Bill Walker issued the following statement in response to the Alaska Legislature’s passage today of a bill to permit non-residents to serve on the AGDC Board:

“As an Alaskan who has worked for several decades to build the all-Alaska gas line to tidewater for LNG export to the Asian market, I am baffled by Governor Parnell’s tenacity in making sure an out-of-state resident and former Exxon executive is placed on the state’s gas line board. When state law prohibited Parnell from appointing a Houston resident to a state board, Parnell dug his heels in, changed the law and made it retroactive to last September in order to make his illegal appointment legal.

Exxon, for whom Parnell represented as an attorney, has refused to sell gas to the Asian market for decades and has been a roadblock to Alaska’s gas line development. I have complained for years that there is nobody on Alaska’s side of the table in gas line negotiations. The fact that our governor, who also worked as a lobbyist for Conoco Phillips, would change the law in order to have an Exxon man negotiate for Alaska is further confirmation that Parnell is not wearing the people’s uniform. This is an affront to the Alaskans he was elected to represent.”