With oil leasing now planned for waters off the East Coast, Alaska has new allies in its long-running campaign to claim a share of revenues from future oil production in federal offshore territory, Gov. Bill Walker said Tuesday, fresh from a trip to Washington, D.C.
Like Alaska, the East Coast states adjacent to federal waters where leasing is now planned would get none of the royalty and tax revenue from oil produced there, Walker pointed out at a news conference upon returning from the National Governors Association winter meeting. And like Alaska, the East Coast states have political leaders who would like to expand revenue sharing to include them, he said.
"Their revenue sharing opportunity is zero percent, the same as ours. So suddenly they're very concerned about that," said Walker, who used his news conference to recap his third official trip to Washington.
Under the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, states on the Gulf of Mexico get up to 37.5 percent of royalties from oil and gas production in federal outer continental shelf waters. Such revenue-sharing from production is limited to the Gulf of Mexico region, site of almost all federal outer continental shelf oil and gas activity.
The lack of any provision for sharing federal revenues from offshore oil production outside the Gulf of Mexico has been "a lonesome frustration" for Alaska, he said. "Now more states will weigh in," he said.
To help solidify the alliance, Walker said, he has directed the state to join the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, a group formed in 2011 and currently chaired by the governor of North Carolina.
Under a proposed five-year leasing program released by the Department of Interior last month, two offshore Atlantic Ocean lease sales would be held between 2017 and 2022.
Up to now, the argument for a state share of revenues from oil pumped in federal offshore territory near Alaska has been largely academic. No oil is produced in federal waters off Alaska, except for a small portion coming from the edge of Hilcorp-operated Northstar, a North Slope field mostly on state territory within three miles of shore.
But with Royal Dutch Shell pursuing an aggressive exploration program, with drilling planned this year in the Chukchi Sea off northwestern Alaska, there is anticipation that decades of oil and gas exploration there and in the Beaufort Sea will eventually result in commercial production.
Alaskans have made several unsuccessful attempts to force the federal government to share its outer continental shelf oil revenues going back at least as far as 1984.
Most recently, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, with Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, introduced a bill in 2013 to expand revenue sharing, providing other coastal states with a 37.5 percent royalty share from outer continental shelf oil. But that bill died, and Landrieu last year lost her Senate seat.
Walker discussed other issues besides offshore oil during his visit to Washington, he said. He had meetings with department secretaries and agency heads, and discussed a wide range of Alaska concerns, including military troop levels, fishery management and highways and state ferry management.
Among the meetings was a 1½-hour session he and other governors had with President Barack Obama at the White House, during which, Walker said, he got one-on-one time with the president.
"We had a fairly frank discussion about issues concerning the various states," Walker said. "I explained that as the governor of a state with an oil pipeline that's three-quarters empty and it's surrounded by lots of oil opportunity in the north of our state, we need access to make that happen."
In the personal meeting, Walker said, he continued a discussion started in December about high energy prices in Alaska -- a situation that had surprised Obama earlier. They also talked about Alaska's fiscal problems and the challenges of rural life.
The president was a good listener, Walker said. "I found him engaging," he said. "I was very pleased with his level of attention."
Walker said his status as the nation's only nonpartisan governor was a source of intrigue and even some envy among people attending meetings in "the most partisan spot in the country." Others talked about the need to be more nonpartisan, he said. "We've actually done it," he said.