Alaska News

Chair of Alaska gas line board is fired, replaced by ex-Fairbanks borough mayor

Gov. Bill Walker on Friday fired the chair of the citizen board of directors of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., his latest move to consolidate control over the state's planned natural gas pipeline project.

The corporation is charged with representing Alaska's interest in the development of the $55 billion pipeline from the North Slope, which the state is pursuing with three oil companies — though there's no guarantee it will be built.

In a prepared statement Friday afternoon, Walker said he was replacing John Burns, who served as attorney general under former Gov. Sean Parnell, with Luke Hopkins, who recently finished his second term as mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough.

In a second change, Walker's statement said Transportation Commissioner Marc Luiken would replace Commerce Commissioner Chris Hladick on the board.

The shakeup means that six of the board's seven members are now Walker appointees, and it comes before a Saturday morning board meeting.

Walker replaced three other board members in January and has taken additional steps to mark the project with his own ideas, including recently winning support from the Alaska Legislature to buy out the ownership stake of a fourth pipeline partner, TransCanada.

Many of his decisions, however, have drawn criticism from members of the Republican-controlled state Legislature, who have seen Walker, an independent, put his own stamp on a framework for the project that was originally developed by the administration of Parnell, a Republican.

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Walker's statement Friday didn't offer a reason for the moves, and it said the governor hopes to use Burns' skills "in a different capacity on this project going forward."

In a phone interview Friday, Burns said Walker's decision was "entirely his prerogative."

"That's the nature of serving on boards," he said. "I wish he and the project well. It's been an absolute pleasure to serve on the board these last couple years."

Walker, he added, hasn't specified a future role for him with the project. But Burns said that "in any capacity that I can serve to advance this project, I'm delighted to do so." Burns' term on the board would have expired in 2018.

Asked why Walker replaced Burns, the governor's spokeswoman, Katie Marquette, cited Hopkins' "municipal experience" and his work to create a local gas utility in Fairbanks.

Hopkins, a Democrat, can serve on the board immediately, but he'll ultimately need to be confirmed by the Legislature. In the spring, lawmakers rejected the nomination of another Fairbanks Democrat, former state Sen. Joe Paskvan, to the same board.

House Majority Leader Charisse Millett, R-Anchorage, said Burns' removal was "incredibly disappointing," and she accused Walker of "playing politics with a board that was supposed to be absent of politics."

"I don't know if anybody who was unhappy with John Burns or his performance on the board," Millett said in a phone interview late Friday. "I think he was doing a good job."

Nathaniel Herz

Anchorage-based independent journalist Nathaniel Herz has been a reporter in Alaska for nearly a decade, with stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. Read his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com

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