Anchorage Daily News

It's the 53rd day of the Legislature's special sessions on the gas line, and the state Senate still has not voted on the state's proposed partnership with TransCanada.

This delay is not because there are any big, unanswered questions. It's because those controlling the Senate process -- Senate president Lyda Green and Resource Committee chair Wasilla Sen. Charlie Huggins -- are not-so subtly resisting the deal.

They realize that if the contract came to a straight up or down vote, it would pass. So they have delayed, delayed, delayed, knowing that if the Legislature doesn't say yes by midnight August 2, the deal dies by default.

Voting on this proposal does not raise new questions for senators. For weeks during the special session, the Legislature held joint House and Senate committee hearings on the gas line license. All legislators could attend. Those hearings covered a wide range of issues and potential objections. Critics advanced many arguments, but failed to find any that would kill the deal.

The House voted its approval of the gas line partnership July 23. The following day, the Senate's special energy committee didn't even bother to consider the proposal. The committee didn't bother to meet over the weekend of July 26-27, either.

The Senate's energy committee did finally get going this week. But with time running short, it spent a good chunk of time Wednesday flogging old issues.

One was whether TransCanada might owe money to withdrawn partners from the early 1980s version of the project. Legal opinions established early on in the process that any exposure TransCanada might have on that score is minor, certainly not the billions claimed by the deal's critics. In any event, anything TransCanada owes could not be included in pipeline rates.

Another was whether the state would trigger treble damages, a penalty for aiding a competing project, if it merely processes permits for the BP/Conoco project. (Answer: of course not. That question is answered right in the statute passed last year by the Legislature.)

The later the Senate pushes consideration of the gas line license, the greater the potential for last-minute procedural mischief that could kill the deal. Simply failing to send the Senate-approved version back to the House in a timely fashion, for example, could cause the clock to run out without a straight up or down vote on the proposal.

Enough dithering already.

This is a profoundly important decision for Alaska's future. It has the potential to help Alaska finally realize the 30-year dream of getting a gas line from the North Slope. It has been thoroughly researched and vetted.

It deserves a clear up or down vote by the full Senate today -- before it's too late.

BOTTOM LINE: Time's running out. It's time for the Senate to vote on the gas line.

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