State agency failed to disclose $20 million ANWR investment plan
After the close of business Friday, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority announced it had to meet in secret two days before Christmas and discuss “confidential matters related to a potential new project for the Arctic Infrastructure Development Fund.”
The agency refused to tell the public the nature of the confidential matter.
Had the agency wanted to fill in the public about its secret plans, the meeting announcement published Friday would have mentioned the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But it didn’t.
AIDEA now wants Alaskans to believe that it was not trying to hide its plan to spend up to $20 million bidding on federal oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before the end of next week.
Alan Weitzner, executive director of AIDEA, tells the Anchorage Daily News that the resolution he wants the AIDEA board to consider for ANWR leases wasn’t written Friday, which is why there was no mention of the topic of the meeting.
“Weitzner said there was no attempt to keep the resolution a secret; it wasn’t written until Monday,” the Daily News reported.
Drop that lame excuse. AIDEA kept the topic of the meeting a secret. It is irrelevant that the resolution wasn’t written until Monday. The meeting notice said the investment topic was confidential. That was false.
Weitzner needs to be held accountable and he needs to take responsibility for this lack of transparency.
The reasonable interpretation is that AIDEA tried to limit public attention for its meeting Wednesday and tried to sneak this one by. That is the wrong way for a state entity to do business, especially on a matter of this importance.
With the blunder by AIDEA, the real proposal became public on Monday, meaning only two days of public notice on a long-term decision clouded by uncertainty.
The Trump administration process on ANWR leases has been seriously flawed, creating legal and regulatory openings for the Biden administration to delay or kill the sale of leases. Oil prices are low and the industry did not push for ANWR leases, leading to this going-out-of-business sale by Trump’s Interior Department.
The reality of climate change has shifted the national and international debate on oil development in the Arctic and the need to develop renewable energy.
The new federal administration will do everything it can to prevent oil development in the refuge, aided by a powerful national constituency that wants this federal property protected and preserved.
The long-held Alaska dream of an ANWR oil bonanza has been cast into doubt by forces far beyond the control of Alaskans.
If the AIDEA board approves this plan, the agency staff would have to figure out which tracts to bid on by the end of next week, entering a rushed process that will be more about politics than economics. It will create plenty of opportunities over the next few years for lawyers.
AIDEA will be buying a $20 million admission ticket for years of regulatory and court battles with no end in sight.