Contributed by Jessica Wright
I remember back in the summer, I saw the news reporting that Governor Bill Walker was hosting the President of China and his wife, and then he held a news briefing afterwards. There are two things that stood in my mind: 1) Bill Walker tried to pattern after the President of the United States in the White House. 2) Governor Walker kept saying this to the President of China: “Alaska has rich natural resources.” I didn’t like their meeting then, and I especially don’t like how the story is developing now.
The recent news suggests that China is going to partner with Alaska to build the natural gas pipeline, the project Walker has been promoting since he got elected. The proposed ownership of the NGL is China 75% and Alaska 25%. Many months ago, many experts have pointed out, building the state-funded natural gas pipeline is not going to be profitable. Yet Governor Bill Walker brushed off criticism and insisted on pursuing the project. Some said, “Maybe collaborating with China is not a bad idea. It might bring jobs to Alaska.”
The oil economy has been down not because we don’t know how to produce oil, it’s because the oil drilling restrictions from the Obama administration and also our state government didn’t know how to work with oil companies to keep them productive. The policy failure is solid on our government’s part. We do not need to rely on China to revive our oil economy. Another reason why our economy is suffering is because the Walker Administration is clearly leaning towards big government spending and suppressing the private sectors.
One alarming fact is that the natural gas pipeline is a long, complicated and expensive project. It’s going to take years to build. It will dry out our state resource due to the huge expenses and how the governor manages it; not to mention, it’s not profitable.
Another question we need to ask: Do you want China to be our business partner? I think not. Allowing China to be our business partner is like leading the wolves to the sheep pen. There’s nothing safe about it.
There’s no reason why China wants to buy natural gas from Alaska based on the price if they could only pay half of the price elsewhere. Having China in Alaska will violate our national security and diminish our sovereignty. On the other hand, I won’t object to any private companies from foreign countries who desire to invest in Alaska, because it will have much better outcome without government’s involvement.
Natural gas is an important feedstock for our manufacturing industry, used to make everything from the plastic jugs that holds many products to that which could be made here in Alaska. Refining and using our resources to manufacture will be an important step in making the economy go again.
I’m sure people all over the world admire Alaska’s beauty and envy our natural resources. However, the abundant natural resources belong to Alaskans and the United States only. We need to protect our assets. We do not wish for any foreign country to come in to colonize our state under any government agreement. It will weaken our national security and deny our sovereignty. The last thing we want to see is to have Chinese government monopolize our economy and confiscate our resource in the name of the NGL when we should develop oil and natural gas by products ourselves.
Listen up Walker, “Alaska is not for sale!”
