Growing a bunch of lemons? Grab a juicer, Alaska

No doubt you've heard by now that in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster and gushing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama has decided to put oil and gas exploration off Alaska's northern coast (plus various other lease sales and projects) on hold for at least a year. Royal Dutch Shell was planning to explore in Alaska this summer, and in recent weeks, the future of that project was up in the air. But now they'll have to wait and see what shakes loose in 2011.

During the offshore drilling time-out, a presidential commission will search through regulations to see whether or not new guidelines for drilling on federal leases will be necessary. We're concerned about the skeletons they'll find in that closet; the president also said in his speech Thursday that federal oil and gas regulators have been so cozy with the industry that it was almost as if companies were writing the laws for themselves.

The president didn't mention anything about the agricultural and biochemical conglomerates doing the same thing with America's food supply, but we suspect it's only a matter of time. We never thought we'd say this, but it's apparently a good thing Alaska has a minuscule agriculture industry. With all the renewed interest in federal housecleaning, that industry might be next. And the last thing Alaska needs is another threatened industry.

As concerned as we are that new federal drilling regulations are coming down the pipe that will make Arctic oil and gas even less palatable than they already are, we're even more concerned that Alaska's natural gas is missing out on a stellar opportunity in the wake of the Gulf tragedy. There's hardly anything We The Concerned love more than turning lemons into lemonade.

Soon after the ongoing Deepwater Horizon spill started gushing, a member of the Northwest Territories government who supports Canada's Arctic gas pipeline, the Mackenzie Pipeline Project, started talking up natural gas as an alternative to oil in order to boost interest in that mega-project. But Alaska has been basically silent.

Our worry about this missed opportunity grew when we read about a new batch of e-mails from the Palin administration that were released to the Associated Press. They indicate that as late as 2008, the former governor's staff was keeping close tabs on public perception of the big project her Alaska Gasline Inducement Act was created to encourage. But since then, it seems the state really hasn't done much to boost market interest, or as folks say these days, "control the narrative" or "spread memes."

At a recent State Chamber of Commerce candidates' forum in Anchorage, Gov. Parnell was asked whether or not he thought the state has a responsibility to promote natural gas as an alternative in the event of a public opinion backlash against oil after the Gulf spill. He answered, "I don't believe in politicizing a tragedy."

We asked Larry Persily, the federal coordinator for Alaska gas line transportation projects, via e-mail about trying to gain traction for Alaska's gas in the national energy discussion if the public started turning against oil. He wrote, "I guess I'm not much for dancing on the grave of misfortune. Besides ... the spill and the turn in public opinion will do little to change the economics or financial risk of the gas line -- and those are the biggest hurdles."