It is time for Alaska to start acting like the owner state that we are and prepare to build a state-owned gas pipeline to Valdez.

We, the people of Alaska, own the resources of the state. Over the years we have witnessed other countries move their valuable resources to market while Alaska's resources remain in the ground.

We must take charge of our resources and seize control of our future.

Eighty percent of Alaska's general spending revenue is from North Slope oil. But oil pipeline throughput has fallen more than 5 percent annually. Without revenues from a gas pipeline to offset declining oil production, the state's economic future is bleak.

Alaskans need access to North Slope gas now. But for Alaskans to get affordable access to that gas, a pipeline must be anchored by long-term, out-of-state sales.

With the Lower 48 awash in shale gas, it does not need ours. According to recent reports by the U.S. Department of Energy, shale gas plays in the Lower 48 can fulfill North American gas demand for 100-plus years.

The only viable option for Alaska is for a gas pipeline to Valdez and LNG sold on the world markets. This ensures that the jobs resulting from the pipeline construction, operation and value-added industries from the valuable gas liquids remain in Alaska.

I have been active with the All-Alaska gas line efforts for the past 30 years. Over and over the state has urged Outside interests to compete for the right to develop a gas pipeline, to the same ineffectual result.

Meanwhile, numerous LNG projects around the world have been constructed. Here's why. Host governments that shoulder some risk and control the gas handling infrastructure are the ones that market their gas on their schedule. They act as the sovereigns they are. We must do the same.

Now is the time for Alaska to move forward with our own gas pipeline, one that is fully within our state boundaries. We will finance it, own it and determine when it gets built. It will be built with Alaska workers under a Project Labor Agreement and operated by Alaskans. Alaskans will take the risk and Alaskans will enjoy the rewards.

The North Slope producers have put in writing that if someone will bear the risks associated with the pipeline, they will ship or sell their gas on commercially reasonable terms.

While we as a state can manage the risk associated with building a state-owned pipeline, we as a state cannot manage or survive the risk to the future of our state if a gas pipeline is never built.

Publicly owned transportation and energy infrastructure is commonplace in Alaska and other states. It is nothing new. It just takes a decision to make it happen.

It is time we follow the voters' mandate from 2002, when the All-Alaska gas line initiative, calling for a state-owned line to Valdez, passed by 62 percent (132,000 votes). We must be ready to move forward with a state-owned gas line in the event the AGIA open season produces anything less than firm shipping commitments, without conditions, next year.

As Alaskans, we have the most to gain from a gas pipeline project. But Alaska will only realize benefits from a pipeline -- royalties, taxes, a construction boom, value-added industries, jobs and affordable energy to Alaskans -- if one is actually constructed. Only we can control our own destiny, and that destiny is a state-owned, state-controlled All-Alaska pipeline to Valdez.