CC: smilkowski@newsminer.com
It appears that the only reporter in the state that considered putting unqualified people on the Energy Council newsworthy was Stefan Milkowski of the News Miner out of Fairbanks. I applaud him for picking an issue that really matters more than the media gave to it. But the story was a joke.
It gets its facts wrong:
1. The story says the minority “cried foul.” The minority didn’t bring up the issue in the press conference. A member of the press (Therriault called him “Steve”) did. It is dishonest to say that the minority is whining about this. Did you actually see the press conference, Stefan?
2. Portia Babcock, the primary source for Lyda’s response, isn’t Lyda’s chief of staff. She is a legislative aide.
3. Sen. Bettye Davis was not reappointed to the Council. This is her first time on the council. All you needed to do was pick up the phone and call the Senate Records office.
Stefan, the second and third points demand corrections at least. The first point demands an apology. Print a retraction. I realize you have deadlines and people breathing down your neck to get things done quickly. But, as a reporter, you have a responsibility. The whole story as I found it online on Friday night at 9pm is below. I have a printed copy if anyone wishes to dispute my credibility.
Therriault bypassed for
Energy Council
By Stefan MilkowskiStaff WriterPublished February 16, 2007
JUNEAU
— Republicans in the minority caucus of the state Senate cried foul Thursday
over recent appointments by the Senate president to a national group focused on
energy issues.
On Wednesday, Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican from Wasilla,
appointed five senators to the Energy Council, a group comprised of
representatives from oil- and gas-producing states, Canadian provinces and
Venezuela.
Two of the people she appointed were on the council last year, but
three were new, and Senate Minority Leader Gene Therriault, R-North Pole, and
Sen. Fred Dyson, R-Eagle River, who is also in the minority, lost their
spots.
“That was disappointing,” Therriault said at the minority caucus’
weekly press conference Thursday. “I hope it’s not indicative of a systematic
moving aside of people that are knowledgeable on the oil and gas front.”
With
the natural gas pipeline a top issue for the state, Therriault said he didn’t
understand why Green wouldn’t want him and Dyson to represent the state at the
council’s meeting next month in Washington, D.C.
Therriault said Dyson
probably knew more than any other senator about negotiating pipeline issues in
Canada, and had the strongest connections to Canadian officials through his work
with the council and the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region, a group focused on
the economic development of Northwest states and provinces.
“I’ve worked on
those relationships for a long time,” Dyson said after the press
conference.
Dyson said he’s been on the council for five years, served as its
president for a brief period, and helped bring the council together with
PNWER.
“I think it’s just partisan politics,” he said of Green’s
appointments. “I hope not, but I honestly can’t, from my perspective, see how
Alaska’s interests are better served by taking me and Therriault out of
it.”
Portia Babcock, Green’s chief of staff, said the state’s interests were
being served. She said Green appointed the oil and gas point people under the
bipartisan majority, including the chair of the Senate Resources Committee, Sen.
Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla; and the co-chairs of the Senate Finance Committee,
Sens. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, and Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, who is also the vice
chair of Legislative Budget and Audit.
“You need to develop and educate new
people,” Babcock said. “That’s a good thing.”
If the Legislature just keeps
sending the people who already know a lot about oil and gas, it won’t expand the
group of knowledgeable legislators, she added.
Green also reappointed Sens.
Bettye Davis, D-Anchorage, and Tom Wagoner, R-Kenai.
Babcock denied Dyson’s
claim that the appointments amounted to “partisan politics” and noted that the
majority group was bipartisan — it’s comprised of six Republicans and all nine
Democrats in the 20-member Senate — and that Green had appointed Wagoner, a
member of the Senate minority.
Babcock also denied a suggestion by Therriault
that the appointments were payback for challenging former Gov. Frank Murkowski’s
gas pipeline and oil tax proposals in the last session.
“Not everyone gets
what they want,” she said, “and that’s just life.”
This year’s conference
starts early next month, and Dyson and Therriault both said they’re still
planning to attend, even if they have to pay their own way. Babcock said the
Senate wasn’t breaking for the conference and anyone who went would essentially
be paying his own way.
Therriault said after the press conference that he has
used the council’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., as an opportunity to meet
with U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, then chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee; Drue Pearce, the federal coordinator for the Alaska gas
pipeline project; and representatives from the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission.
He said he was planning to send a letter to Green expressing his
concerns about the appointments.
“We’re about halfway across this stream,” he
said, referring to the gas pipeline. “Is that the time to change
horses?”
Contact staff writer Stefan Milkowski at 388-6141 or smilkowski@newsminer.com.Some or all of this post has been disputed. Please go here for the follow-up post.
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