Persily defends pre-election gas line secrecy

According to the Juneau Empire, Larry Persily "gingerly" stepped into a controversy that has been playing a part in the gubernatorial primary season. The two main Republican challengers of Sean Parnell, Bill Walker and Ralph Samuels, have been calling for the release of the results of pipeline open seasons before the primary election, and Walker filed a formal information request (which has since been rejected) for the release of bids received by Transcanada, the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act licensee. The bids on both that project and the producer-led Denali project, though, are kept secret by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as a matter of course, according to Persily, and the bids to supply an Alaska gas line will remain secret until after the November election, let alone the August primary. Persily said the companies themselves could release their own bids early, but that is unlikely because it might put them at a disadvantage. ""Those bids are confidential financial proposals from one entity to another," he said. Read much more, here.