Thread: Palin and the Politics of Big Oil: Part 1

By STEPHEN CONN

Like a Dickens novel, these are, “the best of times and the worst of times” for Alaska and Alaskans. It is no coincidence that just when Alaska was taking control of its oil field destiny, acting like an owner state, the political game was changed by forces beyond its control and the opportunity lost. Thanks to an ingenious political maneuver, orchestrated by Big Oil, Sarah Palin has been transformed from oil’s political antagonist to a potential ally at the national level. Whatever the election’s outcome, Big Oil wins in Alaska and Alaskans are, forever, the losers.

“The best of times”- Consider $3269 checks for every Alaska man, woman and child , equal to more than the annual income of folks in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Zambia, Uzbekistan, the Marshall Islands, and dozens of other client nations of America in places where trickle-down corporate resource income fails to trickle into every outstretched hand. As Alaskans will soon see, not only folks from Yemen or Cambodia are paying attention to Alaska’s big oil money distribution.

Alaska is the single state of fifty where the gap between the top twenty percent richest and the poorest twenty percent has narrowed in the past twenty years, a factoid left out by the New York Times blog when it cited stats, blaming the two year Governor, Sarah Palin, for every state failure, rural or urban.

“The best of times?” Governor Sarah heeded the warning of future Congressman Bob Bartlett at the Alaska Constitutional Convention not to let big resource extractors sit on our resources and develop them when they felt like it. She took on Exxon for its corporate decision to inventory the massive Cape Thompson leasehold indefinitely with no commitment to drill.

“The best?” Because she worked with Democratic legislators while her fellow Republicans stood transfixed with fear over Federal prosecutions, to raise the tax on oil profits (although not production), and –in the most unconservative fashion imaginable- used $500 million as table bet to force the oil companies to move forward on a natural gas pipeline.
In an obscure, but invaluable, web offering, consultant Joe Rothstein describes part of her oil policy this way:

“On becoming governor, Palin launched a process that resulted a few weeks ago in a contract with a credible Canadian company to build a gas pipeline from the north slope to the U.S. Midwest through Canada. The big oil companies who own the gas didn't bid on the gas line project and have given no guarantees that they will fill the line with gas if and when the project is completed.

“Palin has suggested that if the oil companies don't cooperate the state just might go into the gas business itself, from its own unleased lands. If Alaska were a country, that might be called “nationalization.” You can be sure that if Obama or any Democrat suggested it, the Republicans would call it “socialism.””

So there you have it. The good news was Sarah Palin really had taken on the oil companies, with a windfall profits tax, cancellation of unused leases, and by moving ahead with a major gas pipeline that the oil companies would rather not see built.

Palin had become a bad Republican, an out of control governor, out Chavezing Hugo Chavez. With bonus checks for Alaskan fuel bills, Sarah Palin had the moxie to capitalize on the universal Alaska hatred for Exxon, festering since the spill in 1989. Her predecessors –both Democratic and Republican- could have done the same, but were either on the take or wanted to be: The best example- Tony Knowles who used state resources to fight for an even bigger oil monopoly before the Federal Trade Commission, a merger of BP and ARCO. (He lost).

Palin’s independence from Big Oil’s control was catching. The
Presidential outcome was in doubt for the first time since 1964. Alaska was on the verge of drifting Democratic with solidly popular candidates for Senate and Congress. Obama even had the chutzpah (Yupik for gall) to run TV commercials in Alaska, sending 65 staffers North to open offices in places long abandoned by the state consumer protection and Alaska legal services offices. A Democratic Presidential campaign spending money in Alaska!! What a concept.

How Exxon fixed its Alaska Problem

If you were the most powerful multinational corporation on the planet,
what would you do? How would you get rid of Sarah Palin and the fledgling independence movement against Big Oil she had sparked? If Alaska were another Uzbekistan, you would fund a coup or an assassination. But this is America and, luckily, here you have a national political party that does your bidding. Ask Dick Cheney. In the oil business, you know how to deal with your colonies. Simply put, you pit Alaskan against Alaskan with a Palin nomination to higher office.

You forgot a link to the original article:

Stephen Conn: Palin and the Politics of Big Oil

and an actual comment of your own.