Consultant: AK can't put all its eggs in a gassy basket

According to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Dan Dickinson, a former state oil and gas director, currently an Anchorage accountant, spoke at a luncheon in Fairbanks on Wednesday sponsored by Northrim Bank, and he had some sobering words for Alaska's current attitude toward natural gas projects. He said that the state treating a gas pipeline from the North Slope as an economic savior, by way of deep reliance on revenue from the product, is making such a project less appealing to companies. Dickinson suggested that the state would help itself out more by acting less like a quaking, desperate economic junkie. "The conventional wisdom is that we need a fiscal plan until we can get a gas pipeline, and we'll all be in a bed of roses ... What we really need is a fiscal plan in case there is no pipeline," he said. Read much more, here. Alaska Beat had no idea the old 'ignore her/him to seem more attractive' thing worked for economic development too.