As usual, the administration's annual budget request is more interesting for what it excludes rather than includes.
Zeroed out of the budget this year was the Office of the Federal Inspector of the Alaskan Natural Gas Transportation System (OGJ, Jan. 6, p. 35). Congress established the office in the 1970s to oversee construction of an expected gas pipeline from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay field to the Lower 48.
Although the line was never built, the federal inspector's office was funded year after year.
Finally last fall, Rep. Phil Sharp (D-Ind.) amended an energy bill to abolish the $250,000/year bureaucracy for inspecting a pipeline that doesn't exist.
BAYER'S TURNABOUT
The current inspector, Michael Bayer, strongly defended the need for his position when interviewed last December. But in a turnabout, Bayer urged President Bush to abolish the office in a Jan. 14 report.
Bayer wrote, "It seems implausible that the Alaska Natural Gas Transportation System (Angts), as contemplated by the president and Congress in 1977, will come to pass in the next 20 years, if ever.
"The Angts system has encountered the ultimate decision of the marketplace, that the forces of supply and demand will not support its construction now or in the foreseeable future.
"The U.S. government in essence predicted the immediate need for and completion of a pipeline. However reasonable this may have appeared in the 1970s, we now know that prediction was wrong. Nonetheless, we have maintained all the legal structures as if that prediction was correct.
"This project is perhaps an object lesson in the dangers of government choices that become engraved in stone, impervious to market developments in a changing world. We should instead let the market dictate if, when, and how Alaskan gas will be utilized. If, in 2010, it becomes economically feasible to bring Alaskan gas to U.S. markets, why should its delivery be required to follow a route designated in 1977?"
The Bush administration quickly accepted Bayer's decision and cut his office from the fiscal 1993 budget.
STATE OF THE UNION
Bush's State of the Union address last week also had a notable omission. Bush, who wants to be known as the "environmental president," never mentioned the word "environment." He also wants to be known as the "education president,' and he didn't forget to argue for his education programs.
Of course, the economic recession was the underlying theme of Bush's address. So he advocated some things that may have made environmentalists cringe: deferring new federal rules and reviewing old ones (presumably including environmental regulations) and the need for building new roads, bridges and railways.
Bush said, "We must clear away the obstacles to growth-high taxes, high regulation, red tape, and, yes, wasteful government spending." Now that would have been a good place for him to use the word "environment" somehow. Well, maybe next time.
Copyright 1992 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
