Alaska Congressman Don Young thinks the federal energy bill faces dubious prospects in Congress. "The energy bill is in serious trouble," Young said.
Federal lawmakers return to Washington D.C. Jan. 20 and the pending energy bill is a big piece of unfinished business.
Alaska has a lot riding on passage of the legislation, including incentives for a North Slope natural gas pipeline and $50 million a year in federal money for new energy projects.
But Young, who was a House member and the only Alaskan on the conference committee, believes it will be tough to resolve the impasse that has blocked approval of the conference committee's version of the bill in the U.S. Senate.
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The U.S. House has already approved the bill, but the Senate is two votes short of having 60 needed to overcome a threatened filibuster. A last-minute controversy over liability waivers in the bill for producers of MBTE, an environmentally-damaging fuel additive, snagged the bill.
There are ways to resolve the issue and Young has ideas of his own, but senators are dug into their positions and it will be hard to find a compromise, he said.
Alaska has a short window of opportunity for moving its large stranded gas reserves, Young said. "There has to be a commitment to the project in the next three years or else we'll lose the opportunity," he said.
"There's a lot of gas in the world," and a lot of projects being proposed to import liquefied natural gas into the U.S. to meet the rising demand for gas, Young said. Over time the new LNG import projects will nibble away at the market for Alaska gas, he said.
