By Dominic S.F. Lee

I oppose the passage of the TransCanada Corp. proposal under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, AGIA, and have sent the following message to legislators:

The Alaska Legislature should vote no on the AGIA proposal to give Alaska's control over our natural gas resources to Canada. Public testimony was overwhelmingly against the TransCanada proposal in the recent public forums devoted to TransCanada AGIA.

Two former Alaskan governors, Wally Hickel and Tony Knowles, are warning that the current proposal under AGIA will harm Alaska.

Giving Alaska's sovereignty over its resources to a foreign country under the AGIA proposal would be a violation of the Alaska Constitution, which calls for Alaska to get the best benefit for Alaska from our natural resources. Natural gas will sell for about the price in Canada or at Henry Hub, compared to the liquid natural gas world prices.

Passage of AGIA would not produce a contract between Alaska and TransCanada, and obligates TransCanada to do nothing, while obligating the state to pay $500 million to TransCanada on pain of triple damages to TransCanada if plan doesn't work out and Alaska decides to use a different pipeline builder.

Here are some reasons AGIA will be a disaster for Alaska:

1. AGIA will obligate Alaska to give $500 million to TransCanada, but does not obligate TransCanada to plan or build anything.

2. Under AGIA, TransCanada has until 2018 to decide whether it will build anything.

3. TransCanada does not have permits to build across Canadian land and obtaining permits will take many years.

4. Under AGIA, Alaska will be obligated to pay $1.5 billion to TransCanada if Alaska uses any other entity to develop natural gas in Alaska and will not permit Alaska to develop needed in-state pipelines.

5. AGIA is not a contract and the future contract will be drawn up by Canadians in regard to engineering, permitting and construction with no penalties for cost overruns, which will be charged back to the tariff. Alaska will have no standing to negotiate this contract under AGIA and will be giving TransCanada a blank checkbook.

6. TransCanada Alaska has no money, experience or backing from anyone. It is a new company and could go bankrupt any time. TransCanada Pipeline Co. of Canada has no liability on TransCanada AK debt.

7. Under the AGIA TransCanada plan, lucrative natural gas by-products, such as propane, ethane and pentane, will be separated, used to develop petrochemical industries in Canada or sold from Canada, providing jobs and industries for Canadians, but not for Alaskans.

8. Alaska will lose the jobs associated with the development and use of the pipeline and by-products of natural gas, and sources of energy such as propane, desperately needed by those in Bush Alaska, which will be lost to Alaskans.

9. Because the pipeline will go through Canada, decisions about jobs, wages, taxes, timing and control of the project will be made in Canada rather than in Alaska, giving Canada control over the development of Alaska's resources.

10. Under the TransCanada proposal, Alaska will be allowed to use 0.5 billion cubic feet per day and Canada can receive up to 4.5 billion to 6 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas. Under the AGIA proposal, Alaska cannot have its own LNG plant or extra use of natural gas for petrochemical plants.

11. TransCanada will use Alaska's natural gas for the tar sands operation in Alberta, which puts 16 gigatons of CO2 and hydrogen sulfide in the air each day. This is one of the biggest environmental disasters in the world and there are plans to expand this operation. If this operation is stopped by the EPA, Alaska would be on the hook.

The solution: Vote no on TransCanada plan. Develop an in-state plan to market Alaska's natural gas that will

1. Get the maximum benefits for Alaskans in terms of jobs and affordable energy;

2. Get the highest return to the people of Alaska on their resources;

3. Maintain Alaska's control over its natural resources and destiny.

Dominic S.F. Lee is the president and CEO of Little Susitna Construction Co., based in Anchorage. Lee has led Little Susitna Construction, an engineering and construction company, for the past 28 years. The company has conducted engineering and construction jobs across Alaska.