Exxon Gets Key Permit for Alaska’s Point Thomson Field

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Exxon Mobil Corp on Friday received a major federal permit it needed to start construction on the Point Thomson oil and gas field on the eastern North Slope of Alaska, officials said, after an extended delay that threatened some leases there.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted Exxon a wetlands-fill permit for construction of drill pads, roads, an airstrip, pipeline, and docking and other facilities needed for production at the long-languishing field – production the state of Alaska has accused the company of dragging its heels on.

The Army Corps permit followed a detailed environmental impact study that began in 2009. While there remain a few outstanding state permits, the wetlands-fill authorization was the major approval needed for construction, said Mike Holley, northern branch team leader for the state’s Army Corps district.

Holley said Exxon, backed by partners BP Plc and ConocoPhillips, hopes to begin construction soon.

“They are planning on doing as much of the construction this winter as possible,” he said, adding that ice roads, which are built by spraying water on the tundra, would accommodate that.

Read more from this story HERE.

USGS: Massive 7.7 Earthquake Just 164 Miles South of Metlakatla, AK, Tsunami Warnings Issued

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An hour ago, a massive 7.7 quake hit near the southern tip of Southeast Alaska, just 164 miles south of Metlakatla.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) announced that the depth of the quake was approximately 17 kilometers (almost 12 miles).

This is the largest earthquake in the region in 63 years. In 1949, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck the area.

The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center has issued a regional tsunami warning for areas near the quake, including southeast Alaska. Hawaii is expected to experience some “non-destructive” sea level changes later tonight as a result of the quake.

UPDATE: Tsunami warnings were downgraded to advisories. In Craig, Alaska, the earthquake apparently caused a four inch wave. Despite the significant size of the earthquake, relatively minor damage has been reported from Canada and southeast Alaska.

Alaska Natives Lobby Obama Admin. Against Oil Development in NPR-A

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Native Alaskans have teamed up with environmental forces to urge the Obama administration to stick with a conservative management plan for the National Petroleum Reserve, despite oil industry protests that the proposal would block energy development in lands specifically reserved for extracting fossil fuels.

Joseph Sagviyuaq Sage, a whaling captain from Barrow, Alaska, and Lillian Stone, a teacher from Anaktuvuk Pass, are set to meet with Senate staffers and Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes while in Washington, D.C. this week. The pair are collaborating with the Alaska Wilderness League to make the case that some areas in the 23-million acre reserve should be off limits to oil development.

The push comes as the administration nears a final decision on how to balance energy production and conservation in the 89-year-old reserve in northwest Alaska. In August, the Interior Department unveiled its “preferred” management plan, which would allow oil and gas development in 11.8 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska while blocking the activity in other areas that are home to caribou herds and polar bears.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management appears likely to make a final decision on whether to adopt its preferred approach sometime after the Nov. 6 presidential election.

Stone said she wanted policymakers in the nation’s capital to know “we are real people and we are directly impacted by any activity that goes on within NPR-A.” Oil drilling in the reserve threaten the caribou that roam the land, Stone said, as well as the Alaska Natives who hunt the animal for food and clothing.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska’s ‘Bi-Partisan’ Working Group: The Cover for the Progressive Agenda of Obama’s Minions (+video)

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There has been no small shortage of advertising state-wide to support the “Bi-Partisan Working Group,” or sometimes called the Senate Majority. Despite their claim that they are “bi-partisan” or work “in a bi-partisan” way, it is really a cover for a State Senate controlled by Progressive Democrats. While it is true that the Senate President Gary Stevens is a Republican, he can hardly be viewed as a conservative. Proclaiming resource development to conflict with the state constitution, his views would be laughable if they were not hurting the state and blocking legislation that would allow resource development. In exchange for facilitating their agenda, Gary Stevens gets an easy glide from the Democrats to get back into office.

An examination of the rest of the Bi-Partisan Working Group shows they are, in fact, quite partisan. Some of the most radical state democrats are in control of important committees. It is through the committee chairmanships that they control state business, fostering the agenda of the progressive left. All of them worked on Barack Obama’s campaign, and they share his views on resource development. Anna Fairclough, long time state representative, correctly identified the key roles these Democrats play in the state’s legislative process. The term “bi-partisan” is simply a cover for Democrats trying to hide their association with Barack Obama and his policies.

An examination of the individual members of this group of “gate-keepers” is very revealing. They are all pro-abortion; Bettye Davis is actually playing the role of Planned Parenthood attack dog on her web page against conservative legislators like Alan Dick, claiming they are leading a war on woman. (Apparently, Senator Davis isn’t familiar with the strong role females have in Rep. Dick’s family and rural Alaska). They favor policies that allow government to intrude into your life; some like Joe Thomas advocate policies so radical that many building school teachers would be horrified (newborn public education, support of student insurrections, belief that brains quit developing after the age of 7). Even Joe Paskvan advocates their radical policies (although Paskvan does not agree with Thomas on brain development and believes brains don’t develop until a person is in their 20s). They worked against Parental Consent legislation, they supported legislation that criminalized parents if their child dropped out of school, and they are firm in their belief that the state can run your life better than you can. They may “claim” they are only about fiscal issues, but they clearly have a social agenda they are hiding, and it is an agenda that is reflective of the over-reaching power of the state into family matters that were the hallmark of the Knowles era.

Others like Hollis French are simply anti-gun at their core, and have led Senators like Paskvan and Woelekowski, who once had stellar gun records, down the gun control path. All of them share Barack Obama’s views on resource development and will do whatever they can to block resource development while making them think it is to YOUR advantage. Even worse, they will lie about the records of the Republican Majority to remain in power. They seem to think that no one remembers that the VECO scandal started with the Democrats and Tony Knowles’s Governor’s fund while Dave Guttenberg was Chairman of the Democratic Party, no one remembers the Knowle’s witch hunts for home school mothers who might drown their children, or the various and sundry big government positions of this group of old school progressives.

The cover for the Progressives as “Bi-Partisan” can be clearly seen with a closer examination of the “gatekeeper” Democrats. Fortunately, there are solid people running against each one of these Democratic “gate-keepers.” Let’s get out there and vote, and get both Barack Obama, and his minions in our state senate, out of office. Take note of their names and vote them out.

US Department of Agriculture Funding Broadband to St. Paul Island via Native Corporation

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is spending more than half-a-million taxpayer dollars to bring broadband Internet service to the 481 mostly indigenous people of St. Paul, Alaska – a community located 300 miles off the mainland.

“Without broadband, rural communities and business owners face a substantial challenge,” said Dallas Tonsager, Agricultural Undersecretary for Rural Development, in announcing the $554,140 grant. “In Alaska, this grant will bring the benefits of broadband, including new educational, business and public health and safety opportunities to rural residents living in a remote area.”

The taxpayer funds will go directly to Tanadgusix Corporation, the company that will build the broadband network.

The grant is administered through the “Community Connect” program, which is run by USDA’s Rural Development agency.

Community Connect provides grants to poor, rural communities with populations under 20,000 “where broadband service is least likely to be available, but where it can make a tremendous difference in the quality of life for citizens,” according to the program’s description.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska’s Governor & Delegation, Party to Empowering Tyrants & Terrorists

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Do we want to redistribute America’s wealth to State sponsors of terrorism while hamstringing our defenses? Passing the Law of the Sea Treaty would do just that, enabling the United Nations to further raid America’s treasury, rob her sovereignty, and further empower the despots of the UN.

Here’s a question for the two Senators from Alaska: why would you be a party to empowering the tyrants and terrorists of the United Nations? Why would Alaska’s Governor Sean Parnell and Lt Governor Mead Treadwell also favor passing this treaty?

Our state’s leadership supports a treaty that would be catastrophic for America.

There have been three UN conventions on the Law of the Sea (LOST), the first in 1956, the second in 1960 (both held in Geneva, Switzerland), and the third in New York, 1973. The third convention finally concluded in 1982. The international treaty became enforceable in November, 1994, one year after the sixtieth state, Guyana, ratified the treaty. 162 countries have ratified LOST.

In its current form, the Law of the Sea consists of 17 parts, containing 320 articles and 9 annexes, governing ocean space, boundaries, environmental control, marine research, economic and commercial activities, transfer of technology and royalties, and the settlement of disputes relating to ocean matters.

In past administrations, the main obstacles to US Senate ratification have been the provisions in Part XI, articles 133 through 191 of LOST defining the area subject to international jurisdiction, and part VI, article 82, describing royalty distribution. All disputes would be resolved at an international tribunal headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

The US Senate has never ratified the treaty. The Obama administration recently revived it and, although the Senate didn’t actually vote on it, LOST supporters were only one vote short of the 67 needed to ratify it (in the US, treaty ratification requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate and the President’s signature). LOST is sometimes called the ‘Zombie treaty’ because it keeps resurfacing after being rejected by the US Senate.

From my perspective, one of the biggest problems with the treaty is its re-distributive policies. America’s generosity has always been superior to that of any other country. Americans have freely given untold sums of aid to those in need. But now the US is supposed to sign a treaty mandating that Americans must give more, potentially sending trillions of dollars to ‘less developed’ countries, some of whom are known state sponsors of terrorism!

Resource exploration and development in effect becomes distribution of wealth to an ‘international authority.’ Of course, the resource extraction itself can only be done after receiving permission from that ‘authority’ to do so. Beyond our Continental shelf or ‘exclusive economic zone’, a percentage of revenue from resource production such as oil, would be distributed to the UN.

Resource development thus becomes the fuel for global power, a power that will further raid America’s wealth, redistributing it as well as the LOST resource revenues, to our enemies across the world.

I am also very concerned that ratifying LOST would greatly degrade America’s defense capability. The security of our allies throughout the world would be compromised. Access to ocean or maritime areas presently used and protected by the US Navy could be lost as sovereignty is lost to the UN. At risk is peace and liberty for many countries. America must not submit to the power of despots within the United Nations.

As noted above, not only does Governor Parnell and Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell strongly favor LOST, both of our US Senators do as well. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., is pushing for ratification of the treaty, with a vote planned for the lame-duck session after the November elections. Alaska’s two Senators have said they’ll vote for it.

When you analyze treaties such as the ‘Law of the Sea’, the ‘UN arms treaty’, or proposals and policies found in things like the UN’s ‘Agenda 21’, or Coastal zone management, you find a common thread binding them together: internationalism. Either our elected representatives are ignorant, corrupted by special interests that gain from the new regimes, or they are globalists. More likely, they’re a bit of each.

Obama’s Great Alaska Shutout

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President Obama is campaigning as a champion of the oil and gas boom he’s had nothing to do with, and even as his regulators try to stifle it. The latest example is the Interior Department’s little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

The area is called the National Petroleum Reserve because in 1976 Congress designated it as a strategic oil and natural gas stockpile to meet the “energy needs of the nation.” Alaska favors exploration in nearly the entire reserve. The feds had been reviewing four potential development plans, and the state of Alaska had strongly objected to the most restrictive of the four. Sure enough, that was the plan Interior chose.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says his plan “will help the industry bring energy safely to market from this remote location, while also protecting wildlife and subsistence rights of Alaska Natives.” He added that the proposal will expand “safe and responsible oil and gas development, and builds on our efforts to help companies develop the infrastructure that’s needed to bring supplies online.”

The problem is almost no one in the energy industry and few in Alaska agree with him. In an August 22 letter to Mr. Salazar, the entire Alaska delegation in Congress—Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski and Representative Don Young—call it “the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades.” This decision, they add, “will cause serious harm to the economy and energy security of the United States, as well as to the state of Alaska.” Mr. Begich is a Democrat.

The letter also says the ruling “will significantly limit options for a pipeline” through the reserve. This pipeline has long been sought to transport oil and gas from the Chukchi Sea, the North Slope and future Arctic drilling. Mr. Salazar insists that a pipeline could still be built, but given the Obama Administration’s decision to block the Keystone XL pipeline, Alaskans are right to be skeptical.

Read more from this article HERE.

Alaska’s Judges: Public Servants, or Robed Masters?

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Judicial retention elections rarely attract much interest from the news media, or from voters. But this year we have reason to pay attention – and take action.

If you live in the 3rd Judicial District – which includes Anchorage, the Mat-Su Valley, the Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak, Prince William Sound and Bristol Bay Communities – you have an opportunity to vote NO on one of the state’s most liberal judges: Superior Court Judge Sen Tan.

Judge San Tan has left his mark on Alaska – and it’s not a pretty one.

Subverted the rights of parents

Judge Tan struck down a common-sense measure that would require a parent to consent before an abortion can be performed on their minor daughter. Thanks to Judge Tan, a girl of any age – even 12 or 13 – can have an abortion in this state without a parent’s consent. The damage caused by Sen Tan’s decision was only partially reversed in 2010 when Alaska voters approved a ballot measure that at least gave parents the right to be informed (not consent) before an abortion is performed on their daughter.

Of course, Judge Tan’s ruling was absurd. A parent’s consent is already required before a minor can get a tattoo, a body piercing, or even an aspirin at school. There are 37 states with laws that require parental involvement before a minor’s abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld these laws as fully constitutional in nine separate decisions. Yet Judge Sen Tan arrogantly argued that Alaska’s constitution somehow prevents us from having a policy that the federal constitution and numerous other states allow. Sen Tan’s decision was nothing more than an imposition of his own extremist views, masquerading as constitutional law.

Forced taxpayers to pay for abortions

Judge Sen Tan ruled that taxpayers have to be on the hook to pay for abortions. He overturned the Alaska Legislature’s decision in 1998 to generally stop using state funds for abortions, except in cases of a threat to the mother’s life, or in cases of rape and incest.

Judge Tan ruled that if the state chose to pay for prenatal care for poor women and their unborn babies, then it must also pay for poor women to have abortions. In the lethal logic of Judge Sen Tan, if you’re using public funds to help ensure that healthy babies are born, then you must also use public funds to ensure that some children are never born. Judge Tan’s ruling completely contradicts the long-established reasoning of the U.S. Supreme Court, which had previously held that since the government does not make a woman indigent in the first place, the government does not undermine that indigent woman’s “right to abortion” by simply declining to give her money to pay for it.

Judge Sen Tan is the “poster child” of left-wing judicial activism in Alaska. He is the kind of judge who seems incapable of separating his liberal views from the serious art of constitutional interpretation. If you run for elected office, you’re free to vote your personal viewpoints. That’s what we expect politicians to do. But judges are supposed to be impartially interpreting the law, not making the law.

When judges start acting like politicians, there’s only one appropriate response: treat them like politicians. And that means voting them out of office when they abuse their judicial authority and impose their personal beliefs on you.

Video: Two Mature Bull Moose Fight it Out on Anchorage Urban Street

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After living, traveling, hunting and fishing in Alaska for over 18 years, I thought I’ve seen much of what the Last Frontier has to offer.

I’ve probably seen hundreds of moose near my home, in my yard and on the street, in Anchorage, Tok, and Fairbanks. And I hunt moose almost every year, hoping to provide my family with one of Alaska’s basic food groups. But I have never seen anything like this in town.

The following video, uploaded yesterday, shows two mature bull moose, fighting it out apparently on an Anchorage street. The video is amateur, but it does an excellent job in capturing the intensity of the fight.

Note the United States Postal Service vehicle waiting for the fight to end.

A Critical Interior Senate Race: Coghill vs. Thomas

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One of the most critical races in the state of Alaska is in Senate Seat A between incumbent Republican John Coghill, leader of the Senate Minority and incumbent Democrat Joe Thomas. What hangs in the balance is control of the state senate. Coghill has been an effective advocate for conservative social issues such as liberty, life, limited government, and school choice. In contrast, Joe Thomas has been an advocate of larger government (he voted for the creation of Senate Standing Committees last session), supported SB9 on compulsory public school attendance, has expressed his belief in government control from the cradle, and has consistently voted in a way that is adverse to virtually every issue important to real Alaskan conservatives.

This race is so important to the Bipartisan Working Group and the Democratic Party that Coghill is being outspent by negative ads. According to these, Joe Thomas claims to be the only “man with a plan.” The ads claim the bipartisan group is working and that we should stand up for these senators.

Curiously, Joe Thomas and the Bipartisan Working Group voted against the Amendment 1 sponsored by John Coghill. When the state senate finance committee cut funding for natural gas in the Interior from the state budget, Coghill came back with an additional amendment. Who fought the amendment for the Bipartisan Working Group? Sen. Joe Thomas led the fight, claiming that the Interior did not need the money. In the face of that, Sen. John Coghill pled for relief for the Interior. Nevertheless, Sen. Joe Thomas, Sen. Joe Paskvan, and the Bipartisan Working Group voted against the amendment.

The Bipartisan Working Group may be working for someone, but not the folks of House District 2. It is amazing that John Coghill, the state senator for North Pole and Valdez, appeals for residents in Fairbanks while the actual senators for Fairbanks oppose this legislation that would have led to accelerating the construction of a natural gas infrastructure and rate relief for Fairbanks residents.

Here are two videos that lay out stark differences between Coghill and Thomas, in their own words: