companies that would build the Alaska Highway pipeline and did not have the promise of a guaranteed price for natural gas. Gas producers involved in the project wanted a guaranteed floor price for natural gas and said they couldn't go forward without the subsidy. Murkowski said there will be a new push to get those subsidies in the bill.