By HAROLD HOLLIS
April 21, 2026 – Alaskans often ask me what the greatest risk is to the Final Investment Decision and the ultimate construction of the Alaska LNG Project. My answer has always been clear: the Alaska State Legislature.
Recent behavior from our legislators has only confirmed this, as they appear to be positioning themselves to kill the project. And with it, Alaska’s future.
In the Senate Resources Committee hearings, the motivations are on full display. Some legislators view maximizing the state “take” and the funding of budget deficits as the only metrics of success. Others harbor a fundamental disdain for private-sector capital, specifically targeting those in the oil, gas, and energy infrastructure industries. Finally, some are simply obsessed with petty political grudges; for instance, Chair Sen. Cathy Giessel’s apparent fixation on settling a perceived score with Gov. Mike Dunleavy by opposing any initiative he supports.
This political theater is dangerous, works against the interests of all Alaskans, and puts this transformational project in jeopardy.
Legislators routinely use the phrase, “Of course we all support a gas pipeline…” as a convenient escape from accountability. This disingenuous opening is almost always a precursor to spiteful attacks on the oil and gas industry, the Alaska LNG Project, the private-sector developer Glenfarne, and the state corporation empowered to oversee the State’s interest.
As the source of their power, legislators often cite Article VIII, Section 2 of the Alaska Constitution: “The legislature shall provide for the utilization, development, and conservation of all natural resources belonging to the State… for the maximum benefit of its people.” While this is a foundational mandate, the Legislature’s interpretation seems narrowed to a single focus: generating maximum revenue for the Legislature to spend.
One member of the Senate Resources Committee recently had the gall to imply that because the project doesn’t generate $3 billion annually to cover the state’s budget deficit, he cannot support it.
Throughout this entire session, I have not heard a single legislator ask: “What can we do to clear the path for this project to happen?”
Our state is facing a slow decline: an energy crisis, a steady outflow of population, an ever-increasing government budget, and stagnating private-sector activity. Legislators often claim the solution is more spending on a failing education system and state entitlements. Yet, what specific solutions has the Legislature offered to provide long-term energy security? Solving this foundational issue by supporting the Alaska LNG Project clearly meets the threshold of “maximum benefit” for the people.
The real danger of the Legislature’s adversarial approach is the lost opportunity cost. When career politicians shun private investment, projects don’t get built and the economy stalls. Rather than obsessing over how to “cut a fat hog” (extracting every possible penny before a project even begins), Alaska’s legislators need to get out of the way and let the capitalist system work.
Most Alaskans go about their days ignoring or tolerating the antics in Juneau. But make no mistake: the Legislature is about to blow your future. It is time for Alaskans to get engaged.
Harold Hollis is a professional engineer with over 40 years of Alaska design, engineering, and construction experience in Alaska, much of it in the oil and gas industry.
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6 thoughts on “The greatest risk to Alaska LNG? The Alaska State Legislature itself”
That’s because Alaska’s community leaders have never worked in the private sector. They literally think Government grows its own money completely unaware government has the money for its budget because of private sector sources producing it.
Whether or not Alaskans are ready harder economic times are coming… it’ll be easier if you aren’t dependent on government and your living standards are simple and humble.
To be honest Alaska will Never have an LNG until today’s GenBeta students (7 and younger) and GenAlpha (8-23) are in their twenties and thirties. That’s how government dependent GenZ(kinda of) , Millennials, and GenX, boomers are. It takes twenty years to build a gas pipeline up here, and Alaskan adults aren’t even close to being ready ffor it.
The risk of making Alaskans and Americans coming up here wait on to build the pipeline is it may being owned and managed by others if America is still a country. There is a bigger world beyond the oceans separating US and we may not even be a country because it’s not just Alaska community leaders today who are messed up there are messed up screwed up community leaders in the entire country, I think countries like Russia are just waiting (waiting to pounce) for when America Falls maybe not because of Islam in our country nor a foreign enemy but a fall by our own doing for one Russia knows we are following the Same playbook of socialism/communism that wrecked their nation and they still had really fully recovered from the collapse living under a socialism state.
But instead of LNG, can we switch to whale oil?? Its renewable and all
Thank you, Harold for a marvelously arrogant lecture. Cheerleading’s your bag, maybe there’s an opportunity at https://dallascowboyscheerleaders.com/auditions/.
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Last time we checked, no one elected “Alaska LNG” to represent Alaskans. Yes, Alaska’s legislature has problems, but at least voters can replace legislators if they misbehave too badly. Your mob, of course, are under no such constraints. In other words, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
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Factual, verifiable answers would’ve been so helpful the first three times this subject bubbled up. But we’ll keep asking, this much money in play, somebody’ll notice, no?
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1. How much will Alaskans’ heating and electric bills increase following pipeline construction?
2. Will product be sold directly or indirectly to Communist China?
3. If supply problems arise, are Asian buyers prioritized over Alaskan customers?
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 a similar giveaway from happening?
7. What assures pipeline-control gear will be CISA vetted? (https://www.cisa.gov/)
8. When LNG development is actually over, will AGDC go away?
9. What assures 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?)
10. What makes Polar LNG -not- better positioned to move natural gas by leveraging existing Prudhoe Bay infrastructure, minimizing new onshore development, and delivering a more efficient and lower-impact path to market …at a quarter of the cost?
(https://polarlng.com/project/)
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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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Is Senator Giessel responding out of concern for 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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Some Alaskans want answers because they justifiably don’t trust government officials much anymore. They justifiably fear that diving, eyes closed, into the deep end of what could turn out to be an empty pool won’t end well for them, they want to see the water for themselves, not just take someone’s word it’s there.
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Want your hearing in the court of public opinion, quit with the lectures and bring the answers, Harold. The longer you wait the more suspicious this thing looks.
If the Alaska LNG project can give Alaskans cheap and reliable energy independence Alaskans will get behind it, but if it is just a scheme to get the State to participate in a private, for profit, LNG project whose main customers are primarily in Asia, then the project will fail the residents of our State. We are running out of Cook Inlet natural gas. If Glen Farne can assure the State that a natural gas line from the North Slope will prioritize addressing that issue it is a win for the State and the Legislature should embrace the project wholeheartedly. If not, there will be lot more scrutiny from the Legislature. The devil is in the details!
History is repeating itself and 26 years later, today, the same scenario of life, choices, people, positions, companies’ names and events have changed names but not the human element of money, pretend, greed, what if’s, countries in the world, projects, excitement, under the table money and acquisition agreements. It’s all there and coming round, full circle to the same events unfolding to a new generation of the same life’s choices. The best chapter is called, “When Pigs Could Fly” written by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind in their famous book called, “The Smartest Guys In The Room” and it was about the famous company called Enron. It’s happening in Alaska today! The main body of actors is in full swing, attempting the same failures of the reporting in the book on Enron and its alliances. The questions today should be asked about how many of these new actors will end up in prison? Bet that is an answer on the horizon but moving fast in the same direction as that company of the past. Some committed suicide, some departed and went in other directions when the stench of bad decisions and bragging drove the best actors away, but the investigations and trials of companies and people documented in the report from court appearances and records were staggering in the telling of those events.
One thing we all know in Alaska, the LNG will be built when the people of Alaska want it done. The pretending of the companies and people and paper waving and shouting from the podium by CEO’s will not change what the people of Alaska want, when and where the pipe will go and be built. Remember, all who listen, Alaska will not be torn apart for your profit and gain. Unfortunately for Alaska, it’s path is being directed by the same sick standards of the Enron schemes and will not be tolerated by the Alaskans. Now the “players” want secrecy established in l.aw. “Shame” on the Dunleavy Administration and the legislative body that incorporates these underhanded standards to the character of state law.
USA dominance in the energy world is inaccurate. The USA is at the bottom of the graph. Alaska oil and gas is at the bottom of the graph and there is no gas yet and even if we do have a gas line, we will not be a dominating for the next 100 to two hundred years here in Alaska. Texas passes Alaska up without taking a second breath. What a good stunt!!