Going Rogue: An American Life (33 page)

Going Rogue

young family man with an inctedible combination of financial and resource development knowledge. Oil and gas gurus Kurt Gibson and Bruce Anders rounded out the core team. Kurt had left a lucrative position in the oil and gas industty to return home and help bring Alaska’s gas to market. Bruce is a dear friend who shared passionately my cote conservative principles and instinctively knew my ditection on the gasline. I also considered the lieutenant governor to be a key memher of the team, and he met with us that first day. We were Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, all working together, bound by our fierce determination to do things the right way, based on freemarket competition and a transparent government.

Our goal was to commetcialize Alaska’s treasure of oil and gas by opening up the North Slope basin to long-term exploration and production, thus creating jobs and ensuring a stable energy supply. We also planned to bring new players to the table. Instead of negotiating over cocktails with the Big Three oil producers, I intended to craft a bill that would create a framework within which any willing and able company could compete.

Most of us spent my first two days in office in a windowless conference room, convening with oil executives to listen to their opinions on the pipeline’s future. The ptoducers had heavily backed Mutkowski in the primary and Knowles in the general election. I walked into those meerings with coffee in hand, cook
ies to. serve our guests, and thought to myself, Hmmm. You just

spent a year trying to kick my ass. I just spent a year trying to kick yours.
And now we’re in

room together.

Out loud I asked, “Want a cookie?”

Under Murkowski’s administration, gasline negoClatlOns had taken place behind closed doors. Along wirh five others, Marty

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had left her position in the administtation about a year before I was elected in protest of Murkowski’s firing of theit team leader, Tom Irwin, The group became known statewide as “The Magnificent Seven.” Murkowski hadn’t appreciated Irwin’s efforts to make resource development deals competitive and transparent by opening rhem to public scrutiny.

Evidently, my friend Tom had told Murkowski one too many times that the secret gasline deal he was negotiating with ExxonMobil, BP, and ConocoPhillips violated the state’s Constirution. Among other things, his approach relinquished state sovereignty, and would unwisely lock in tax rates for decades into the future despite volatility in the markets. Murkowski didn’t like being questioned. Tom loved his state too much to be part ofsomething that would ultimately hurt it. So he did what I had done when faced with my AOGCC decision-he left so he could be effective elsewhere. Tom went home to Fairbanks, and the rest of the Magnificent Seven also found other jobs. During my campaign, I reached out to Tom and Marty and asked them to come back if I were elected. They were happy to share their expertise. While the other candidates suggested tweaks to Murkowski’s plan to hand over state sovereignty to Big Oil, Tom and Marty and I were confident that no amount
of “tweaking” could save it. So I put my name and commitment
behind a proposal to open bidding to the private sector. I ran as the candidate who would begin anew with a process that would not and could nor be tainted by previous secret negotiations and corrupt legislative votes.

During our first week of conferencing with the oil executives, every man-and they were all men-who entered that room knew things had changed. I made a point of saying “We’re leaving rhe door open.” Their inches-thick proposals would be displayed out in the reception area for the public and the media to see.

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Our approach ro moving rhe gasline forward was borh innovarive and simple: Explain the importance of gasline development to ordinary Alaskans. And get them involved. That meant our war room became every kirchen table, town hall, classroom, and living room across the Last Frontier, We reached out. We asked citizens, “These are your resources, so what do you think?” Internally, our narural gas mantra was “Greenies, Grannies, and Gunnies.”

Greenies: Natural gas is the cleanest nonrenewable fuel. Grannies: Production of a domestic supply from Alaska would help those on fixed incomes, such as the elderly, by increasing supply and lowering costs in a more stable price environment. Gunnies: Alaska’s energy supplies would help lead America toward energy independence and greater national. security.
Greenies. Grannies.

So Alaskan. So politically incorrect.

Perfecr.

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The size of Alaska is difficult to comprehend for anyone living in the Lower 48. It is huge, one-fifth the size of the entire continental When the kids and I moved to Juneau in January

2007, Todd and I worked more than 1,300 miles apart. To put that into perspective, it would have been closer for one of us ro work in Houston and the othet in Minneapolis. Adding to the challenge, you can’t drive between Prudhoe Bay and our capital city, of course, even if you were up for a four-day road trip. In fact, no one can drive to Juneau. You can fly in or hop a ferry, but not many people want to brave the frigid swells on the Inside Passage waterways in January during the legislative session, so Juneau’s always been known as the mosr inaccessible state capiral in America. I wanted to change that too.

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Aftet the Palin-Parnell sweating-in cetemony and gasline meetings, my daughtets and I boarded the state’s single prisonertransport plane (available for the governor’s use when the Deparrment of Public Safety isn’t using it). I was determined not to use the corporate jet that former Governor Murkowski had bought against everyone’s wishes.

Abouca two-hour flight from Anchorage,)uneau sits at the base of Mount Juneau, enclosed by Auke Bay and hemmed in by dense forests. I think it’s the nation’s prettiest capital. We could look out the window and see mountain goats and soaring eagles and an occasional avalanche pouring snow down chutes carved in the mountains. One morning, Willow jumped out of bed in the Governor’s Mansion to see a mama black bear and her two cubs waddling down the road right outside our door. She dragged her sisters and sleepover friends outside in their pajamas to take a look. Track was in Michigan during all this, traveling with a competitive hockey team, and he wouldn’t return until almost time for his Wa.silla High School graduation. We missed him terribly, but he was doing what he loved best that semester, playing some of the most competitive hockey for his age in the country. He missed the First Family official photo at the mansion, so he’s represented in the picture by a pair of hockey skates hanging from the fireplace over our shoulders.

Our initial arrival at the mansion was a bit like walking into a storybook. The home was decorated for Christmas in the whimsical theme of a gingerbread house. Outside, large white lights trimmed the eaves and colored lights sparkled in a pine whose upper branches soared past the rooftop. We had fought hard to get there, and now here we were, reaching for the door handle of
our new home.

The last time I had tried to enter the Governor’s Mansion was back in high school. One of my heroes, Jay Hammond, had been

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governor rhen. He was anorher commercial fisherman, married ro an Alaska Narive from Brisrol Bay-also very independenr. I rraveled ro Juneau for a basketball tournament and stopped by ro

the doorbell, but no one was. home-or at least no one wanted ro open the door ro a curious and historically minded teenager. Now, twenty-five years later, I srood before that same door with my own baskerl)all-playing teenage daughters. Life has a fascinating way of coming full circle.

The Governor’s Mansion in Juneau may not be as grand as other governors’ digs, but by our standards, it’s a beautiful and stately old home, and one of the most historic residences in the state. Built in 1912 and first occupied by Territorial Governor Walter Eli Clark, the home has hosted President Warren Harding, Charles Lindbergh, and President Gerald Ford. It was like living at the turn of the century but with modern appliancesand plumbing that usually worked. Our first official event, however, was a dinner for friends and family that was interrupted by a leak dripping water through the ceiling onto the grand piano. We had buckets under ceilings for two years until Todd helped track down leaks, and repairs were finally finished.

The layout of the mansion is quite open and inviting. The redaccented dining room seated a oouple dozen people and would become the center of activity for many receptions, late-night meetings, and dinners for traveling high school and college sports reams. The living room boasted the beautiful grand piano where Piper took her lessons. She almost mastered “Chopsticks” by the time we left office. In the blue study, an oil portrait of Secretary William H. Seward hung above the fireplace. Downstairs there was a wine cellar that I never did find a key to, but I saw pictures of it that showed duct-taped labels left by the former governor that read DON’T TOUCH; meanwhile, we had a kitchen with a pantry large enough ro earn the nickname “Costco.”