ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE  SENATE RESOURCES STANDING COMMITTEE  January 28, 2008 3:35 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT Senator Charlie Huggins, Chair Senator Bert Stedman, Vice Chair Senator Lyda Green Senator Lesil McGuire Senator Bill Wielechowski Senator Thomas Wagoner MEMBERS ABSENT  Senator Gary Stevens OTHER LEGISLATORS PRESENT  Senator Joe Thomas COMMITTEE CALENDAR  Drue Pearce, Federal Coordinator, Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION  No previous action to consider WITNESS REGISTER DRUE PEARCE, Federal Coordinator, Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects ACTION NARRATIVE CHAIR CHARLIE HUGGINS called the Senate Resources Standing Committee meeting to order at 3:35:51 PM. Present at the call to order were Senators Stedman, Green, Wielechowski, McGuire, Wagoner and Huggins. 3:37:23 PM CHAIR HUGGINS reviewed Drue Pearce's resources background. ^The Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline 3:37:57 PM DRUE PEARCE, Federal Coordinator, Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects, presented a power point on the Alaska natural gas pipeline. She said she would give them an idea of the sort of cooperative efforts she would be leading as they all work toward their mutual goal of commercializing Alaskan's North Slope gas. MS. PEARCE said the natural gas line project is unprecedented in size and scope. A highway configuration is approximately 450 percent longer than the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS); it has a couple of international boundary crossings that need cross-border coordination. It's much bigger than a typical large-diameter transmission pipeline and at the moment both the AGIA applicant and the alternative ConocoPhillips proposal contemplate building a 48-inch line that will be entirely buried along much of the route (going through permafrost) except at certain river crossings and in seismic hazard areas. The pipeline project will go through three different provinces in Canada: the Yukon, British Columbia and Alberta. The Alaskan portion is a little less than 800 miles; the Canadian side is even longer. 3:39:49 PM She said the original federal legislation authorizing the gas pipeline was passed in 1976 - even before the startup of TAPS in 1977. The entire project was not developed due to the high cost of construction and the low price of gas. MS. PEARCE said a pipeline was built under the old Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Act (ANGTA); it was called the prebuild and consisted of over 1500 miles of natural gas pipeline bringing gas out of Alberta and the Alberta Hub to the Lower 48. The Department of the Interior issued right-of-way (ROW) to Northwest in 1980 and that is in existence today. The present Alaska Natural Gas Transportation System (ANTGS) ROW is owned exclusively by TransCanada. The Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Act of 2004 and 2007 Energy Bill technical amendments brought her agency into existence. She explained that the Energy Bill didn't go through Congress, however, so the 2004 act was attached to a Department of Defense appropriations bill, which worked. So the Office of the Federal Coordinator (OFC) was created. It did a number of other things; it says that the ANGTA certificate that is owned by TransCanada continues to be valid; Congress reaffirmed that validity. It also says that applications to build a pipeline can come under the Natural Gas Act and those applications would come to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for licensing. It bans the over-the-top route that would connect our North Slope by pipeline to the MacKenzie Delta pipeline and bring gas presumably to the Lower 48. It confirmed the public need and the downstream capacity; so an applicant doesn't have to reestablish that. It authorized a loan guarantee program of up to $20 billion. It authorized an alternative construction study. 3:43:50 PM It directed FERC to create open season rules, which it has completed and promulgated. It names FERC as the lead environmental agency if an application comes in under the Natural Gas Act. The FERC would be the lead agency on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The EIS FERC would do also has to act as the paperwork for all the other federal agencies to issue permits, rights-of-way, their certificates or whatever each agency has to do. 3:44:36 PM Two amendments under the 2007 Energy bill, which just passed, allow her office to run more easily. For one, it has a Title V exemption for hiring federal employees. Her employees will get all the benefits of federal employees, but they will be considered to be administratively directed so when she hires someone it can be just for a period of time. This is important because the sort of expertise she will need during the permitting phase will be very different from the expertise she will need when doing inspections during the construction phase. She sees her staffing peaking, going back down and peaking a second time with the higher peak during the construction phase. She also has reimbursement authority so contractors will pay the costs that are directly attributable to their application. 3:46:21 PM MS. PEARCE explained that the 2004 federal tax package had accelerated depreciation for the pipeline, but not a gas processing plant. However, it allows an enhanced oil recovery tax credit for a gas processing plant that also produces CO2 for reinjection into the fields. MS. PEARCE said she was nominated for her position by the President in June 2006 and the Senate acted quickly to confirm her in August 2006. The Vice President swore her in and all the old authorities of the Federal Inspector from the 1976 legislation came over with her. 3:48:11 PM She said the Federal Coordinator ensures the expeditious discharge and compliance of all related activities by federal agencies. She has the power to prohibition certain terms and conditions that agencies might try to put on the applicant. She can also prohibit certain action by federal agencies. The federal coordinator also has primary surveillance and monitoring responsibility for the project on both federal and private lands; and the legislation instructs her to have an MOU with the State of Alaska (for state lands) so that they share that primary surveillance and monitoring responsibility. 3:49:54 PM MS. PEARCE explained that FERC as the lead agency will use a pre-filing process to facilitate pre-application dialogue between all the stakeholders, including permitting agencies. It's particularly important that the federal coordinator insures that the eventual applicant has a government-to-government dialogue with the Tribes; so the president wrote an executive order to insure that takes place. One of her jobs is to mediate disagreements between state agencies, federals agencies, between state and federal agencies, between the applicant and the federal agencies or between stakeholders and federal agencies. The idea is to fix problems instead of letting them to drag out. "The whole point is to expedite the process." The Office of the Federal Coordinator will assist FERC in insuring that the federal agencies expedite their reviews and feed their information back to FERC so it can meet its 18-month deadline. Two interagency agreements are already in place; one coordinates NEPA and historic preservation reviews and the other is a federal interagency MOU that was specific to the implementation of this project that was signed in June 2006. 3:51:23 PM She provided the committee with a list of all the federal agencies involved in the project. Every agency has to issue a permit, do a section 7 review, or issue a license or certificate. They have all agreed to work cooperatively together, but disagreements are expected and she hopes to be able to mediate those. 3:52:11 PM The federal interdepartmental MOU establishes a project management framework for cooperation among participating agencies with responsibilities related to the approval of an Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Project. The agencies have agreed by signing it to use their best efforts to achieve early coordination and compliance with deadlines and procedures established by the relevant agencies. 3:53:58 PM She said she will be advertising for two new positions in her D.C. office within the next 30 days - for a general counsel and a chief engineer who will be head of the compliance and permitting side of the office. She is not going to open an Alaska office until she knows for a fact an application is before the federal agencies. This office is funded in the 2009 budget. In the federal legislation it is very clear that Congress expected that there would be a pipeline that would bring gas into the Lower 48, not an LNG project - because to land gas on the West Coast, it would have to go either to the Canadian West Coast or to Mexico. The US has no LNG terminals on the West Coast and she said frankly, there is a huge question as to whether one will ever get built there. She, her counterpart in the Canadian government and Marty Rutherford (since she is head of the pipeline team at the moment) have formed a senior intergovernmental management team. They will help insure that the coordination of all the agencies is in place to keep track of the project and to provide a first-place to go for cross- boundary questions. They have met once personally and once telephonically and expect to meet at least monthly as the project gets going. MS. PEARCE said she has hired Howard Baker Jr., in her first contract for the agency, to design a data management system. They are reaching out to other federal agencies, ConocoPhillips and TransCanada and state agencies to ask what sort of data management programs they have and use to follow these huge projects and stated: We are trying to use the lessons learned when TAPS was being built and insure that we don't create some of the problems that the Joint Pipeline Office had in trying to do the oversight that they need to do for TAPS after it was built. Many records were lost and they spent a number of years trying to recreate some thing that should have been kept. 3:57:37 PM She reported that the Argonne National Laboratory, that also did the EIS for the TAPS right-of-way renewal, is working on a gap analysis to cover the changes between now and the time the original legislation was passed in 1976. She expects to have a draft of the analysis by next month so her office can work on the gaps before they are hit with the actual permitting of a pipeline. She said their website address is htt://www.arcticgas.gov. If the federal agencies want to comment as part of the public comment period on the AGIA, she would review them for inter agency consistency, but not to change them. MS. PEARCE said the state team met with many of the federal agencies last week in Washington D.C. and talked about specific questions it had, but the agencies were told they could comment on any aspect of the application. 4:00:05 PM MS. PEARCE said she hadn't begun a review of the ConocoPhillips proposal, but said, "However, I believe that ConocoPhillips may ask us to do a review of their proposal and if they do, we will coordinate the same for them." 4:00:26 PM SENATOR WAGONER asked if she would post the comments from the federal agencies on her website as they come in or wait until they are all in before posting them. MS. PEARCE replied they will actually come the state and the state is posting all of the comments. She suspected her office would post them as well. CHAIR HUGGINS asked about applications in the plural. MS. PEARCE replied that they agreed to review applications (in the plural) long before November 30 before the state knew how many it was going to get. When the state chose to move just one forward to the next phase, it asked her to just comment on the one. CHAIR HUGGINS said given that another one is under appeal, did she see that potentially changing. MS. PEARCE replied that depends on what the state does. It had asked her to comment on any applications that met the first test. If they choose to bring another into the next phase, she couldn't assume what they would do, but she would expect they probably would. It could turn into applications. 4:02:08 PM End of presentation 4:02:45 PM SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if she could share her thoughts on whether or not the state is headed down the right track. MS. PEARCE answered that the federal agencies she talked to when the state team was in town said they were pleased the governor was moving forward with a process. They were hopeful there would be a positive solution and that an application would come forward. There is a pent up interest in Congress and the agencies to move this project forward. They are better prepared at the federal level to get an application than anywhere else. "They are ready to move." SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if she saw any problems with the pipe line going through Canada. MS. PEARCE replied she has been talking with Canadian officials from Minister Prentice down to the folks at the National Energy Board, their Environmental Agency, Natural Resources Canada, and Canada Northern Affairs. They are dealing right now with trying to get their Mackenzie pipeline built. They want MacKenzie to come first; they have all said at one time or another that the permitting of the Alaska pipeline would be an easier process than what they have had on Mackenzie. They've learned a lot of lessons about their joint review process and the previous and the new chairman of the National Energy Board have both said they don't plan to enter that sort of a process that has no timelines again. They are cheering Alaska on and hoping they also get an application for an Alaska pipeline coming through Canada sometime soon. The provincial people are even more excited about it because they want the off takes. 4:06:34 PM SENATOR WAGONER asked why the feds wouldn't allow accelerated depreciation for the gas treatment plant. MS. PEARCE replied she didn't know; it was written at the time Senator Murkowski was chairing the Senate Energy Committee. She would find out. 4:07:16 PM CHAIR HUGGINS asked what the parameters are of accelerated depreciation. MS. PEARCE said she didn't have that language with her, but she offered to send it to him. CHAIR HUGGINS asked if they should be aware of any other tax provisions. MS. PEARCE replied no. CHAIR HUGGINS asked what the system is outside of accelerated depreciation. MS. PEARCE replied none that are unique to this project. CHAIR HUGGINS asked her to comment on the loan guarantee business based on requests coming from potential applicants. MS. PEARCE responded that the Department of Energy has the responsibility for doing the loan guarantee work, but only in concert with Department of the Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget. 4:09:15 PM She gave an example of what happened after 911 and then related where the Department of Energy is headed. After 911 Congress authorized loan guarantees for the airlines. The conditional approvals were done and those are well defined in regulation at the Department of the Treasury. They continue to be a framework with the conditions and precedence for those loan guarantees. Seven airlines received conditional approvals; six were funded and nine were turned down completely. 4:10:25 PM In 2004 the Department of Energy was authorized to do loan guarantees for major nuclear construction and power plants. Regulations are now in place and they plan to use the same criteria for pipelines. This language is posted on the department's website. She commented that if you don't need money it's real easy to get a loan and if you need money it's a lot more difficult and the folks who protect the tax payers dollars don't make loan guarantees easy to get. But it is authorized and there are precedence and policies already in place. 4:12:10 PM CHAIR HUGGINS asked about bridge shippers. MS. PEARCE said there hasn't been that sort of request for loan guarantee with the airlines. The Department of Energy hadn't had any detailed discussions yet, because TransCanada had not talked with them yet. 4:13:00 PM SENATOR STEDMAN said one of the legislature's consultants questioned whether TransCanada even complies with AGIA. That will get sorted out over the next few months, but one of the issues that comes up is the completion guarantees, cost overruns and potential equity contributions in relation to the loan guarantee requirements as they were initially set up. It appears a substantial modification of the loan guarantees will be needed assuming an entity like TransCanada will require them. He asked for her thoughts on modifying the guarantees to possibly include cost overruns. MS. PEARCE replied that she didn't have a position on that. She was confident the DOE would look at the loan guarantee portions of the application and they would develop a position along with the DOT and OMB. 4:15:04 PM SENATOR STEDMAN stated that they were also trying to sort out where the gas would go; would it go into Alberta and be consumed in the oil sands or would it all end up in the continental United States of some combination. It appears the loan guarantee language says the transportation of natural gas from the Alaska North Slope to the continental US. He asked if the loan guarantees are needed and would TransCanada qualify. MS. PEARCE replied that the loan guarantee is for a project that delivers gas to the continental US, but the language is silent in terms of does every single molecule have to go there. Everyone recognizes that there will be a gas off take in Alaska and that no matter who builds it, local Canadian communities expect to have an opportunity to take gas off. She has never had any Canadian from any level of government represent to her that expected Alaska natural gas to be diverted to their oil sands. Instead Mackenzie would probably provide a huge amount of gas for that project or the oil sands will look at other types of energy production. There has been talk of build a nuclear plant in northern Alberta to provide the energy the oil sands need. One of the reasons the Canadians want their project to come first is that they want to supply their own petrochemical industry and domestic need. 4:18:55 PM SENATOR STEDMAN asked if she would help them out over the next couple of months with how the oil sands would impact gas going through to the Lower US. He asked her to educate them on her role if they end up with competing interests - one in AGIA and one outside AGIA. What position does it put her office in? MS. PEARCE replied "I guess that's why our title says Natural Gas Transportation Projects with an "s." The legislation is silent, which means that any project that comes to the federal government, they will work to expedite. They would have the same responsibility under whichever of the laws it comes in under. If there were two applications, they would work to expedite both. Her office, FERC and BLM would not look forward to doing that. This project, if built, will be the most expensive privately financed construction project ever built in the world. It is bigger than anything these agencies have dealt with. 4:21:54 PM SENATOR WAGONER asked about the difference in open seasons of 18 months between the ConocoPhillips and TransCanada applications. It seems if Transcanada has its open season and continues to FERC, they will be 18 months ahead of ConocoPhillips. What cause and effect does that have in D.C.? MS. PEARCE answered ConocoPhillips' open season is not front ended like TransCanada's, but no matter which one you look at that, they both have "prefeed" application process which is robust and that's the time when you go out in field to get additional information, when you continue with your design, you begin working with all the stakeholders. You begin your permitting processes with the other agencies. She was told on Friday by ConocoPhillips that they still do expect to go in the field this year; most of their work is on state right-of-way rather than federal land. But if they want to get on federal right-of-way they will ask the BLM for temporary use permits. As they begin engaging agencies, her office will begin to engage both them and the agencies to ensure things move forward smoothly. Either company, if both go forward, will do scoping and begin reaching out to al the stakeholders. One of her fears is how confusing it's going to be for the lack of capacity in some of the more rural areas to try to figure out the daily visit one day from TransCanada and the next day from ConocoPhillips, but they will deal with it if they have to. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if AGIA isn't successful, what would the federal government do and is it an option. 4:25:14 PM MS. PEARCE responded if the governor brings one application forward to the legislature and the legislature votes yes, that company is committed to moving forward. Without it, Congress still might move forward more proactively to push getting a pipeline built, particularly if we don't license and see more LNG plants get built in the Lower 48. 4:27:10 PM CHAIR HUGGINS said the Mackenzie pipeline is expected to deliver just over 1 bcf and the oil sands will need more than 4 bcf if they continue using natural gas to do the processing. Some people have said the likelihood of our gas being the gap filler in that being high. MS. PEARCE said on that point, once an open season happens and gas is nominated at a certain tariff to a destination, once FERC licenses a pipeline to bring gas to a destination and particularly once there is a loan guarantee in place, the shipper will be committed to sending that gas to the end of the pipe wherever that is. A loan guarantee cannot be used for gas that is taken off at the Canadian oil sands, but she hasn't talked to a single Canadian who has told her that it will be used there. Also, she pointed out that would be an export project and FERC doesn't license those. 4:29:29 PM CHAIR HUGGINS said when he was in Canada, he was told by Canadian that they could use Alaska's gas. There was also a lot of skepticism on whether Mackenzie would ever happen or not. He asked what the climate is in D.C. when someone talks about exporting Alaskan gas. MS. PEARCE replied none of the secretaries opined that Congress did not intend for Alaska gas to be exported to the Pacific Rim, but rather to the Lower 48. 4:31:16 PM SENATOR WAGONER said he heard Canada needs Alaskan gas, but they need it to fill the capacity of the lines going into the US from Canada, because by the time our gas flows in 2018, they are going to have more than enough capacity to ship it on through. They need it now to hold down their tariff rates. They really need our ethanes for the Nova Plant. MS. PEARCE said TransCanada has made it clear that they want Alaska gas to put into the prebuild system and they believe they might have to expand that prebuild which would give them even more capacity by 2018 so they would be able to take all of that gas to the Lower 48. The ConocoPhillips' proposal talked about bringing gas to the Alberta hub at which time they would either build a pipeline or look at using capacity that was already in place. 4:33:00 PM SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI said the US Attorney General recommended that the pipeline should be built by an independent company. He asked how that factors into any decision to consider ConocoPhillips or any other producer for that matter. MS. PEARCE replied that a 1977 decision by President Carter explicitly prohibited the producers from owning any portion of the pipeline project. When President Reagan was elected he amended the decision to say if a pipeline were going to be built with Federal Trade Commission, FERC and Justice Department approval, that the producers could own a portion of it. That is what is in currently in place in ANGTA. Further, she said, several Alaska House members wrote a letter to then chairman of FERC asking whether FERC would license a pipeline entity that was producer-owned. FERC answered that was a question and they would have to look at it when an application is before them. CHAIR HUGGINS asked if she has a Canadian counterpart. MS. PEARCE replied that Premier Harper "gave the files" for the Mackenzie and Alaska pipelines to Minister Jim Prentice. Minister Prentice at the time was Minister of Northern Affairs Canada and had all of the aboriginal files and worked with the territories. The Harper government went through a shake up and Minister Prentice is now the Minister of Industry, like our Secretary of Commerce. He retained those two pipeline files and he is her counterpart. He has delegated the day-to-day and month-to-month oversight of the Canadian side to the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada and because of some additional shuffled they are between people. Canada had the Northern Pipeline Act and people had responsibilities under that and they now have those same responsibilities under a NEB authorized process. So basically she deals with the same people no matter which process the government chooses. She has met four times with Minister Prentice and they are looking forward to being cooperative. They are working with the Argonne folks on the gap analysis. CHAIR HUGGINS asked if she has a timeline for Canadian issues. MS. PEARCE replied the FERC has a timeline it has provided to Congress as part of the report it does every six months. The data management process will create the system by which the massive timelines will be delineated. 4:40:12 PM CHAIR HUGGINS recalled that TransCanada's goal was to have an open season in 18 months, but not if they didn't receive some assurances that it would be successful. He asked if she understood that also. MS. PEARCE answered that her discussions have been with TransCanada's D.C. representatives who have been unequivocal about going to open season in 2009. 4:41:21 PM CHAIR HUGGINS said Texas has a pilot project to see how sequestering CO2 would work and he asked if she saw any concerns in D.C. about emerging environmental trends. MS. PEARCE replied no. Most discussions on commercializing North Slope natural gas have been supported by the environmental community, the labor community and industry. Those discussions haven't reached them yet. Alaska has 35 tcf of known reserves, but the project needs 50 tcf. So an additional 15 tcf of gas needs to be found to make the project feasible. That is becoming more problematic as more areas are taken off the table in terms of leasing. 4:43:17 PM She said the Ninth Circuit stopped exploration in the Beaufort last summer and the MMS is hoping to have a lease sale on February 6. She didn't know whether a lawsuit would be filed to stop it. The BLM has a sale projected for NPRA for some time this calendar year, but the EIS was held up because of lawsuits. This is where the environmental discussions take place. 4:43:50 PM SENATOR MCGUIRE asked if AGIA prescribes what she has to do on the federal level to analyze applications or is she allowed under 2004 federal law to consider applications like ConocoPhillips'. 4:45:00 PM MS. PEARCE replied that she has not only the authority, but also the direction to expedite any application that comes in on the federal side. ConocoPhillips told her Friday they were considering whether or not to ask the federal agencies to comment back to them on their proposal. Once she has a request she will talk to her attorneys and figure out the best way to accommodate the "potential applicant." She said the state's request to comment on applications came shortly after the RFA went out; so the administration didn't have any idea how many applications it would get. 4:46:05 PM SENATOR MCGUIRE said she would hate to have the appearance of two processes moving forward at the same time. Secondly, she asked how Ms. Pearce saw Canada and the US working together to get gas to the Lower 48. MS. PEARCE answered that a number of cross-border projects are happening. FERC licenses cross-border gas pipelines and the state department does the environmental impact statements for cross-border oil pipelines. They hadn't done one for many years and suddenly had two applications. The Department of Transportation and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has done a new study with the NEB working on consistent standards for both oil and gas pipelines. That kind of cooperation is ongoing. FERC has an MOU with the NEB that has a relationship with its counterparts in both Canada and Mexico; the three countries meet at least three times a year to discuss cross-border trans-boundary projects, demand and supply. So, while Alaskans are new at cross-border work in terms of major pipelines, the country is not. The Canadians are our largest foreign trade partner when it comes to energy. Congress intended through creating the Office of the Federal Coordinator to expedite commercialization of North Slope gas as part of the president's national energy plan. Congress believes in it on both sides of the aisle. She clarified, "But not only do they not intend and expect the gas to go to the Pacific Rim, they didn't expect that is was going to get high-jacked in Canada." SENATOR STEDMAN said he was more concerned about the state's revenue stream. He asked for a range of what she felt would be a reasonable expense to go to a successful open season. MS. PEARCE answered she didn't have a figure. SENATOR STEDMAN asked what would be a reasonable expenditure range to get to a successful open season so they can take that into consideration when looking at proposals. MS. PEARCE responded that she would be happy to ask the chair of FERC whether it had any statistics on costs to complete open seasons that would somehow be comparable. 4:52:49 PM SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if she saw her agency or any in the federal government being proactive to insure a successful open season. MS. PEARCE answered she didn't know what her agency could do; the state is the one that holds the royalty gas. But FERC would work with everyone to make sure the process is correct. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if an open season fails what would the D.C. reaction be. MS. PEARCE replied that there would probably be a lot of questions about why gas wasn't nominated. The Energy Committee wants to know where their pipeline is; their expectation was they were doing their part and this project was going to move forward. There is a pent up anxiety about getting it built. SENATOR WAGONER said it's important to remember there is only 35 tcf of proven gas reserves on the North Slope today, but those are a result of oil exploration not gas. The first wells for gas are getting drilled now and Anadarko already knows they have some where they are drilling. MS. PEARCE said the MMS estimates 200 tcf of reserves. 4:56:23 PM CHAIR HUGGINS asked if D.C. skepticism about this project has subsided since last year. MS. PEARCE answered that there isn't a lot of knowledge in D.C. about why it hasn't been seen yet. They know Alaska has a new governor and a new process and they hope it works. CHAIR HUGGINS said her boss would change, but she wouldn't and he wanted to know if she had any political concerns in that respect. 4:58:27 PM MS. PEARCE said Congress is receptive and she has solid support from both sides of the aisle. Her budget didn't get dinged. It's looked at as a bi-partisan project. 5:00:38 PM CHAIR HUGGINS asked what the D.C. reaction was to lack of bidders under AGIA. MS. PEARCE answered every point on the timeline has moved the ball forward a little bit and increased the momentum of the project. Keeping the ball moving is important. There aren't a huge number of companies that know how to do business in Alaska or build a project here. 5:02:38 PM CHAIR HUGGINS asked if she talked with MidAmerican who even wrote about why they didn't apply. MS. PEARCE replied no. She said she spends a lot of time in the Lower 48 educating consumers about the project because it's not just an Alaskan project, it is an American project and they are ultimately the largest beneficiaries. She urged the committee members to talk to members from the other states when they go to their national meeting to keep the momentum going. CHAIR HUGGINS thanked her for joining the committee today and adjourned the meeting at 5:06:23 PM.