Going Rogue: An American Life (32 page)

Going Rogue

I emphasized my priorities of improving public safety and tackling substance abuse. Then I concluded with plain talk on the role ofgovernment, stressing fiscal restraint and the importance of competition and free enterprise. “Alaskans, hold me accounrable, and right back at you!” I said. ”I’ll expecr a lor from you, too!

Take responsibility for your family and for your futures. Don’t think you need government to rake care of all needs and to make your decisions for you. More government isn’t the answer because
you
have ability, because you are Alaskans, and you live in a land that God, with incredible benevolence, decided overwhelmingly

bless.”

I could feel the energy in that arena, and I knew it couId across the entire state-we

shaking things up-and there’d

he new energy fur a new future!

There was more celebration after the speech, as some of our homegrown talent entertained us, including Atz Kilcher, the father of the pop singer Jewel. Piper sat happily for most of the ceremony, her bright red dress

and her new black patent

leather shoes swinging. Her sisters had placed a tiny toy tiara her head and told her to he patient.

She

in rhere with just a hint of weariness, though she never got bored with her dress. She wore ir to all the inaugural events and never tired of dancing in it.

The next morning, I kissed the kids awake and Todd helped each one of them get ready for their day. I headed to my new office on the seventeenth Boor of the silver-mirrored State Building in Anchorage. Most of the staff, many lawmakers, and by far the greatest number of constituents are in the Anchorage area. Until a road is built to Juneau-an idea that didn’t have much support from legislators-less than 10 percent of Alaskans can conveniently get to their capital. So, an obvious part of rhe new, •

12 3

•

SARAH PALIN

ttansparent way of conducting the people’s business would be to setve where the people ate. That’s why I would often work in my Anchorage office, in addition to the one in our much smaller capital city.

It was my first day in office, and my core gasline team and I were meeting to kick off our top agenda item. The governor’s office has one particularly enviable view, south across the city coward the beautiful mountains of Chugach State Park. From one window I could also see an active volcano, and from another window, Mount McKinley. We overlook Cook Inlet, abundant with sea life, including salmon, halibut, and beluga whales, all safely coexisting with offshore oil rigs for the last thirty years. Almost symbolically, my office also looked direcrly into the cowering gold-mirrored building occupied by the oil giant ConocoPhillips, This melange of views served as a constant reminder of my mission in office co develop our state’s resources in the best interests of the environment and of the getting a gasline built.

It was

humbling experience co step in co lead an administration that would serve a state of this size and diversity. But I knew we could face the challenge with anticipation and without a sense of overload if we observed Ronald Reagan’s principles: pick your
core agenda issues and focus on those; empower and motivate your
departments and staff co implement your vision in other areas. Reagan concentrated on a few key issues and knocked them out of the park. That gave him the polirical capital to effect change in many other policy areas. I knew if! kept my campaign promise of overhauling the state in the areas of resource development, fiscal restraint, and ethical government, I would also be able to turn attention to equally urgent issues such as education, services for special needs and the elderly, job training, unemployment, and social ills in rural Alaska. We’d be able co do so with repriorirized •

124

•

Going Rogue

funding to help the private sector provide opportunities in a way that would help Alaskans stand tall and independent. Ethics reform was already under way, with some lawmakers already under arrest, so to kick ,off the Palin-Parnell agenda, we started with the natural gas pipeline on day in office.

For Alaskans, the term “gasline” is as. familiar as “irrigation” is to Californians or “Wall Street” is to New Yorkers. Except that Californians and New Yorkers already reap the benefits of these economic lifelines, while Alaskans have been waiting more than fifty years to realize the benefits of the state’s vast reserves of natural gas. At least 35 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves lie untapped on the North Slope, and geologists say there are hundreds of trillions more, both on-
and
offshore. Our oil and gas supplies would be enough to provide ten years of total energy Independence for the entire country. Construction of a gas pipeline to transport this safe, clean energy supply to the Lower 48 was originally authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 1979. At the time, a lot of fulks had high hopes. Not only would the pipeline become a second economic pillar for the creating jobs and development opportunities, but it would reduce our dependence on foreign supplies and therefore our reliance on unfriendly nations. Cheap natural gas from other countries had delayed the project for years. And for years the big producers who held leases on the
gas fields sat on their contracts, preferring instead. to develop proj-
ects in countries with fewer labor and environmental restrictions. It was unfortunate that our government’s well-meaning policies had driven producers to other parts of the world where there were no restraints on their activities. That was no way to protect the environment or heat the economy.

With my background, I understood the concerns of all the parties; as a freemarket capitalist I understood the bottom line

•

125

•

SARAH

PALIN

for the oil producers; as the spouse of an oil worker I undersrood the Slopers and their families’ reliance on oil jobs; as a mayor I undersrood the communities’ dependence on oil’s economic contributions; as a lover of the land I undersrood as well the environmentalists’ and Alaska Natives’ concerns.

Any corporate CEO is tasked with looking out for the botrom line. My business was to look out for Alaskans’ bottom line. Our state Constitution stipulates that the citizens
actually own
our natural resources. Oil companies would partner with Alaskans to develop our resources, and the corporations would make decisions based on the best interests of their shareholders, and that was fine. But in fulfillment of my oath, I would make decisions based on the best interests of
our
shareholders, the people of Alaska. So, in my Anchorage office, amidst the family pictures already on my desk, a hide of a grizzly bear shot by my dad draped over the couch, my collection of military coins and flags, and Piper’s hand-painted artwork taped to the credenza, we the

ground rules for the gasline team.

“I won’t pretend to have all the answers;’ I told them, “and I won’t micromanage you. You guys are the experts; that’s why I want you here.”

I believed then and now that I had the best gasline team ever
assembled anywhere. Acting Commissioner Marty Rutherford;
a brilliant and yet incredibly humble single mom, had followed her father, the former mayor of Valdez, in committing to public service. Marty had been a fitsthand witness to rhe Good Friday earthquake and Good Friday
Exxon Valdez
oil spill, so she knew perhaps better rhan most the importance of safe development and respect for the power of nature. Other commissioners included Tom Irwin, a calm, gentle, grandfathetly man, who, after years of bringing Alaska’s other resources to market, was determined to do the same for our natural gas. Pat Galvin was a brilliant •

126

•