{"id":4046,"date":"2015-11-05T12:59:19","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T21:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=4046"},"modified":"2015-11-06T14:11:18","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T23:11:18","slug":"third-special-session-ends-with-strengthening-alaskas-position-in-the-gasline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=4046","title":{"rendered":"Third Special Session Ends with Strengthening Alaska\u2019s Position in the Gasline"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4047\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/SSIII-Senator-with-Senator-Bishop.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4047\" class=\"wp-image-4047 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/SSIII-Senator-with-Senator-Bishop-300x200.png\" alt=\"SSIII Senator with Senator Bishop\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/SSIII-Senator-with-Senator-Bishop-300x200.png 300w, http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/SSIII-Senator-with-Senator-Bishop.png 648w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4047\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Senator Stedman pictured with Senator Bishop<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The third special session ended today with the Alaska State Legislature approving Governor Walker\u2019s bill to fund the cash buyout of pipeline company TransCanada\u2019s interest in the project.\u00a0 The State of Alaska will now have a full 25% interest in the project.\u00a0 I voted to buy back Alaska\u2019s share in the project held by TransCanada so the state could return to being a full and equal partner.\u00a0 The buyout gives us a full 25% interest in the project, just like the other three partners: Conoco Phillips, BP, ExxonMobil.<\/p>\n<p>There is tremendous value in becoming an equal partner.\u00a0 First, it gives Alaska equal voting rights as a full and equal partner to negotiate and decide key issues for the project such as budgets, schedules, pipeline size, and selling gas.\u00a0 I cannot stress enough how important this is to protect our interests.\u00a0 Second, the buyout means an increase of as much as $400 million a year in <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">additional<\/span><\/strong> annual revenue to Alaska from the gas line.<\/p>\n<p>I not only supported the cash buyout of TransCanada, I supported tapping savings to fund our portion of the project.\u00a0 We have the ability to pay cash.\u00a0 There is no need to borrow to pay the cost of the buyout and pay interest for years.\u00a0 In the end, Alaska\u2019s position is much stronger, we eliminate the obligation to use TransCanada like a bank and pay interest for work that has to be done no matter what, and we get a much larger return once the project starts producing gas for sale.\u00a0 This is simply the best thing to do for the project and for the state.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=3326\">http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=3326<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The third special session ended today with the Alaska State Legislature approving Governor Walker\u2019s bill to fund the cash buyout of pipeline company TransCanada\u2019s interest in the project.\u00a0 The State of Alaska will now have a full 25% interest in the project.\u00a0 I voted to buy back Alaska\u2019s share in the project held by TransCanada [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4046"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4051,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions\/4051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}