Search for consultant smacks of cronyism

The state's Request for Proposal by the Department of Revenue was issued June 17 to fill an expiring contract. Bids are due back by 1:30 p.m. June 30. That is a very short turnaround. The next day, July 1, the contract will be awarded and the new consultant immediately will attend his or her first meeting and begin collecting a wad of dough. The only thing shorter than that time frame is Sarah Palin's temper. Bidders who lose, if there are any, will have about 32 minutes to appeal.

What must the adviser do for $2 million over the next few years? One task is to develop a real-time, sophisticated, plug-in, interactive whiz-bang computer model that will allow users to change taxes and such, and immediately see how those tweaks will hose oil companies. Unlike now, there will be no more waiting helplessly on the sidelines for months as dumb new laws and refusals to fix dumb old laws kill exploration, investment and jobs on the North Slope -- along with the proposed gas line. The gizmo, due in August, will show all that -- and right now. Mind you, there are boatloads of such computer models already in existence, including one used by the Legislature.

The successful bidder also will be expected to engage in a game of dueling consultants with the Legislature's adviser and prepare stacks of reports and analyses about the state's tax structure, which, so far, has pretty much shut down Alaska oil investment -- and make the occasional sandwich run.

How things change. A few years ago we were assured the state would never, ever, negotiate with the mean ol' oil industry; that no oil company would get its mitts on whatever gas line was built. Palin and company even conjured up the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act to keep oil companies away from pipeline ownership, and awarded a faux "license" to TransCanada, a pipeline company, to wrangle construction approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. For its efforts, TransCanada also got $500 million of our money. Palin et al. assured Alaskans that moving gas off the North Slope would be wildly profitable and the companies would be ecstatic. The tooth fairy, they said, was real.

It turns out, despite all that, the state now wants to -- says it has to -- spend a bundle of cash to hire somebody to help with negotiations that oil companies and everybody else knew all along would be needed to build a line. Oh, and evil Exxon Mobil is part of TransCanada's effort. The proposed line's wild profitability hinges on the very negotiations about taxes, tariffs and such that Palin eschewed. The tooth fairy thing is still up in the air.

So, here we are. No gas line; no promise of a gas line. TransCanada has an open season under way, but is expected to fail, with any bids proffered chock full of conditions.

But we are in short order getting a $2 million consultant, perhaps because of all that.

Maybe we need one; maybe not. It's the process that bothers me. Are state procurement rules being bent or broken? Is the fix in?

As Rep. Mike Hawker, certainly no supporter of the Palin/Parnell bumbling that could kill the gas line -- and the oil industry -- told the Anchorage Daily News: "It's an extremely short lead-time project, which means they probably already picked who they want to give it to and it's a sweetheart deal for one of their existing consultants. More money to the people who have basically come up with all the answers they've wanted them to come up with in the past."

Hawker was being kind. The process to hire the consultant smacks of cronyism and inside baseball. It would have a difficult time passing the red face test. It is not surprising from an administration almost proud of sidestepping the Alaska Constitution to hire sitting legislators for jobs cobbled up a few days after they bail out of office so that it all appears "legal."

Alaskans deserve better.

Paul Jenkins is editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.