Is Sarah Palin’s Natural Gas Pipeline Really a Maverick Move Towards Energy Independence or Republican Politics as Usual Favoring Big Energy Business?
The first time I heard about Palin’s proposed $40 billion Alaska natural gas pipeline was not when she asked the Wasilla Assembly of God to pray for it, but it was during the October 2, 2008 vice presidential debate:
We’re building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline, which is North America’s largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever, to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets.
Today, Palin mentioned the natural gas pipeline again in her energy policy speech given in Toledo, Ohio touting the project as proof she is an energy reformer:
We introduced the big oil companies and their lobbyists to a concept some of them had forgotten — free-market competition. They had a monopoly on power and resources, and we broke it. The result is, finally, progress on the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history — a nearly forty-billion dollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence.
When the last section is laid and its valves are opened, that pipeline will lead America one step farther away from reliance on foreign energy. That pipeline will be a lifeline — freeing us from debt, dependence and the influence of foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.
Just three days ago, the Associate Press reported Palin’s beloved natural gas pipeline, which may never actually be built, curbed bids:
Gov. Sarah Palin’s signature accomplishment – a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 – emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows…Despite Palin’s boast of a smart and fair bidding process, the AP found that her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited the winner, TransCanada Corp.
Palin even had meetings with TransCanada Corp, despite promises and legal advice not to talk with potential pipeline bidders. Of course, since the governor can’t even name a major newspaper, she probably didn’t read the Associated Press article before giving her energy policy speech today and perhaps she doesn’t really understand what free market competition means.
Will natural gas really lead us to energy independence? Is replacing one form of nonrenewable energy with another a solution? T. Boone Pickens thinks so and has financially backed California’s Proposition 10. Building a natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the lower 48 is not the renewable solution to our dependence on foreign oil, and I find it ironic Palin gave her energy speech today at solar panel company, Xunlight Corp while focusing on natural gas and “clean” coal.
[...] Sarah Palin seems to think so. Perhaps you’ll remember her proposal to tap the natural gas supply found under the pristine Alaskan wilderness. As Governor of Alaska she “fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history . . . a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence.” [...]