12-09-04

Alaska needs to increase its share of the take in resource development and plan for a future without oil, according to Jim Sykes, the Green Party's candidate for US Senate.

Sykes, a long-time grassroots organizer and founder of the Alaska Green Party, told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce that the state must plan by developing a natural gas pipeline, shifting to renewable energy production and establishing a manufacturing industry.

Sykes, 54, faces former Democratic governor Tony Knowles and Republican incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Nov. 2 general election. He said the United States uses 25 % of the world's daily oil production but holds only 3 % of the oil reserves. Once the US oil reserves run out, the country will be dependent on Africa, the Middle East and South America for its energy. Sykes said that dependence would weaken the country militarily.

"Even if we could get all of that oil, Arctic refuge or no Arctic refuge, we would still be in a very precarious situation," he said.Alaska also should rewrite its tax structure on windfall profits to oil companies to gain more revenue, Sykes said.

Sykes, founder of the industry watchdog group Oilwatch, said the group recommended in 1999 that the state rewrite its tax structure on windfall profits, a plan that would have earned $ 4 bn if it had been adopted.
"We now have the (Economic Limit Factor) tax, which is allowing a number of oil fields to pay zero royalties," he said. "We're basically giving it away."

As oil production declines worldwide, Sykes said, Alaska should be mindful that its value will increase.
"It would be better not to produce that oil and leave it in the ground as our savings account, because it will be worth more during the next 20 or 30 or 40 years, until the oil age ends," he said. Sykes also said he would push for an "all-Alaska" gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, a plan that would make the people of Alaska the primary benefactors of the project.

Once the oil industry ceases to exist, Sykes said, the state will be in the same predicament it has faced the past with other industries that have gone bust. He said he would push for a production development corporation to establish new sources of revenue for the state.

"What I am proposing here is that Alaska has the potential to build its own manufacturing industry," he said. "Whether it's medicinal plants, whether it's fish leather, whether it's jewellery, it's not going to replace oil. But oil's not going to last forever."

Source: Juneau Empire