Alaska Dispatch

According to a new op-ed on TheDailyGreen.com, the policy director for Republicans for Environmental Protection thinks that Alaskans pay such high gasoline prices (despite sitting on top of a world-class oil resource) because the Alaska market is too remote and too small to attract competition. He arrives at this conclusion by comparing markets in Alaska and South Carolina. South Carolina produces almost no oil, but is connected to significant transportation and refining infrastructure, and thus its market is much more competitive. The writer also cites a 2009 study by the Alaska Attorney General's office that calls the state's gasoline market an "oligopoly." What's more, he notes, the larger of Alaska's two refineries imports a large portion of its oilstock from foreign sources, not from the North Slope. As a corollary point to his main argument, he urges the public to be wary of calls to drill domestic sources of oil at all costs (the "drill baby, drill" thing) as a way to bring gas prices down because domestic crude is priced according to the global petroleum market, not a national one. Read more here.