Here is a sampling of editorial opinions from Alaska newspapers:

April 17, 2011

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: No defeat on oil tax: Alaskans must stand up

Gov. Sean Parnell and those members of the Alaska Legislature who know that the state must do something to increase oil production have suffered a setback.

And, for the moment, all Alaskans - whether they know it or not - have suffered the setback with them.

The Legislature is scheduled to end its 90-day session this weekend without approving Gov. Parnell's proposal to ease the tax load on the oil companies as a way to induce more oil development. Alaska is in the upper tier of the most tax-heavy governments worldwide when it comes to the oil industry. On one ranking, Alaska is listed near the top. It has an extremely high tax rate on each barrel of oil produced at high oil prices.

There's an inverse relationship between tax rates and business activity: Increase taxes, get less business investment; reduce taxes, get more business investment.

Responsibility for the Legislature's failure to act this session sits with the Senate, which declined to hold comprehensive and expeditious hearings on the governor's proposal. The House held hearings, passed a bill that would accomplish what the governor wanted and sent it to the Senate, which sat on it and on a comparable bill introduced in the Senate by the governor earlier in the year.

Alaskans who know that something must be done soon to reverse the alarming, albeit expected, decline in oil flowing in the trans-Alaska pipeline cannot walk away in defeat, however.

Not now.

Gov. Parnell and his supporters must continue, unabated, with the battle to once again make Alaska competitive in the oil industry. The governor needs to step up the pressure and be convincing in his arguments.

The issue of declining oil isn't going away. The Legislature has left it unattended, so it will be there tomorrow and the next day, through the summer and fall, and into next year, when the Legislature will reconvene for its second session.

The Legislature cannot hide from the fact that improving the tax climate has a good chance of putting more oil the trans-Alaska pipeline, which today carries less than a third of its peak flow.

In a public speech in Anchorage to a group supporting oil tax changes, the chief executive of ConocoPhillips recently committed to several billion dollars in projects his company would undertake if the tax system were improved upon.

And the head of BP in Alaska, speaking last week to the same group, said his company will spend up to $2 billion on major Prudhoe Bay projects if the state makes suitable changes to the tax system. One of those promised projects is a single pad that will host about 50 producing oil wells, the other is be a gas-handling project. Those are real commitments.

Now Alaska just needs the commitment of its Legislature.

And that is something that Alaskans should become committed to obtaining during the next several months, before reinvestment by the industry that underpins the state's economy withers to the point of calamity - calamity for us.

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April 20, 2011

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: Begich proposes method to move leasing forward

Sen. Mark Begich is on the right track with legislation to streamline oil exploration off Alaska's coastline.

Begich, D-Alaska, has introduced legislation to establish a coordinator to work with the several federal agencies that have their hands in regulating offshore oil work.

That could help raise the profile of administrative decisions and thus resolve them more quickly. However, the more significant piece of Begich's legislation is the section that modifies how courts hear lawsuits involving the permits the agencies issue.

Such lawsuits have caused many delays in exploratory work off Alaska's coastlines. Environmental groups, joined by some Alaska Native organizations, have challenged many of the lease sales and permits. The lawsuits strike at multiple levels of government decision-making. The conflicts can take years to resolve.

Begich would require expedited rulings in these cases. He would move them to the district court in Washington, D.C., which has developed the expertise to handle such issues efficiently.

Begich's legislation would not create a Wild West atmosphere on the oceans. It repeals no laws. A federal coordinator cannot absolve agencies of their legal obligations to follow those laws. The courts must still hold the agencies accountable.

The legislation would help make all this proceed in more timely fashion, though.

Alaska and the nation would benefit, and Americans know it. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Tuesday showed 69 percent of Americans favor more offshore oil drilling. This is the majority view among Republicans and Democrats.

Begich's Democratic colleagues should give his legislation the support it deserves in Congress and already has in the public.