Pipe Dream: Palin's pipeline to nowhere?

Since Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska was chosen as the Vice Presidential candidate of the Republican party, she has gone on the campaign trail burnishing an image of a “reformer” and as someone who can get things done and “stand up to big oil”. As she gleefully mentioned at the Republican National Convention in early September, “I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history”. The Republican party also tries to use it as a credential to her knowledge about energy when they make this claim that she “…began a nearly $40-billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence.” But as records show, that famous pipeline only exists on paper. What Palin and the Republicans fail to mention is that there has been a push for well over 30 years to harness the huge natural gas reserve in the Alaskan North Slope. The “agreement to build” the pipeline was just signed into law by Governor Palin on August 27, 2008. The project is yet to seek approval from the federal government. TransCanada, the company that won the bid for the project “anticipates filing for Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval at the end of 2011 … allowing pre-construction activities to begin in 2013. In its proposal, construction of the pipeline would begin in 2015.” The agreement is not a construction contractand does not guarantee that the pipeline will be built. What the Republicans are not telling us is that the pipeline passes through Canada which is already responsible for a major portion of our gas imports. As PolitiFacts states “…there’s a lot to say for the idea of a natural-gas pipeline of the sort Palin proposed. But she didn’t dream up the idea, and she didn’t get construction started, as she frequently implies. Alaskan officials and oilmen have seen their hopes for a pipeline dashed for decades; Palin might simply be the latest in that long line.”