Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- The Alaska House of Representatives is expected to vote today on whether to award a Canadian company an exclusive state license and $500 million to pursue a natural gas pipeline.

The vote will cap months of legislative hearings and work by Gov. Sarah Palin toward designating a preferred company for a megaproject to link the North Slope gas fields to consumers in the Lower 48.

If the House approves the license -- and legislative leaders see ample votes to pass it -- the legislation moves next to the Senate, which has until midnight Aug. 2 to vote yes or no under terms of the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act.

House leaders on Monday seemed to stick to their plan of voting on the TransCanada license, despite the controversy that's engulfed Palin over her recent firing of former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.

While some lawmakers talked of holding hearings or launching an independent investigation into Palin's reasons for sacking Monegan, House Speaker John Harris said he didn't see that as disrupting action on the pipeline license.

"Nobody's come to me and said we want to delay," said Harris, R-Valdez.

A natural gas pipeline is one of the state's grandest but most frustrated economic development dreams.

Palin believes the license and $500 million in planning money for TransCanada, a major North American pipeline operator, is the best way to push the project toward actual construction assuming the company can line up the necessary financing, customers and regulatory approval.

Her administration also believes the TransCanada plan is better than a competing pipeline proposal from two oil companies, BP and Conoco Phillips, which with Exxon Mobil hold rights to most of the North Slope gas.

Whoever builds the pipeline, the price tag will be staggering -- perhaps $30 billion or more.

Palin said Monday some people are working "tirelessly" to derail the TransCanada license. Asked who those people are, she referred to newspaper advertisements urging lawmakers to support alternative pipeline proposals.

House members are scheduled to take up House Bill 3001, which gives the state's revenue and natural resources commissioners authority to license TransCanada, at 4 p.m. today.

That's when lawmakers will debate the bill and likely offer a slew of amendments.

While legislators have the power to amend the bill, the Palin administration and lawyers for the state and Legislature caution that any changes could unravel the deal with TransCanada.

During a hearing Monday in the House Rules Committee, some lawmakers offered several amendments that failed to pass but are likely to resurface today on the House floor.

As an example, one amendment from Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, would have the state withhold the $500 million until it settles the legal fight with Exxon over control of the Point Thomson gas field. Johnson and other lawmakers said they don't believe any pipeline can be built without having Point Thomson's vast gas reserves available to help fill a pipeline.

That amendment failed in the committee by a vote of 5-2.

Find Wesley Loy online at adn.com/contact/wloy or call him in Juneau at 586-1531.

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