Flashlight missed Governor Sean Parnell’s speech last Friday morning at Meet Alaska, the Alaska Support Industry Alliance’s annual energy conference, held at the Sheraton. But by all accounts it was a fairly conciliatory speech, at least toward ExxonMobil, which recently beat the state in court when a judge ruled the state was in the wrong when it voided Exxon’s Point Thomson leases. Sean’s attempt at pacifying was probably a good thing; this wasn’t a particularly friendly audience for the Palin-and-then-Parnell administration (or Democrats, for that matter). The Alliance is the trade association representing some 400-plus businesses providing products and services to the oil, gas and mining industries, and between the Point Thomson lease litigation and the 2007 oil and gas tax overhaul known as Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share (ACES), our state government’s pretty unpopular with this crowd.

That didn’t mean there was any shortage of legislators and 2010 candidates present though. As local conservative commentator Dave Stieren pointed out during the conference, “five Supreme Court justices decided you were people too,” the day before. Stieren was referring to the decision allowing corporations to independently spend money to influence elections (as long as it’s not in concert with the actual campaigns), and this roomful of oil and gas business folks certainly represented a good chunk of those who had both the means and the motive to use the court’s decision to their advantage. Flashlight didn’t notice any Democratic pols in the room, but you’d have thought the session in Juneau had taken a day off from the number of legislators in the crowd, including Senators Lesil McGuire and Kevin Meyer, and Representatives Charisse Millett, Kyle Johansen, and Craig Johnson. Gubernatorial candidate and anti-ACES proponent Ralph Samuels was there, as was wanna-be governor and all-Alaska gasline evangelist Bill Walker.

Rich Kruger, president of ExxonMobil Production Company, followed Parnell, and expressed a desire to work with the state on Point Thomson and the proposed natural gas pipeline, which the company has partnered with TransCanada to pursue under the terms of the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act. “It is important that we resolve the outstanding issues with the Department of Natural Resources now,” Kruger said. “We stand ready to do so.” Recently there’s been a chorus of voices (and a Facebook page) calling for DNR Commissioner Tom Irwin to resign or for Parnell to fire him because of the agency’s perceived hostility towards producers. After a lunch break featuring a video by former Whale Fat Follies comedienne Alice Welling that let no low blow go unthrown toward former Governor Palin, Larry Archibald, senior vice president of exploration and business development for ConocoPhillips, took the stage with a PowerPoint illustration that explained how ACES screws the industry and why, for the first time since 1965, ConocoPhillips isn’t investing in exploration in Alaska in 2010. Archibald said ACES makes Alaska one of the worst fiscal regimes for onshore exploration and development.

And on it went, even including a raucous “speaker’s corner” which was half-comedy and half-drilling-rig-Tea-Party. The sentiment was clear (and Flashlight assumes the legislators in attendance got the point): Alaska’s administrative and regulatory hurdles are becoming too much of a pain in the ass for the producers, especially when they’ve got viable, industry-friendly projects in other parts of the U.S. and the world.

“Last week’s announcement by Governor Parnell on oil tax credits was a positive signal to the industry that he and his administration recognize that the ACES tax needs change to stimulate activity,” John Mingé, President of BP Exploration Alaska, said. But, he continued, “We believe the proposal is a good start, but it’s not enough for sustainability of Alaska’s oil and gas industry.”

Paul Laird, general manager of the Alliance, says the messages from the industry were sobering but not unexpected. “They hate [ACES],” he says, and his organization has begun an aggressive advertising campaign called “Faces of ACES” to push the anti-ACES message during the legislative session. The ads and website feature Alaskans who lost their jobs due to the oil and gas tax, Laird says.

“The genesis [of “Faces of ACES”] was hearing the governor tell people that somebody had to show him that ACES was having negative consequences in the state because he wasn’t seeing any,” Laird says. “That was particularly frustrating for me and for us, knowing that our members are laying off people by the dozens at the time, and now by the hundreds, that businesses are having their margins squeezed, that investment is going down, drilling and development activity is going down. We wanted to feature some real Alaskans who are suffering some of the real consequences of some real bad legislation.”

The Alliance isn’t pushing a particular formula to reform ACES, but Laird says the first step is convincing people there’s a problem. The attendees at Meet Alaska were certainly convinced, but it’s yet to be seen if the skeptical legislators can be swayed—if not, the Supreme Court’s decision just might make industry campaigns against specific a lot easier.

bjk@anchoragepress.com