Sandy,
When you enter a contract to supply a commodity you are obligated to do just that. Spin it as you may yet that is a fact. Absent collusion to extract the highest possible price by the producers in Cook Inlet, or an attempt to include Cook Inlet demand to support an alternate project (e.g. AKLNG), or a reckless tactic on the part of the Cook Inlet consumers to play “brinksmanship” in four years, if these new supplies are there, what is your opinion of the actual justification for the delay in obtaining long term contracts? I thought the whole problem in Cook Inlet was caused by lack of long term contracts and absence of those contracts caused the decline of Cook Inlet production. . Now the solution is apparent and what are we doing? I do understand that personal insult is the argument some prefer.

Jon,
You tell me that Parnell’s SB21 was the inspiration for the current activity on the North Slope yet you have to know that there is simply no way that level of capital investment could have been planned and funded after the passage of SB 21. It was already in the works because tax rates were going to fall. While SB21 didn’t hurt it would have been more advantageous for the producers to pay the ACES tax rates because they knew oil prices were going to fall. Next you tell me that Cook Inlet is the savior of us all yet you cannot explain why current supply contracts end in 2018 nor tell me how state revenue we are currently reaping from Cook Inlet.
Now the original “alignment” between the state and the producers has been effectively destroyed by the election process, unless the producers want to go it alone, Bill Walker will not kill AKLNG as defined in SB138 before it will have committed suicide.
Within a few years all the state’s cash reserves will be depleted and the state will soon need all available revenues and probably additional funds from taxes on the producers and residents. So you can promise a PFD, yet producing it at any but a minimal level from any source will be impossible.

I think Mallott will help Halford keep from making further mistakes..
I like the idea of Two-Governors..
..it would be useful for commenters to include some links to the complete backstory of Halford’s alleged purported and possibly mythical relationship to VECO..
..I’ve sold property to scoundrels too, and had regrets later.
It’s an easy mistake to make.

On a grand scale Alaska has a long history of being a cheap whore for big-biz scoundrels.
…even our first territorial administrator Jefferson C. Davis was no sweetheart, colorful & heroic yes, but not the kind of guy who you’d want for a neighbor.

I have seen comments for many months from folks who think that Bill Walker is a stand-up guy with a moral compass and true intestinal fortitude who will do what’s best for others regardless of the personal cost to himself. In my opinion, such a view requires ignoring obvious evidence to the contrary.

I fell for the populist anti-incumbent screed once before and voted for Sarah Palin. I also thought Murkowski’s term as Gov proved he should have stayed in the Senate. However, I am much more skeptical of that type of candidate after seeing how Palin turned out. I think this time around, we’re seeing exactly what we’ll get from a Walker administration, and shouldn’t be surprised by much of anything. Too bad it’s too late to do anything about it.

@ Andy……..

Thanks for your studied comments…

click on my nickname here for a link to the PESwiki Directory…
…I recommend all Alaskans read this directory, every night for next 6 months.
..this directory doesn’t cover everything, but it trains the inquisitive mind to look for the interlocking patterns in nature.

Hydrogen is fluffy and will find any leak in your plumbing, it’s kinda low density to be of much use as a free gas..
it has a very cold boiling point, as a cryogenic fluid it has some interesting industrial uses..
Hydrogen is useful in many ways, but for the standard consumer it is easiest to use it when it’s bonded to a bigger atom as a carrier [carbon, oxygen, boron, etc…]
..the magic-trick is to know how to easily flip hydrogen out of it’s lock-up with the carrier atoms, and our technology is getting better at doing this daily.
BigOil doesn’t want the public to know this; it’s easier to get useful amounts of hydrogen from water than by steam-reforming methane.

It’s interesting to note the Hydrogen Fuel-cell was invented in the same year as the internal combustion engine, in 1836.

Randall Mills has some interesting stuff about inverse-Rydberg Hydrogen Plasma’s in his “blacklightpower.com” website.

Fusion energy research lost the interest of formal&focused congressional funding in the 1970’s, this was mostly because of regulatory-capture from BigOil & the NukeBombThrowers.
Fusion energy research decentralized after that and has re-emerged on many fronts; and leading the pack now is LENR.
Brillouin Energy is my current LENR favorite, and Rossi’s LENR is now on the market for investors to buy actual working LENR powerplants.

Boiling Water Fission Reactors kept getting built, despite our successful campaign to stop the WPPSS boondoggle in WA-state…
Parnell has something in common with Dixie Lee Ray here.

“enenews.com” is somewhat shrill populist in format, but id does indeed keep our attention focused on the impending-DOOM of Nuke Stupidity.

IMHO: Parnell’s fumbled response to Fukushima is worse than his National Guard Fiasco…
…if Alaska want’s a worthwhile megaproject, go buy Fukushima from TEPCO for a dollar and go clean it up and convert it to a whopper LNG import facility.

The Fukushima Megaproject ties into the TransatomicPower molten salt reactor plan for proper disposal of the National Disgrace of our hundreds of stockpiles of dangerous spent fuelrods sitting in thinly guarded & very risky “swimming pools”.
Beam Activated Molten Salt Reactors are our best opportunity for prevention of National Suicide by STUPIDITY……..
……..and this “BAMSER” technology is cheaper to build than the current proposed BWR’s.
BAMSER’s can replace our miserably failed WIPP in Carlsbad,NM.
BAMSER’s should only be installed deep underground in the most stable dry bedrock in the world, which happens to be the 3.2 billion year old Laurentian Shield surrounding Hudson’s Bay….
BAMSER’s will safely recover all of wasted energy from the nukewaste..
BWR’s only use 3% of the energy in the toxic fuelrods [pisspoor efficiency promoted by idiots]
So, in the process of cleaning up our nukemess we have a surplus of zillions of megagigaterawatts of power to distribute all over North America..
..and this power supply can last 10,000 years or forever, whichever comes first.

…all this extra FREE energy makes Alaska’s gas-bloat look kinda puny & pathetic.

[ are you reading this Rex ??? …here’s your chance to make restitution for the Exxon Valdez oilspill, while keeping your stockholders happy, and you can break free from being a BigOil A$$hole while still calling yourself an “energy company”…. Monopoly is a game for kids, now’s your chance to be an adult Rex ]