Alex Gimarc – When we elect a lawyer as governor and they bring their fellow lawyers into the new government, one would logically question whose interests are being pursued? Those of the people of Alaska or those of the law firms employing those lawyers? This is the very essence of crony capitalism.
Two weekends ago, the Walker Transition Team held their three-day meeting to determine priorities for the new state government. I received a troubling report about the Oil and Gas Team.
It was led by one Robin Brenna, who is a superb litigator, specializing on oil and natural gas issues. He spent the majority of his career suing the producers and working with Bill Walker. He was one of the attorneys on the TAPS property tax case. In the room with him were three of his clients, Agrium, Cook Inlet Energy and Interior Gas Utility. All three clients stand to benefit from what was on the list of priorities that he was pushing. No media is pointing out the obvious conflict of interest, which is what we may come to expect with press coverage of this administration.
The tax policy priority was to look at other sources of revenue before revisiting oil tax structure. Brenna specifically refused to consider the phrase “maintain the existing oil tax structure…”, meaning that the Walkerites are itching to reopen the Prop 21 argument and jack up taxes on the producers. Note that they did not address mining in any meaningful fashion, meaning that they are not considering expanding the resource development base here in Alaska.
Color me cynical, but the Walker Oil and Gas transition team appears to be setting the stage to rape and pillage the producers, shut down alternatives to electrical energy generation here in Southcentral Alaska, while making sure well connected lawyers and law firms will have plenty of business over the next four years.
