History in the Making

I was sent to Juneau this week to cover the Special Session. Our Capitol reporter quit to take a job with the Governor (working in her Press Dept.) so the work has been passed on to the rest of us. I must admit, I was a little nervous when asked to go… because I’ve never really followed politics all that closely – not even since I moved up here. And to know that the House of Representatives would be voting on a very hot issue this week, put the pressure on me to learn as much as I could as quickly as possible. The issue is whether to give TransCanada a license and $500 million to build a pipeline from North Pole, AK to the Lower 48. For 30 years, there’s been talk of getting Alaska’s gas to market, but no one has ever taken steps toward making it happen, until now.

Many oppose TransCanada because they say they would prefer to have an “all Alaska pipeline” – one that benefits us first and foremost. Doing my research and finding out what TransCanada is all about, I must say I am actually in favor of it… simply because TransCanada is in the business to build pipelines. They’ve successfully done that for 50 years. When Governor Palin proposed AGIA – Alaska’s Gasline Inducement Act – it was meant to prompt the oil companies into doing what we’ve wanted for so long… Building a pipeline. But they didn’t jump on the ball like TransCanada did. In fact, they wanted it their way or no way and called it the Denali Plan.

The House voted to approve the license and now the bill moves over to the Senate. Some are skeptical whether or not the Senate will even vote before the deadline (August 2nd).


Photo courtesy Brian Wallace/Juneau Empire

All in all, Juneau was quite an experience. The most interesting part for me was meeting the lawmakers -- many of them were so friendly and helpful. I had several politicians go out of their way to introduce themselves to me, telling me they already knew who I was from seeing me on Channel 2! (That's a really good feeling, I tell ya.) We worked very long days (between 12 and 14 hrs) and didn’t get much time to see the city –- which was okay because the weather was really cold (50 degrees for the high) and rainy. I’d like to come back to visit Juneau early next summer, probably in late May or early June, for a long weekend.