Alaska gas pipeline’s best hope may be to think like Trump

President Donald Trump has a lot of irresponsible ideas: Igniting a trade war with Canada because I figure he never liked hockey; declaring that Lake Ontario should forevermore be called Lake America because it’s easier to spell; and taking much of Venezuela’s oil because no one can stop him and he loves the idea of the U.S. government owning shares in private businesses.

But rather than criticize the guy, the president’s actions give me an idea: The state needs to go full Trump if it is ever going to get a North Slope gas pipeline project built.

Clearly, trying to make the uneconomic project magically economic by giving it free gravel from state lands, billions of dollars in property tax relief, and not taxing the corporate profits of the private developers hasn’t worked.

Nor has the more than $1 billion the state has spent on the effort in the past quarter-century changed the outcome.

And we aren’t alone in spending money: North Slope oil and gas producers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars too, searching for an economically viable project to sell the gas to customers somewhere, anywhere. The companies gave up in 2016 and turned over the project to the state.

The state’s decision to give away 75% ownership of the stalled project for free to a private developer in 2025 has not resulted in much more than pledges, promises and promotional press releases.

To use one of the president’s favorite words, the state needs to leverage the remaining 25% stake it holds. We need to think like Trump, just without the obscenities and insults in his social media posts.

I propose a two-front war, using that word because it appeals to the president’s love for fighting, whether he uses the U.S. military or watches cage fighters on the White House lawn.

First, the state offers a share of its 25% stake in the project to the president’s sons, in-laws, friends, whatever it takes to buy their support, much like the Trump family has embraced deals with Middle East oil and gas producers the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

That 25% share isn’t doing the state any good anyway. Alaska’s profits from a gas pipeline could more easily come from taxes and royalties and jobs, without the risk of ownership. So why not donate much of our stake to the Trumps to buy political favor.

The second part of my proposal is that Alaska win the president’s attention by making his enemies our enemies.

We let Trump know that if Alaska does not get a gas pipeline, utilities in the Anchorage-dominated population center may have to import natural gas from Canada for heat and power. No way he could let that happen. Maybe he would commit the federal treasury to invest in the gas line just to deny Canada. Spite is a strong motivating factor with the guy, so we should play to that emotion.

Of course, the Trumps may decide they don’t want an ownership stake in the losing project, even if it’s free. And the president may have moved on to a trade war with someone else by the time Alaska can get the idea of Canadian gas into his head.

But what if Alaska plays its trump card and the president imposes a tariff on Canadian natural gas imported into the U.S., same as hockey sticks? The risk may be worth it. Nothing else has worked to get the pipeline built. We need to start thinking like Trump.

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