From Richard Mauer in Juneau --

As debate heats up in the Alaska Legislature over the state’s possible role in promoting construction of an instate natural gas pipeline, the Senate minority caucus added their voices this morning: go slow, they said, and don’t even think about building it ourselves.

The four-member, conservative Republican minority, led by retiring Sen. Con Bunde of Anchorage, said the state should allow the current process to unfold rather than get panicked into pushing an instate-only line.

Former Sen. Ted Stevens joined the fray in a speech last week when he urged the state to invest billions of dollars in public funds to build gas lines from the North Slope to Kenai and Valdez.

Let AGIA work: Sens. Con Bunde, R-Anchorage, and Tom Wagoner, R-Kenai, say state government shouldn't build a gas line. (Photo by Richard Mauer)

“I disagree with my friend Sen. Ted Stevens,” said Sen. Tom Wagoner, R-Kenai. It’s premature to consider anything outside the current legislative framework established two years ago with the Alaska Gas Line Inducement Act, or AGIA. Under the process, the company with the state license to build a line, TransCanada, will be soliciting North Slope producers for gas to ship down the line to market. A competing project, Denali, will also be seeking gas customers.

“We should look at what happens in open season with both of these projects,” Wagoner said.

Citing Stevens and Republican gubernatorial candidate Ralph Samuels, also an advocate of an instate line, Wagoner said, “I don’t know why they’re saying what they’re saying, because if they understand AGIA, there is already an avenue in AGIA that brings a line to tidewater in Valdez and makes allowances for a spur line to come into southcentral Alaska. The state of Alaska doesn’t have to touch it.”

Bunde raised the specter of past state economic fiascos -- the fish plant in South Anchorage, the Point MacKenzie dairy project, the Delta barley project -- as reason enough to not use state money.

“I’m not sure who will build it, but I know who shouldn’t build it,” Bunde said. “Our track record is not good.”