By SUZANNE DOWNING
Feb. 12, 2026 – Senate Minority Leader Cathy Giessel is again casting shade on the Alaska LNG project, even as developer Glenfarne tells federal regulators it expects to begin early construction work this spring.
Giessel, who is a nurse by profession, has shown growing opposition to the project by quibbling over fiscal details about the project, even as the company moves forward with preliminary agreements and regulatory filings. She mistakenly believes the state has to sign off on the company’s financials before it can proceed to construction.
In recent weeks, Giessel has warned that the gasline construction will bring more prostitution to the state.
Glenfarne, the company leading the $44 billion-plus Alaska LNG development, has filed plans with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission showing “early works” beginning April 15. Those initial activities include building construction camps, access roads, and nearly 100 bridge crossings to support pipeline construction.
Breaking: Glenfarne seeks approval from FERC for early start on Alaska LNG
But Giessel, a Republican Senate minority leader of the Democrats, said she does not believe the company can meet the aggressive timeline it has outlined. Glenfarne’s goal of laying pipe by the end of the year, she said Tuesday at a press conference, “is completely unrealistic.”
Giessel appears to be is looking for threads to pull to disparage the gas line. Alaska LNG is envisioned as a multi-phase effort to finally commercialize North Slope natural gas. The first phase would deliver gas to Railbelt communities through an 800-mile pipeline, with an estimated cost of around $11 billion. The later, larger phase would add a liquefaction plant and marine terminal in Nikiski, allowing Alaska gas to be shipped to Asian markets. The company plans to start laying pipe and have it done by the end of the Trump Administration, with first gas in 2029.
The full project has long been estimated at at least $44 billion, though Glenfarne has acknowledged that the figure has recently been updated.
Glenfarne has not yet announced a final investment decision, which is the binding financial commitment required before full construction begins. Last month, Glenfarne announced several preliminary, nonbinding agreements with gas producers, pipeline contractors, and potential buyers. While those deals are viewed as necessary stepping stones, they are not yet enforceable contracts.
Giessel, going negative on the project, said lawmakers still do not have enough information to evaluate the project or understand what the state may be expected to contribute. The company, she noted, has not provided lawmakers with fiscal details that would help them understand the project’s structure or cost exposure.
“There’s a lot more to know. I’m not even sure they can come to a final investment decision, in light of the fact that we haven’t even determined what our tax structure will be for this project,” Giessel said.
Alaska’s legislative minority has a trained nurse leading major gas lined discussions in the Senate regarding the largest project that will ever be built in the Arctic. It’s a classic example of government trying to set up road block, and Giessel attempting to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a supporter of Alaska LNG, plans to introduce legislation that would cut the state’s oil and gas property taxes by 90% to help the project move forward. A consultant to the Legislature, GaffneyCline, has said such tax reductions could provide critical upfront savings, but that additional measures offering “fiscal stability” may also be needed.
GaffneyCline is a subsidiary of Baker Hughes, which has said it intends to supply equipment for the project and make a “strategic investment.”
Giessel falsely suggested the company still faces a major hurdle: certification from the Regulatory Commission of Alaska proving its financial and managerial fitness — a process she said could take six months.
However, the RCA has no authority in this because it is a FERC regulated project, with RCA only involved in gas contracts, once the project is built.
The recent filing with FERC does not represent a final construction schedule, but rather outlines how early works would be sequenced pending authorization. It shows how initial construction would proceed if federal approval is granted. Glenfarne, he said, continues moving toward a final investment decision.
The filing provides new details about what the company hopes to do first. Early construction activities would include installation of 20 main construction camps, development of 46 pipe storage sites, construction of 98 bridge crossings up to 90 feet long, and six specialized bridges. Temporary and permanent access roads would also be built from ice and granular fill material, with 619 segments of access road included in the plan.
The company plans to submit the necessary supporting documentation to FERC by March 15 in an effort to obtain authorization.
For Glenfarne, the message is that Alaska LNG is progressing toward a final investment decision and early construction is being planned in detail.
For Giessel and other anti-progress lawmakers, the concern is that the timeline is overly ambitious, the fiscal picture remains unclear. If the gas line does not succeed, and if it is established that the private companies pulled out because the legislature created an impossible situation for development, Giessel will be remembered for this moment.
25 thoughts on “Nurse Giessel prescribes doubt for Alaska LNG project”
The Senate and House majorities are the biggest group of organized Hookers in the State.
Of course she does!. How dare the state do something that might bring money to the ” little people”, meaning people NOT named Giessel. They might do things of which she does not approve, which is intolerable to Her Majesty
Interesting how grandma couldn’t rely on her private nurse.
Her concern about prostitutes is the desire to maintain a monopoly. Murkowski Lite. How these two condescending arrogant toads maintain their Republican affiliation is a mystery to everyone I know.
She is likely the smartest person in the room. To do their jobs properly, she and all other people who control public money should be skeptical: “Show me objective and balanced facts”; “ Details matter, so provide them”; “Answer directly and concisely”. Or would you rather she serve as a shill for Dumbleavy’s pipe (pun intended) dreams?
I mean, she’s not wrong about being able to meet their proposed schedule- I’d like to see them source and position 740 miles of 42″ .862 wall X70 pipe within the timeframe spelled out. But I’d chalk that up to blind squirrel and nut.
I would offer to Nurse Giessel that obtaining her PMP would really go a long way towards helping out in her new career as project manager…
Schedule is aggressive. It has to be in order to get it done before the Trump administration leaves office, though the dem majority in the legislature will to everything humanly possible to derail it between now and then. TAPS only took 3 years, and that was under a democrat congress and president. Cheers –
“Nurse Ratched prescribes doubt for Alaska LNG project”. There, I fixed it for you.
Geisel is right to be concerned.
Geisel, Murkowski, Peltola; a virus of hubris at work.
“………Glenfarne tells federal regulators it expects to begin early construction work this spring………….”
Can you say “Keystone XL”? Can you say Mexican Border Wall? “They” can turn it off mid-stride.
I want to believe……………..but I don’t……………
That’s why it needs to be substantially finished by Jan 21, 2029. Neither Keystone XL or the border wall was. Cheers –
I called Cathy Giessel in 2006 because I’d heard the Alaska Board of Nursing had made an exception to the law that only a licensed Physician could perform an abortion. I fully expected her to say that she was outvoted but I couldn’t understand her explanation so I persisted until I could understand what she was saying.
Finally, she got to her bottom line and said, “we had to because of Roe v Wade”. I’d been on the Board of Alaska Right to Life for many years and knew from my research that Roe specified that an abortion could only be done by a physician. Roe v Wade’s companion case, Doe v Bolton, decided the same day, had made an exception for health but none to the physician requirement.
I find Giessel even less credible than flip-flopper Lisa Murkowski.
I’m surprised that Angel of Death Giessel is not also advocating for the destruction of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline while she’s at it.
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Maybe Giessel hasn’t done so because, being a crypto-leftist, like Sockeye Lisa, she likes the existing pipeline since it is “Trans-“.
The Nurse voices Doubt. The Journalist voices Hype. Neither, I dare say, is eminently qualified.
The snark continues here at Alaska Story, just as it did at MRAK before being rescued by angel investors.
And the naysaying and the kneejerk pro-establishment, pro-globalist trolling by radical leftists continues unabated as well.
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As a dog returns to its vomit, so does the radical leftist return to his mentally, morally and psychologically poisoned well. And why does he do that? Because it is his nature.
Perhaps you should wok your jabber and sneer somewhere else, Hans. No snarks here, just boojums
Nurse Giessel may have a point. Could this thing be in extremis, on life support, and nobody outside the ER realizes it?
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Simple answers to simple questions might be helpful before somebody starts digging up the countryside.
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1. How much will Alaskan heating bills increase following pipeline construction?
2. If supply problems arise, are Asian buyers prioritized over Alaskan customers?
3. Will product be sold directly or indirectly to Communist China?
4. Are Communist Chinese entities involved in project financing or insurance?
5. Is a plan in place if a Democrat-controlled administration revokes construction permits?
6. Recall Palin’s $500M giveaway to TransCanada, what prevents another giveaway from happening?
7. What assures that pipeline-control gear will be CISA vetted? (https://www.cisa.gov/)
8. When is “Development” actually over, does AGDC go away then?
9. What assures that Alaskans and the Permanent Fund won’t be on the hook for up-front costs, contractor fraud, and losses if Glenfarne can’t get binding financial commitments from Asian companies and governments?
(https://ptop.substack.com/p/guide-to-uncovering-contractor-fraud?)
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On June 25, 2025, AGDC released an updated $38.7 billion cost estimate for the Alaska LNG Project.
(https://agdc.us/updated-38-7-billion-project-construction-cost/)
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Now Glenfarne wants $44 billion-plus.
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Then there’s this: “The latest evidence that no one knows what the gas will cost comes from an independent report by Rapidan Energy Group, which says the likely cost of the pipeline project is far higher than the $44 billion estimate still in circulation …Add in the cost of the so-called first phase—building a pipeline from the North Slope to Anchorage without compression and export facilities and the total project cost would exceed $70 billion.”
(https://www.dermotcole.com/reportingfromalaska/2025/6/24/glenfarnes-latest-deceptive-press-release-about-alaska-lng-project)
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Who’s on the hook when project cost runs up to, say, $90 billion, or reaches a point at which the thing doesn’t seem worth building because financial, geopolitical, legal, and physical risks outweigh benefits, making it unlikely to turn a profit during the lifetime of anyone alive today?
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Has Alaska’s Legislature heard what the Rapidan analysis shows, which the Dunleavy administration, AGDC, and Glenfarne analyses apparently don’t show?
(https://www.rapidanenergy.com/about)
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Would Nurse Giessel be as concerned if such obvious questions were asked, and answered, before now?
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So we thank Nurse Giessel in advance for asking.
What you’ve got here is a bunch of Alaskans who are desperate for another pipeline boom, no matter the actual project economics. It’s as simple as that.
Makes sense.
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Maybe desperation drives their continual, concerted effort to conceal, or distract from, something so scandalous that, if properly leveraged, can topple their regime?
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Besides, rebuilding one’s state government from the ground up would be more interesting than building someone else’s pipeline, no?
You lost me when you cited Dermot Cole as, a,source. he’s not even a tiny bit reliable
Can’t speak to Dermot’s reliability, but the issue he raises seems like a cautionary note because nobody else is asking, nobody factually refuted it, and it isn’t original with Dermot, in other words, he didn’t make it up out of nothing.
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Mystery seems more complex the more you look into it. Got to wonder why these points, including Dermot’s haven’t been addressed and laid to rest before now.
She has a point, right on her head
Prostitution has been a very common worldwild ilk. It doesn’t just start with the pipeline, it’s been going on for centuries.. You can’t stop it in any way, But to stop the pipeline due to this excuse is an abomination in helping Alaska to afford to live up here. Along with this we need to stop all the taxations and idiotic excuses stripping us from our right to the PFD. Anchorage NEEDS to live within their budget and stop gouging us with all their taxation. We have lost many people due to these idiotic taxes, in which people can’t live here. Turncoat Giessel needs to change her political label along with many others who don’t follow their party line, because you’re lying to your party by not following the rules..
Would these heroes do what they do if they were worried about re-elections or law enforcement?
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Would these heroes do what they do if citizens regained control of their grand-jury and election systems?