Brett Huber: AK LNG Is moving fast. Let’s hope the ‘No’ Caucus doesn’t sabotage it

By BRETT HUBER

With all the breaking good news and the daily positive progress reports about the long-awaited Alaska Gas Line project, it’s hard to keep up!  But the “take-home” message is simple: Nearly unprecedented political alignment exists from the president of the United States, our federal delegation, the Governor, the Borough Mayors, our public utilities, private business, to local consumers.  They are all supporting and advocating for this project and the private developers are already spending smart money to make it happen.

This gas line is no longer a PowerPoint presentation or a pipe dream. It’s not owned by China, that was Gov. Walker’s failed vision.   It’s happening the right way, private sector led, with direction and oversight from the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, the state agency purpose built for that job. The only thing that can screw it up now is the “Caucus of NO” in the Alaska Legislature.

Progress looks like this: President Donald Trump just highlighted the gas line in the Wall Street Journal. Also this month, Glenfarne, the private-sector project owner, filed with regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, for permission to begin construction work in mid-April. The early work includes man camps, access roads, bridge crossings, pipe storage sites, and other infrastructure needed to support full pipeline construction, with pipe laying potentially starting later in the year. Private investment put to work.

Earlier, Glenfarne announced other big milestones that shifted the Alaska LNG project decisively toward the building phase: agreements for gas supply from North Slope producers, in-state gas sales deals, and a letter of intent to supply up to 50 million cubic feet per day to the Donlin Gold Mine. Additionally, tentative selections of construction and engineering firms, pipeline contractors, and pipe suppliers have been made.

Mechanical completion of the gas line is now targeted for 2028, with first in-state gas delivery expected in 2029.

Alaska has never been closer to having our North Slope gas providing another anchor revenue stream for state and local governments, adding thousands of jobs to the economy, and solving the pending energy crisis in Cook Inlet.

This momentum grew also because the governor and congressional delegation have worked together and pushed hard to get the project off the vision board, onto the drawing table and into the field. Glenfarne became lead developer less than a year ago — March 2025. The company partnered with Worley for final engineering, secured preliminary LNG offtake commitments from buyers in Asia, and signed cooperation agreements with international partners.

And yet, just as the project is gaining traction, the Legislature’s professional naysayers are back at it. Instead of getting to “yes,” they’re trying to get to “no.”

Rather than focusing on what they are actually supposed to do, such as fix the budget, address the Permanent Fund, tackle education failures, and deal with the state’s fiscal trajectory, some legislators have decided their main job is to throw cold water on the one project that offers long-term energy security for the Railbelt.

Now remember, these legislative naysayers have zero expertise in this lane. They are not engineers. They are not pipeline builders. They are not energy market specialists. They have not spent careers in oil and gas or utility operations.

So why are these few members of the “Caucus of NO” acting like authorities? The answer appears to be they just want to stop progress, at any cost.

Alaskans have been warned about running out of gas for a long time. Producers in Cook Inlet have been telling us this since 2010: Railbelt supply was tightening and that we could not assume cheap, reliable energy forever.

Some of us remember when former Mayor Larry DeVilbiss urged Mat-Su residents to prepare. Who in the Legislature remembers how in 2011, Mayor DeVilbiss, along with Anchorage and Kenai Peninsula leaders, launched an “Energy Watch” campaign to urge residents to conserve power, potentially including voluntary brownouts, during winter months to avoid natural gas shortages? Former Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan also warned of brownouts and need for prompt action.

That was 15 years ago.

And yet now we are listening to lawmakers in Juneau acting as if the gas crisis is theoretical, as if they can debate and block it endlessly without consequence.

Without a pipeline, Alaska is headed toward importing gas after 2030. That’s four short years away. Expensive shipments will be brought in just to keep the lights on. It will be down to “subsistence gas” for the Railbelt — survival level only — and it will be expensive!

There will not be enough to expand industry, attract investment or grow the economy.

What will power our military bases along the Railbelt? Our national defense depends on stable energy infrastructure just as much as families and businesses do.

This is why the Alaska gasline must move forward quickly, and why the constant drumbeat of negativity from the legislative “stall squad” is so damaging.

Alaskans deserve to know: Why do you signal your opposition to the project?  What is your better idea?

So far, it’s crickets.

Their entire modus operandi is to cast doubt, call AK LNG a pipe dream, sneer at progress, and provide no alternative that could realistically come online in the next two and a half years.

Criticism is easy. Raising eyebrows with “concern” is easy. Leadership requires solutions and courage.

Other than holding a legislative seat, what gives the vocal critics the authority to downplay the progress of one of the most important infrastructure projects Alaska has ever undertaken when facts on the ground are moving in the opposite direction?

Alaska has the permits. We have the regulatory pathway. We have a private-sector developer leading the effort. This is a real project advancing through federal oversight into early construction work.

The early works scheduled to begin this spring are substantial: construction camps, pipe yards, access roads, borrow pits, and nearly a hundred bridge crossings.

No matter what you feel about President Trump, he gets things done. Trump just wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 30, Japan will help construct one of the largest natural gas pipelines in the world, in Alaska, to export American energy to allies in Asia.

At some point, the Legislature needs to stop pretending endless doubt is a substitute for leadership. Alaska cannot naysay its way into an energy future.

Here is an idea: Get out of the way. Stop stopping progress. Let private industry build the gas line. Don’t tax it to death or regulate it into paralysis, and don’t sabotage it for political sport.  Alaskans deserve better!

Brett Huber is state director for Americans for Prosperity-Alaska and a longtime Alaskan.