newsminer.com

“I don’t want wolves as pets because they’ll eat your face off.”

That was Rep. Mike Doogan last night during a talk on the natural gas pipeline.

A legislative consultant, Steve Porter, was suggesting ways the state could help get the project moving by setting a fair gas tax and locking it in for a period of time. Doogan wanted to know that whatever the state did with regard to its gas tax really mattered, when so many other things -- like the cost of the pipe, the market price of gas, and federal taxes -- also played into the economics of the deal. He compared it to game management and specifically to the use of predator control when other things out of our hands -- like weather and food availability -- could have the overwhelming impact on population.

Doogan said last night he didn’t really get an answer from Porter. Porter said today he simply forgot to answer the question, and said the state gas taxes could actually have a relatively large impact on project economics, bigger than changes in other areas. Ultimately, the risk involved is based on the dollar figures at stake and the chances that the bad outcome would happen, he said, and state tax changes put at lot at stake, and are rather likely. Porter did not provide numbers, but said it’s something the administration and Legislature should look into.