Suzanne Downing: TAPS anniversary is a reminder that Alaska once had a Legislature that built things

By SUZANNE DOWNING

June 20, 2026 – Forty-nine years ago today, the first oil began flowing through the Trans Alaska Pipeline System.

On June 20, 1977, oil from Prudhoe Bay started its 800-mile journey south to Valdez, marking one of the most important days in Alaska history. It is difficult to overstate how much that moment changed our state.

Before TAPS, Alaska was still struggling to become what statehood advocates had promised. We had vast resources but limited ability to develop them. We were dependent on federal spending and lacked the economic engine needed to support a growing population and modern infrastructure.

Then came the pipeline. Thousands of Alaskans found work. People moved to the state and produced. Entire communities grew. Businesses opened. Roads, schools, airports, ports, and public services were built with revenues generated from private investment and resource development. Alaska finally became capable of supporting itself.

The pipeline transformed Alaska from a territory in spirit into a functioning state in reality.

What’s remarkable is that TAPS was never expected to last this long. Construction ran from 1975 to 1977, and many engineers expected a service life of roughly 25 years. Some planning assumptions and right-of-way agreements were built around a 30-year horizon. Yet through innovation, maintenance, and determination, the pipeline continues operating nearly five decades later. The oil keeps flowing.

Instead of transporting the roughly 10 billion barrels originally envisioned from Prudhoe Bay, it has carried more than 19 billion barrels. Nearly double.

The men and women who built TAPS thought big. They believed Alaska’s resources should be developed. They understood that prosperity comes from production, not redistribution.

Which brings us to the Alaska Legislature of 2026. Imagine for a moment if today’s Senate Majority had been in charge in the 1970s. Can anyone seriously believe the Trans Alaska Pipeline would have been built if this legislative majority had been in charge?

Would they have viewed Prudhoe Bay as an opportunity or as a problem? Would they have worked to make the project economically viable, or would they have demanded more taxes, more conditions, more government control, and more reasons to delay?

Looking at the current delay over the Alaska LNG project, the answer seems obvious. For weeks, Alaskans have watched Senate leaders throw obstacle after obstacle in front of a project that could secure long-term energy supplies, create jobs, attract investment, and provide a future beyond declining Cook Inlet production.

The behavior on display this week tells the story.

There was Sen. Bill Wielechowski’s unforgettable hallway meltdown, caught on video, as tensions boiled over during the gasline debate. There were repeated dirtying up of the gasline legislation with unrelated taxes and demands. There were endless procedural maneuvers, delays, and  out the clock.

The message from many members of today’s Senate Majority appears to be simple: If the project cannot be built according to their preferred socialist vision, it should not be built at all.

That is not how Alaska was built. The generation that delivered TAPS understood that private capital must be welcomed, not punished. Investors must be attracted, not chased away. Major infrastructure projects require certainty, not endless political gamesmanship.

Those legislators were not perfect. Neither were the governors, industry executives, or federal officials involved. But they possessed something that often seems absent today: confidence that Alaska could do big things. They believed economic growth was a good thing and that jobs were important, that private-sector growth was not the enemy.

Today’s Alaska Senate leadership appears incapable of that kind of thinking.

Lawmakers like Sen. Bill Wielechowski (Baby Bill of tantrum fame) and Sen. Cathy Giessel (multi-personality Sybil) seem  comfortable managing decline.

As we mark the anniversary of first oil flowing through TAPS, we should remember that Alaska’s greatest achievements were not built by people searching for reasons to say no. They were built by people willing to say yes — yes to risk, to investment, to jobs, and to a future that was larger than the politics of the moment.

The pipeline still stands as a monument to that vision. It’s pumping out 455,000 barrels a day in 2026.

The question facing Alaska today is whether we have a Legislature that has enough vision to build the next big project, for the next 50 years.

Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.

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