Political Analysis & Accountability

The Footnote

Fact Check

Murkowski's Memory Problem

A viral tweet, a swift Community Note, and what the senator's own voting record reveals about the new SAVE Act debate

By The Footnote Staff March 2026

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) recently took to X to voice concerns about Republican-backed election legislation, framing her objection in a very particular way: by invoking her party's united opposition to Democratic voting reforms in 2021. It was a rhetorically tidy argument. It also ran into a problem almost immediately.

@lisamurkowski on X

"When Democrats attempted to advance sweeping election reform legislation in 2021, Republicans were unanimous in opposition because it would have federalized elections, something we have long opposed. Now, I'm seeing proposals such as the SAVE Act and MEGA that would effe…"

— Sen. Lisa Murkowski · 1 day ago

⚑ Community Note · Added by readers

Senator Murkowski voted to advance the 2021 voter reforms she references here. She was the only Republican to do so.

The Community Note is accurate. And it points to a tension at the heart of Murkowski's current positioning — one that becomes even more striking when you understand what those 2021 bills actually contained, and who they were specifically designed to protect.

What Actually Happened in 2021

The Democratic-led voting reform push of 2021 consisted of two major bills. The Freedom to Vote Act would have set national minimum standards for elections — early voting, mail-in voting, automatic registration. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act targeted something more specific: restoring the federal oversight requirement that the Supreme Court had effectively dismantled eight years earlier.

Murkowski did vote against a procedural motion on the Freedom to Vote Act, citing concerns about federalizing elections — the same argument she's deploying today. But on the John Lewis Act, she broke from her party entirely. She not only voted to advance the bill; she was its co-sponsor. She was the sole Republican to do so.

Murkowski's 2021 Voting Record on Election Bills

• ✗Voted against advancing the Freedom to Vote Act (citing federalization concerns)
• ✓Voted for advancing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — the only Republican to do so
• ★Co-sponsored the John Lewis Act alongside Sen. Joe Manchin

Her tweet implied uniform Republican opposition that she was part of. The record tells a more complicated story.

The Supreme Court Case at the Center of It All

To understand why the John Lewis Act mattered — and why Murkowski backed it — you have to go back to Shelby County v. Holder, the 2013 Supreme Court decision that reshaped American election law.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 required certain states and counties with documented histories of racial discrimination to obtain federal approval — called "preclearance" — before changing any voting rules. It was one of the most effective tools in the law. The Shelby County court didn't strike down preclearance itself, but it struck down the formula used to determine which jurisdictions were covered, ruling that it relied on data too outdated to justify. Without the formula, the preclearance requirement became a dead letter.

The practical effects were immediate. Texas announced a strict photo ID law within 24 hours of the ruling. Other states followed. The John Lewis Act was Congress's attempt to respond — to update the coverage formula with current data and restore federal oversight where it was most needed.

"Texas announced a strict photo ID law within 24 hours of the Shelby County ruling."

Why Alaska Made Murkowski's Position Coherent

Here is what makes Murkowski's co-sponsorship of the John Lewis Act not just politically notable but geographically logical: Alaska was itself a covered jurisdiction under the original Voting Rights Act.

When Congress amended the VRA in 1975 to extend protections to language minorities, Alaska was added to the preclearance list specifically because of its history of discriminatory practices against Alaska Native voters. The John Lewis Act, as written, directly addressed the barriers Alaska Natives continue to face — distant polling places, lack of transportation infrastructure, roads that become impassable during winter election seasons, and the need for voting materials in Native languages.

For Murkowski, supporting the John Lewis Act wasn't ideologically inconsistent. It was, arguably, constituent service.

The SAVE Act: A Very Different Kind of Federal Intervention

So where does the SAVE Act fit in? Murkowski's tweet frames it as the same kind of overreach she opposed in 2021. Critics argue that comparison collapses a crucial distinction.

The SAVE Act would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship — a passport or certified birth certificate — to register to vote in federal elections, and would mandate that registration be done in person. It effectively eliminates online and mail-based registration for most voters.

The Kansas Warning

Opponents point to Kansas as a case study in what happens when these requirements are implemented. In 2011, Kansas passed its own proof-of-citizenship registration law. When it was finally struck down by the courts, the evidence at trial showed that more than 31,000 eligible citizens had been prevented from registering — roughly 12% of all applicants — while the number of noncitizens successfully stopped was a tiny fraction of that. The court also found that many of the noncitizen registrations that did occur were the result of state employee errors, not deliberate fraud. Kansas ultimately paid $1.9 million in legal fees. The state's own Republican Secretary of State, who had voted for the law as a legislator, later said plainly: "It didn't work out so well."

For critics, the SAVE Act repeats this experiment at national scale.

2021 Bills vs. SAVE Act: A Comparison

• ↔Freedom to Vote Act: Set national minimum standards; expanded access (early voting, automatic registration)
• ↔John Lewis VRA: Restored anti-discrimination oversight after Shelby County; required federal preclearance for covered jurisdictions
• ↔SAVE Act: Requires in-person, documentary proof of citizenship to register; restricts access; mirrors laws already blocked in courts

Both sets of laws involve federal standards for elections. But one expanded access and targeted proven discrimination; the other narrows access in ways courts have found produce significant rates of eligible-voter exclusion. Whether that distinction matters to Murkowski's argument is, in the end, a political question. But it is a distinction that exists.

The Bottom Line

Assessment

Senator Murkowski's tweet painted a picture of unified Republican opposition to 2021 election reforms — opposition she implicitly placed herself within. The Community Note that flagged it was correct: she was not simply part of that opposition. She co-sponsored the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and cast the only Republican vote to advance it. Her current framing, while not without any factual basis, omits context that is directly relevant to her argument. For a senator representing a state whose own citizens were among the populations those bills were designed to protect, the omission is especially notable.

Filed under:

Lisa Murkowski SAVE Act Voting Rights John Lewis VRA Alaska Natives Shelby County Fact Check Election Law

Palin Didn’t Beat Big Oil - a Blast From the Past

Palin Didn’t Beat Big Oil — She Just Handed Them an Excuse to Walk Away

Everyone loves the story of Sarah Palin riding into Juneau on a white horse, vanquishing the corrupt Frank Murkowski and his backroom pipeline deal. It’s a great political story. Unfortunately, great political stories don’t move natural gas.

Let’s look at this strictly through the lens of economic viability, because that’s where the pipeline died — and Palin pulled the trigger.

Murkowski’s approach was flawed in its process but sound in one fundamental economic reality: you cannot build a pipeline without the gas producers. BP, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil own the gas on the North Slope. Without their committed participation as shippers, no lender on earth finances a $26 billion pipeline. That is not politics. That is arithmetic.

Palin won the governorship, scrapped Murkowski’s deal, and designed AGIA — the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act — specifically to exclude the producers from driving the process. The result was entirely predictable. BP said flatly it could not meet the terms of AGIA and would not sign take-or-pay contracts with a pipeline licensed under it. ExxonMobil and BG Group didn’t even submit applications.  The three major North Slope producers — the only parties whose gas commitments could make the project financially viable — were either absent or operating outside the AGIA framework entirely.

What Palin was left with was a Canadian pipeline company, a license, and a $500 million check from Alaska’s taxpayers. TransCanada had not promised to actually build the gas line. The state license was not a construction contract and did not guarantee a pipeline would be built.  Palin repeatedly told Alaskans otherwise, which the Anchorage Daily News flatly called incorrect.

The deeper economic problem was Palin’s own tax structure. Producers held that unreliable tax terms — windfall profit taxes based on profit and therefore impossible to calculate in advance — kept them from pursuing a pipeline before AGIA was even introduced.  Rather than resolve that core commercial obstacle, Palin doubled down by raising taxes through ACES and then wondering why the producers wouldn’t commit to a decades-long infrastructure project with no tax certainty.

A petroleum economist with over 25 years in the Alaska Department of Revenue put it bluntly: Palin’s proposal used faulty accounting to reach the flawed conclusion that a pipeline owned by a third party would be more profitable than one owned by the major gas producers, who must be on board for the project to work at all. 

The open season came and went. It closed with no bids. 

And the final verdict? In 2014, the agreement between Alaska and TransCanada was cancelled in light of substantially lower natural gas prices and increased supply from new extraction technology, making the pipeline arrangement uneconomic. The $500 million in seed money was forfeited to TransCanada under a cancellation clause. 

Alaska spent $500 million dollars, wasted nearly a decade, and ended up with nothing — not because the pipeline was inherently unworkable, but because the AGIA framework was economically illiterate from the start. It treated the producers as adversaries rather than the indispensable commercial partners they were.

Murkowski tried to deal with those partners and got voted out. Palin refused to deal with them and got celebrated. But the North Slope gas is still sitting up there, unmonetized, and Alaska is still waiting for a pipeline.

Sometimes the voters are wrong.

Iran War:Fiscal Analysis

■ Iran War · Fiscal Analysis · Week 4

The $300 Billion Question

The Iran war is being funded entirely on borrowed money. Congress has not cut a single dollar to pay for it. Now the Pentagon wants $200 billion more — and nobody agrees on where it comes from.

By Thomas A. Lamb · AlaskaLNG Watch · March 26, 2026

---

War Fiscal Scorecard

$25B+ Spent in first
4 weeks

$1B/day Estimated daily
burn rate

$200B Pentagon
supplemental request

$87B Interest cost on
$200B over 10 yrs

$39T Total U.S. national
debt today

$1.9T Projected 2026
deficit — before war

§ The War Is Running on Debt — Right Now

The United States has been at war with Iran for four weeks. In that time, it has struck more than 7,000 targets, spent an estimated $25 billion, and sustained 13 service member deaths. None of that spending has been offset by a single dollar in budget cuts. Every cent has been charged to the national debt.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has acknowledged the arithmetic plainly: the military has “plenty of money” for current operations through the existing $840 billion Fiscal 2026 Defense Appropriations Act and the $156 billion in defense spending from last summer’s reconciliation bill. What it does not have is money for a longer fight, munitions replenishment, and future readiness — hence the Pentagon’s request for $200 billion more.

That request has not been submitted to Congress yet. When it is, it will land in a fiscal environment that was already deeply stressed. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected a $1.9 trillion federal deficit for FY2026 before the war began. The national debt now stands at $39 trillion.

“It takes money to kill bad guys.”

— Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Pentagon briefing, March 19, 2026

§ What $200 Billion Actually Costs

The Pentagon’s $200 billion figure — first reported by the Washington Post and confirmed by Hegseth — is itself described as subject to change. Earlier reporting had suggested a $50 billion request. The jump to $200 billion surprised even some of the administration’s congressional allies and signals the military is planning for a campaign significantly longer and more intense than the four-to-six-week timeline initially floated.

The true fiscal cost is higher than the headline number. Based on the CBO’s own modeling, $200 billion in new spending in FY2026 would generate an additional $87 billion in interest costs between now and 2036. The real price tag, if fully deficit-financed, is closer to $300 billion — making this, if passed without offsets, the largest war supplemental in U.S. history.

That $300 billion figure needs context. It is roughly equal to the entire decade-long cost of maintaining expanded ACA health insurance subsidies. It is four times what a preliminary Pentagon estimate suggested just weeks ago. It comes less than a year after Congress passed — and the president signed — the largest cuts to domestic social spending in American history.

Iran War Supplemental (Proposed)	ACA — What the Same Money Buys
$200B Pentagon request to Congress	$350B Decade cost of maintaining ACA subsidies (CBO)
$87B Interest cost over 10 years	7.5M Americans already lost subsidies in 2026
~$300B True 10-year fiscal impact	10–16M Projected total coverage losses by 2034
$0 Offsetting cuts enacted to date	$0 ACA cuts enacted specifically for Iran war
Formal request not yet sent to Congress	Cost-sharing reductions proposed as offset in 2nd reconciliation bill — not yet written

§ The Offset Fight: Who Pays, and How

Congress has two procedural paths for the supplemental request. A standard appropriations bill requires 60 Senate votes — meaning Republican leaders would need Democratic support, which is not coming given that Democrats broadly oppose the war. A second reconciliation bill requires only a simple majority but comes with strict budget rules: any new spending must be offset with cuts elsewhere.

That offset requirement is where the ACA enters the picture. House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington has pointed to “a boatload of waste, fraud and abuse” in federal programs — including ACA cost-sharing reductions — as potential offset mechanisms. Lindsey Graham has announced he will begin drafting a second reconciliation bill covering the Iran war, ICE funding, and voting reform.

Critically, no specific ACA cut figure has been attached to any proposal. The second reconciliation bill has not been written. The ACA-to-Iran-war link is real in political discussion but has not yet been written into legislation.

“Is this the first $200 billion? Does this turn into a trillion?”

— Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), March 2026

§ Republican Fractures Are Genuine

The supplemental will be difficult to pass even within the Republican majority. GOP leaders privately acknowledge they do not have the votes without a more detailed White House strategy. The administration launched strikes on February 28 without seeking congressional authorization, a fact drawing bipartisan criticism and making some Republicans reluctant to hand the president a blank check.

Fiscal hawks like Reps. Chip Roy, Tim Burchett, and Andy Ogles are demanding full offsets before they vote yes. Rep. Lauren Boebert has flatly said she’s a “no” on any war supplementals. Rep. Thomas Massie is asking how long operations will last and whether $200 billion is just the opening bid. Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she won’t commit until the White House presents a plan to Congress. Rep. Eric Burlison wants the Pentagon to pass a financial audit first.

Congressional Factions on the $200B Request

Fund without conditionsJohnson, Calvert, defense hawks

Fund with offsetsRoy, Burchett, Ogles, Arrington

No vote without a planMurkowski — needs White House strategy first

Flat noBoebert, Massie — no new overseas spending

DemocratsUnified opposition to war funding and any ACA cuts as offsets

§ The Debt Spiral Logic

The underlying fiscal concern crossing party lines is not simply about this war’s cost — it is about what deficit-financing a $200–300 billion military campaign signals about the government’s long-term trajectory. The U.S. has run cumulative deficits totaling $25 trillion over the past decade. The CBO was already projecting nearly a $2 trillion deficit for this year before the war began. Adding $200 billion unfunded continues a pattern economists warn is pushing the country toward a point where investors may demand higher interest rates to hold U.S. debt.

The war’s economic knock-on effects compound this. Iran’s effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has sent energy prices surging — gasoline has risen roughly one-third to a national average of $3.98. Consumers are absorbing higher costs at the pump simultaneously with health coverage changes already in law. If the war extends and oil prices remain elevated, the inflation effects could exceed the direct war cost in their impact on household finances.

§ Where Things Stand Today

The Iran war is in its 26th day with no stated end date, no congressional authorization, no offsetting spending cuts, and no formal supplemental request yet submitted to Capitol Hill. The Pentagon wants $200 billion. Congress does not know how to pay for it. Some members won’t vote for it regardless. And the national debt clock keeps running.

The ACA discussion remains a live political debate, not an enacted policy. But the fact that it is being discussed at all tells the story: when the U.S. wages a major war while carrying $39 trillion in debt, the money has to come from somewhere. And the list of places it can come from — without raising taxes or cutting defense — is short.

The Bottom Line

The Iran war and the ACA are not yet formally linked by any legislation. But they are linked by arithmetic. The U.S. is spending roughly $1 billion a day on a war it did not budget for, against a $39 trillion debt backdrop, with a $1.9 trillion annual deficit already baked in. Something will have to give — and in Washington, “something” usually means domestic spending.

Whether that means ACA cuts specifically, Medicaid reductions, or fraud enforcement savings will be decided in the coming weeks as Budget Committees return from recess and the White House finally sends its formal supplemental request to the Hill. The number to watch is not $200 billion. It’s zero — as in, how many dollars of offsets Congress actually demands before voting yes.

So far, that number is zero.

---

Thomas A. Lamb · AlaskaLNG Watch · Energy & Policy Analysis · March 26, 2026
Sources: CBO, Washington Post, CNBC, CNN, Breaking Defense, Time, Military.com, Reason, Center for American Progress

Canada LNG Deals on a Roll - Updated Analysis

★ Original 2006 post updated with current analysis — Canadian LNG is now operational; Alaska LNG is still racing to catch up ★

Energy Geopolitics · Pacific Rim

Canada LNG
On a Roll

What the 2006 warning about Kitimat, Gazprom, and Alberta tells us about Alaska’s race against its neighbor — now that Canada has already crossed the finish line.

By Thomas A. Lamb · Originally July 21, 2006 · Expanded Analysis 2026 · AlaskaLNG Watch

Original · July 21, 2006

The Original 2006 Warning

In July 2006, while Alaska debated which gas pipeline route to build, two developments in Canada were already reshaping the Pacific LNG market. Russia’s Gazprom and Petro-Canada had advanced a 25-year supply agreement targeting a Quebec regasification terminal. Meanwhile, on the Pacific coast, Kitimat LNG inked a joint venture for the Pacific Trail Pipeline — a 290-mile link to Summit Lake designed to funnel Pacific-sourced LNG into Alberta’s oil sands and down to California and Washington State.

The Kitimat terminal was designed to handle 1 billion cubic feet per day, with WestPac Terminals eyeing a competing facility at Prince Rupert. Russia’s Putin and Canada’s Harper issued a joint G8 statement calling for LNG market development. The noose around Alaska’s Pacific market ambitions was tightening — and Juneau wasn’t paying attention.

Original Lamb commentary (2006): “I wouldn’t be surprised to see Gazprom target the Kitimat facility… [Kitimat LNG’s openness to any LNG supplier] is bad news for the Alaska LNG supporters.” That prediction proved prescient. But the scale of what followed was larger than even that warning captured.

What Has Changed Since 2006

LNG Canada’s terminal in Kitimat, British Columbia shipped its first cargo in June 2025 — officially making Canada an LNG-exporting nation. The project, a $40 billion joint venture led by Shell and including Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi, and Korea Gas, now operates two processing trains with a combined capacity of 14 million tonnes per annum. It is the largest private sector investment in Canadian history.

Alaska’s project — a $44 billion, 807-mile pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to a liquefaction terminal at Nikiski — remains in development. In early 2025, the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation transferred majority control to Glenfarne Energy Transition. The pipeline targets mechanical completion in 2028 and first gas delivery in 2029, with full LNG export operations eyed for 2031.

The gap between Canada’s operational terminal and Alaska’s construction timelines is not merely symbolic. It represents a strategic head start in the race for the Asian contracts that will determine whether either project is commercially viable.

14 mtpa LNG Canada Phase 1 — operational 2025	20 mtpa Alaska LNG targeted — early 2030s	10 days Kitimat to North Asia — equal to Alaska
$109B Total Canadian LNG capex across 7 projects	11 mtpa Alaska LNG preliminary HOAs secured	2031 Alaska LNG targeted full commercial ops

Canada’s Structural Advantages Over Alaska

Shipping distance: LNG tankers from Kitimat reach North Asia in approximately 10 days — similar to Alaska’s Nikiski terminal. Both decisively beat U.S. Gulf Coast terminals, which require a month-plus journey including Panama Canal transit. A Japanese company paid $4 million above normal canal fees in 2023 simply to move up in the queue.

Feedgas cost: Canada’s LNG Canada sources gas from the Montney Formation — one of the richest and lowest-cost natural gas plays in North America. Alaska’s North Slope gas requires an 807-mile, $12 billion pipeline before a single molecule reaches the liquefaction terminal. That pipeline cost is embedded in every LNG price Alaska offers to Asia.

Asian ownership stakes: PetroChina (15%) and Korea Gas Corporation (5%) are consortium members. Tokyo Gas and Toho Gas signed 13- and 15-year purchase commitments with Mitsubishi, another LNG Canada partner. Asian utilities buying from LNG Canada are, in part, buying from themselves.

First-mover advantage: LNG Canada is already shipping cargoes. Alaska LNG’s commitments from Tokyo Gas, JERA, CPC, POSCO, and PTT are heads of agreement, not binding signed contracts. The Japan Gas Association has noted that private Japanese companies — not government officials — make LNG procurement decisions, and that project costs and economic certainty come first.

“Alaskans should consider the likelihood that Asian markets might prefer Canada LNG over Alaska LNG. With Canada LNG, those countries have ownership interests in an operating investment.”

— Joe Paskvan, former Alaska State Senator, January 2026

Head-to-Head: Canada vs. Alaska LNG

Factor	LNG Canada (Kitimat, B.C.)	Alaska LNG (Nikiski, AK)
Status	Operational — first cargo June 2025	Development — FID not yet reached
Export Capacity	14 mtpa (Phase 1) / up to 28 mtpa with Phase 2	20 mtpa targeted
Total Project Cost	~$40 billion (committed)	$44B+ est.; real costs may exceed $70B
Pipeline Required	Coastal GasLink: 670 km (complete)	807-mile AK pipeline: ~$12B, starting 2026
Feedgas Source	Montney Formation — low-cost, abundant	North Slope — vast but stranded & costly
Asian Equity Partners	PetroChina (15%), Korea Gas (5%), Mitsubishi (15%)	No equity partners yet; HOAs only
Binding Asian Contracts	Long-term commitments with Japanese utilities	Preliminary HOAs only — no binding deals
GHG Profile	~60% below global LNG average	Under review; Arctic construction adds complexity
Federal Support	Govt fast-tracked via Major Projects Office	Trump admin priority; $30B loan guarantees

Canada Is Not Standing Still

British Columbia has become the epicenter of a second wave of LNG development that, if fully realized, would flood the Pacific market with Canadian supply before Alaska’s first LNG cargo is ever loaded.

```

Operational · 2025

LNG Canada Phase 1 — Kitimat

Both trains operational. Shell-led consortium. 14 mtpa capacity. Shipping to Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan. Phase 2 expansion to 28 mtpa under consideration.

Expected · 2027

Woodfibre LNG — Near Squamish, B.C.

Under construction. 0.3 Bcf/d export capacity. Operated using hydroelectric power, giving it one of the lowest carbon intensities of any LNG project globally.

Expected · 2028

Cedar LNG — Kitimat (Floating)

FID reached June 2024. Floating LNG facility backed by the Haisla Nation. 0.39 Bcf/d capacity, adding 3 mtpa alongside LNG Canada — and signaling deepening Indigenous partnership in Canadian LNG.

Proposed · ~2029

Ksi Lisims LNG — Pearse Island, B.C.

Nisga’a Nation-backed project, 12 mtpa capacity, added to Canada’s Major Projects Office fast-track roster by Prime Minister Carney in late 2025.

Proposed · Early 2030s

LNG Canada Phase 2

Would double Kitimat capacity to 28 mtpa. No FID yet, but environmental approvals already in place. CEO has described the case for expansion as “very strong.”

```

Canada’s Energy Regulator has authorized 18 LNG export projects with a combined 29 Bcf/d of potential capacity. Even if only a fraction are built, Canada will be a dominant Pacific LNG supplier through the 2030s — precisely the decade Alaska is targeting for market entry.

Alaska’s Case — Still Alive, But Narrow

Scale and market diversification: Alaska LNG’s 20 mtpa target exceeds LNG Canada’s current Phase 1 capacity. At that volume, Alaska could serve multiple Asian markets simultaneously. Glenfarne CEO Brendan Duval has argued that Alaska LNG is “naturally competitive” independent of geopolitical factors.

The Panama Canal problem: Alaska’s Nikiski terminal offers a slight 5-to-6-day shipping edge to North Asia. More importantly, both Pacific-coast suppliers avoid the Panama Canal entirely — and with canal bottlenecks and drought constraints growing, Pacific supply commands a resilience premium Gulf Coast LNG cannot match.

The tariff wildcard: U.S. tariff policy under the Trump administration has created new demand for Alaska LNG. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are weighing equity stakes partly as a mechanism to soften trade tensions with Washington. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed these discussions in 2025.

Federal loan guarantees: Alaska LNG is eligible for approximately $30 billion in federal loan guarantees — substantially derisking the project’s debt financing in a way no Canadian LNG project can replicate.

The honest assessment, however, is sobering. Alaska LNG has not secured a single binding commercial contract with an Asian buyer. ExxonMobil, BP, and ConocoPhillips have all withdrawn at various points, citing cost concerns. The $44 billion cost estimate dates to 2023; informed observers suggest $70 billion would be a more realistic floor.

The Gazprom Thread: How 2006 Still Echoes

The 2006 post identified Gazprom’s maneuvering through Canada as a strategic threat to Alaska. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 dramatically restructured global LNG markets — collapsing European dependence on Russian pipeline gas and creating a surge in LNG demand that accelerated construction timelines across North America, including LNG Canada.

Ironically, Russia’s aggression did for Canadian LNG what decades of Alaskan advocacy could not: it created an urgent, politically-backed global appetite for Western supply alternatives. Canada crossed the finish line. Alaska is still building the starting blocks.

What the original post warned — that Gazprom was targeting the Kitimat market and that Canadian LNG was bad news for Alaska’s Pacific ambitions — proved entirely correct in structure, even if the mechanism differed. Russia’s energy weaponization did not capture Kitimat; it accelerated it.

Updated Analysis · 2026

The Verdict:
Canada Won Round One

The 2006 warning that Canadian LNG deals were “bad news for Alaska LNG supporters” understated the case. Canada has not merely competed with Alaska for Pacific market share — it has lapped it. LNG Canada is operational. Cedar LNG and Woodfibre LNG are under construction. Ksi Lisims is on the federal fast track. Alaska is still finalizing its engineering study.

This does not mean Alaska LNG is dead. The project’s scale, its stranded-gas economics, and the geopolitical tailwind from Asian allies seeking to balance trade relationships with Washington give it a credible path forward. Glenfarne has moved faster in 2025 than any Alaska developer in memory.

But the window is narrowing. If Alaska LNG reaches full export operations in 2031 as targeted, it will enter a Pacific market already served by at least 14–17 mtpa of Canadian capacity, with more on the way. It will arrive not as the pioneer it once hoped to be, but as the late entrant. Thomas Lamb’s 2006 instinct was right: Canada’s moves matter enormously to Alaska’s gas future. In 2026, they matter more than ever.

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Thomas A. Lamb · Energy Analysis · Original Post: July 21, 2006 · Expanded Analysis: 2026
Sources: LNG Canada, Alaska Beacon, Globe & Mail, U.S. EIA, Glenfarne Group, Alaska Landmine, CNBC, Global Energy Monitor

Fool’s Gold Pipeline - Lessons From LNG Failures

Energy Intelligence Review Est. 2009  ·  Volume XIV  ·  Analysis & Commentary

Special Report  ·  LNG Policy Failures

Fool's Gold Pipeline

Lessons the LNG industry keeps forgetting — and keeps paying for.

By Thomas A. Lamb  ·  Originally 2009  ·  Expanded Analysis 2024

When former Alaska Governor Wally Hickel compared a natural gas pipeline to Valdez to a gold mine, he forgot one crucial lesson of history: the richest-looking veins have a way of turning to fool's gold. Geopolitics, market saturation, cost overruns, and safety catastrophes have derailed LNG projects for eight decades. The pattern is always the same — and the warnings are always ignored.

By the Numbers

$400→$1,000 Cost per ton/year of LNG capacity — 2000 to 2008 alone

128 People killed in the 1944 Cleveland LNG tank failure

AUS$200B Australia's first LNG wave capex — beset by cost overruns & labour crises

3–4 mo. Average time to fill a single skilled LNG role during project peaks

A History of Hard Lessons

October 1944 — Cleveland, Ohio

The Tank That Started It All

East Ohio Gas Company's LNG storage tank ruptured, spilling liquefied gas into the city's sewer system. With no dike retaining wall and metal rationing producing brittle, low-nickel steel, 128 people perished when the gas vaporized and exploded. The industry's first great lesson — materials and containment standards matter — would take decades to fully absorb.

February 1973 — Staten Island, New York

The "Empty" Tank

During a cleaning operation, 42 workers were inside a TETCo LNG tank supposedly drained ten months earlier. Residual gas ignited, sending a plume of combusting fuel through the tank. The lesson — never assume an LNG vessel is inert — had to be learned in blood.

2004–2008 — Global LNG Markets

The Cost Explosion Nobody Predicted

As late as 2003, the LNG industry confidently assumed costs would keep falling along a learning curve. Instead, greenfield construction costs rocketed from roughly $400 per ton of annual capacity to over $1,000 — driven by a simultaneous global scramble for EPC contractors, surging raw material prices, a weakening dollar, and a chronic skills shortage. The optimists were wrong, and investors bore the bill.

2006–2009 — Alaska & the Sempra Play

The Valdez Mirage

Proponents of an Alaska North Slope-to-Valdez LNG pipeline — including former Governor Wally Hickel and attorney Bill Walker — promoted the scheme partly on the viability of selling gas to California's Sempra LNG terminal in Baja Mexico. What they missed: Shell Oil had already locked up 50% of Sempra's expansion capacity, and Russia's Gazprom was quietly claiming the rest. The market was foreclosed before a single pipe was laid.

2009 — Russia Enters the U.S. Market

Gazprom's Quiet Conquest

While Alaskans debated pipelines, Gazprom Marketing & Trading USA quietly signed deals for over 350 million cubic feet per day of U.S. physical supply — entering the American market from both coasts simultaneously. A state-controlled company using energy as geopolitical leverage had outmaneuvered years of Alaskan planning. The warning signs had been visible since at least 2006; they were simply ignored.

2006–2016 — Australia's $200B Lesson

The People Problem

Australia's first major LNG wave attracted over AUS$200 billion in capital expenditure. It also exposed a crippling structural weakness: a small domestic workforce with almost no LNG experience. Roles took three to four months to fill. Cost overruns became endemic. Several projects faced delays or outright cancellation. The lesson — project management is fundamentally a people challenge — has still not been fully institutionalized.

2014 — Hawaii's Spreadsheet Disaster

The $1.2 Billion That Went "Poof"

The Hawaii State Energy Office spent over a year presenting a study projecting $1.2 billion in benefits from embracing LNG as a "bridge fuel." When an independent researcher corrected a single spreadsheet error — the exclusion of the actual cost of LNG — the entire projected benefit evaporated. The Energy Office initially refused to acknowledge the error. Lawmakers and the public disagreed.

✦ ✦ ✦

"If that was a gold mine, which it is, and it required a road, we would build a road. We build roads all the time."

— Bill Walker, 2009, on the Alaska LNG pipeline to Valdez  ·  The project remains unbuilt.

Seven Lessons the Industry Keeps Forgetting

01

Geopolitics Is the First Variable, Not the Last

The Alaska pipeline advocates of 2006–2009 treated Russia as a distant abstraction. In reality, Gazprom had been methodically securing contracts, facilities, and influence in U.S. markets for years. By the time Alaskan planners noticed, the market was already partially foreclosed. Energy projects that treat geopolitical competition as someone else's problem invariably find that it isn't.

Russia's demonstrated willingness to weaponize natural gas — cutting off Ukraine, pressuring European nations — should have been a central variable in every LNG feasibility study of that era. It rarely was.

02

Market Assumptions Have a Short Shelf Life

The Valdez LNG project's viability rested on Sempra's Baja terminal absorbing Alaskan gas. That assumption was quietly invalidated before the proposal gained public momentum. Shell's contractual claim on 50% of the facility, combined with Gazprom's parallel maneuvering, left no market to serve.

Broad market projections made at a project's inception are routinely obsolete by the time construction begins. The LNG industry's cost estimates — which proved catastrophically wrong in the 2004–2008 cycle — underscore this: what seemed like a learning-curve trajectory was actually a precipice.

03

Safety Engineering Cannot Be Value-Engineered Away

The 1944 Cleveland disaster was a direct consequence of wartime metal rationing. Low-nickel steel — brittle at cryogenic temperatures — was used to build a tank storing a cryogenic fuel, with no retaining dike. The lesson is not merely technical; it is organizational: cost pressures that compromise materials integrity in LNG infrastructure will eventually extract a far higher cost.

The 1973 Staten Island tank incident underscores a second principle: in LNG operations, assumptions about inert systems kill people.

04

Cost Optimism Is the Industry's Original Sin

The belief that LNG project costs were on a steady downward learning curve was held almost universally in 2003. Within five years, costs had more than doubled per unit of capacity. The drivers — contractor scarcity, raw material spikes, skills shortages, remote construction — were not unforeseeable. They were simply inconvenient to factor into business cases that needed to look attractive to investors.

05

Workforce Strategy Is Not an HR Problem

Australia's LNG boom revealed that the majority of project failures trace back, at root, to people. Skills shortages cascaded into schedule overruns, which cascaded into cost penalties that could only be addressed by spending more on labor. Treating workforce planning as a procurement afterthought, rather than a strategic constraint, has cost the industry dearly.

06

Government Studies Are Not Neutral

Hawaii's LNG episode is a case study in regulatory capture disguised as policy analysis. The state Energy Office presented a billion-dollar benefit projection, anchored it with legislative testimony, and when the central spreadsheet error was exposed, initially defended the work rather than correcting the record. Independent peer review of energy feasibility studies should be standard practice, not a courtesy reserved for whistleblowers.

07

National Security and Energy Security Are the Same Question

The most enduring lesson from the Alaska LNG debates of the 2000s: domestic energy infrastructure is national security infrastructure. An energy supply chain that can be disrupted, displaced, or captured by a geopolitical adversary is not merely an economic liability — it is a strategic vulnerability. Any LNG development strategy that fails to account for this reality is not a strategy; it is a wish.

History Doesn't Repeat. But It Rhymes.

Every generation of LNG planners has inherited the lessons of the last and proceeded to learn them again at great cost. The warnings were in the contracts, in the maps, in the geopolitical signals — and in the spreadsheets. They were simply inconvenient. The projects that succeed are those built by people who take inconvenience seriously.

© Energy Intelligence Review  ·  Inspired by Thomas A. Lamb's 2009 analysis on Alaska LNG and national energy security  ·  All analysis for educational commentary

Alaska LNG Revisted - 20 Years Later

Energy Policy & Geopolitics

The Political Breakdown

March 26, 2026

Alaska LNG Revisited  ·  20 Years Later

The Sleeping Giant Woke Up: Gazprom Lost, Alaska LNG Is Finally Moving — But the Hard Part Isn't Over

In April 2006, this blog warned that Gazprom was a sleeping giant moving into markets Alaska should be dominating, and that Alaska's tax debates were handing Russia a competitive advantage. Twenty years later, Gazprom has collapsed under sanctions — and Alaska LNG is finally, genuinely moving forward. But the deal isn't done yet.

Analysis  ·  Alaska LNG  ·  Energy Geopolitics  ·  Updated from April 2006

From This Blog — April 17, 2006 "As you begin to read more and more about American companies investing in Russia and Russia exporting more oil and gas into the U.S., the sleeping giant, Gazprom, will have taken hold in a market that Alaska should be dominating. It's too bad that politicians do not see the big picture."

Twenty years ago this blog watched Alaska's legislature debate tax policy while Gazprom was quietly positioning itself in LNG markets that Alaska's vast North Slope gas reserves were ideally suited to serve. The warning was blunt: Alaska was handing competitors a market advantage through political paralysis, endless tax debates, and an inability to cut through the noise and build the pipeline that the state's constitutional mandate — maximum benefit to the people — demanded.

In 2026, the geopolitical landscape has shifted dramatically. Gazprom — the sleeping giant this blog identified in 2006 — is now a diminished force, crippled by Western sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The European market it dominated has been largely realigned away from Russian gas. And into that vacuum, Alaska LNG is finally, genuinely, advancing toward construction in a way that no previous iteration of this project ever achieved. But as any Alaskan who has watched this project for twenty years knows: announcements are not contracts, and contracts are not pipe in the ground.

What the 2006 Post Got Right

The 2006 post identified three things with unusual precision. First, that Gazprom's entry into LNG markets — including its first delivery to the UK in April 2006 — represented a strategic land grab in markets Alaska's North Slope gas could and should serve. Second, that Alaska's internal tax debates were creating investment climate uncertainty that would push capital elsewhere. Third, that politicians were failing to see the big picture: that energy is geopolitics, and that every year Alaska delayed its gas pipeline was a year Gazprom and competing LNG suppliers consolidated market positions.

All three proved accurate. Alaska spent the next fifteen years in political cycles of tax debates, project restarts, and developer changes that delayed the pipeline through multiple administrations. Gazprom indeed consolidated its dominant position in European gas markets — until Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered the sanctions that collapsed that position. The irony is profound: it took a war in Europe to create the geopolitical opening that Alaska's own political will could not.

“Alaska spent fifteen years in political paralysis while Gazprom built its market position. It took a war in Europe and a war in the Middle East to finally create the opening Alaska's own leaders couldn't manufacture.”

Where Alaska LNG Actually Stands in March 2026

Glenfarne Group — which became lead developer of Alaska LNG in March 2025 — has moved faster in twelve months than previous developers moved in a decade. The current status is genuinely more advanced than any prior iteration of this project, but the critical distinction between preliminary agreements and binding commitments must be understood clearly.

Alaska LNG Status — March 2026 Offtake agreements (preliminary): 13 of 16 MTPA needed — TotalEnergies, JERA, Tokyo Gas, CPC (Taiwan), PTT (Thailand), POSCO (Korea)

Gas supply: Precedent agreements with ExxonMobil, Hilcorp, Great Bear Pantheon; LOIs with ENSTAR Natural Gas and Donlin Gold

Engineering: Worley Limited completed primary FEED work end of 2025; provisionally named EPCM contractor

Construction: Conditional awards issued for pipeline construction across four simultaneous spreads

Strategic partners: Baker Hughes (compression equipment + equity investment), Danaos (LNG carriers)

Timeline target: Phase One FID 2026 · Mechanical completion 2028 · First gas 2029 · LNG exports 2031

What's missing: No binding offtake contracts yet. No financing commitments. 3 MTPA still needed to hit 80% threshold.

The war in the Middle East is now directly accelerating interest in Alaska LNG. Qatar — one of Asia's major LNG suppliers — has halted shipments as its export route through the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted. Asian buyers who were cautiously interested in Alaska LNG are now urgently interested. This is the geopolitical moment this blog identified in 2006 as inevitable: when global supply disruptions make Alaska's Pacific-facing, politically stable LNG supply not just attractive but strategically essential.

The Tax Bill Debate — Same Song, Different Verse

And yet here we are in 2026, and the Alaska Legislature is once again debating the tax structure for the gas pipeline. Governor Dunleavy introduced SB 280/HB 381 on March 20, 2026 — replacing the existing 2% annual property tax on infrastructure with a volumetric tax of $0.06 per thousand cubic feet of throughput, rising 1% annually, with a full exemption during construction and ramp-up.

The argument in favor is exactly what this blog outlined in 2006: front-loaded property taxes on a project generating no revenue during construction create a structural barrier to investment that competing LNG projects in other jurisdictions do not face. Aligning taxes with production rather than assessed value is sound policy for attracting the capital this project needs.

But Alaska lawmakers are pushing back hard. Key legislators stress there are currently no binding gas sales or purchase agreements and no financing commitments. Senator Bert Stedman put it plainly: "You know you have a project when you have take-or-pay contracts and you have access to capital and people are willing to step in and lend the money and put in the equity position." That standard has not yet been met.

Former oil and gas attorney Brad Keithley framed the core legislative problem directly: "Tell us what the cost is, tell us what the rates are, tell us what the financing plan is, and then we can evaluate whether we need to give up a piece of the state's revenue." The bill is being considered without that information publicly disclosed — the same dynamic this blog criticized in 2006 when it warned that politicians were failing to see the big picture.

“In 2006, the danger was that Alaska would raise taxes and kill investment. In 2026, the danger is that Alaska will cut taxes based on numbers it hasn't been shown — and lock in a revenue structure it can never renegotiate.”

The Constitutional Mandate — Still the North Star

In 2006 this blog quoted Governor Wally Hickel explaining Alaska's constitutional framework to Russian businessmen: "The terms require that subsurface resources forever remain in the hands of state government, and our constitution mandates that those resources be used for the maximum benefit of its people." That constitutional mandate has not changed. What has changed is the urgency.

The Middle East conflict has pushed Fairbanks gas prices to $4.53 a gallon. Southcentral Alaska remains dependent on a Cook Inlet gas basin that geologists have long warned is in decline. Rural Alaskans are paying extraordinary prices for fuel that has to be flown in. The constitutional argument for getting this pipeline built is now also an immediate quality-of-life argument for hundreds of thousands of Alaska residents.

Glenfarne is targeting mechanical completion of the Phase One pipeline in 2028 and delivery of first gas to Alaskans in 2029. If that timeline holds, it would be the first new major gas infrastructure reaching Alaska communities in a generation. The benefits — lower energy costs, new industrial development, a foundation for the Donlin Gold mine connecting to the grid — would be transformational.

What Needs to Happen Next

The 3 MTPA gap in offtake agreements needs to close quickly. Glenfarne is in active talks with two potential buyers for that remaining volume, and CEO Brendan Duval has said those discussions are moving very quickly. The Middle East supply disruption has turned Alaska LNG from an attractive long-term option into an urgent near-term priority for Asian buyers — that urgency should close the gap.

The Legislature needs to pass the tax bill — but only with adequate financial disclosure from Glenfarne. The principle behind SB 280 is correct: volumetric taxes aligned with production are better for this project than front-loaded property taxes. But the Legislature should not finalize a revenue framework without knowing the actual project cost, financing structure, and rate base. That information exists. Glenfarne should provide it.

In 2006 this blog warned that bumper sticker slogans and political short-sightedness would leave Alaska with "memories that are short lived" while competitors took the markets Alaska should dominate. The sleeping giant of Gazprom has been largely neutralized by history. Alaska's own window is finally open. Whether this generation of Alaska leaders walks through it — or debates the door frame until the window closes again — is the question of the next twelve months.

This post updates the April 17, 2006 analysis "Gazprom: The Sleeping Giant Waits" originally published on this blog. Sources include: Glenfarne Group press releases (January–February 2026), Anchorage Daily News Alaska LNG coverage (January 2026), Pipeline & Gas Journal (March 2026), Baker Hughes press release (November 2025), Governor Dunleavy SB 280/HB 381 press release (March 20, 2026), and Reuters Alaska LNG reporting (March 2026). Analysis assisted by Claude AI.

Climate Science Revisited - 22 Years Later

Climate Science & Geophysics

The Political Breakdown

March 26, 2026

Climate Science Revisited · 22 Years Later

Indonesia, Sea Surface Temperatures, and the Volcano Factor: What the Climate Debate Still Gets Wrong

In June 2004, this blog argued that submarine volcanism near Indonesia — the most volcanically active nation on Earth — was a major unexamined driver of sea surface temperature anomalies. Twenty-two years later, the SST data near Indonesia is setting off alarm bells, and the volcanoes are more active than ever.

Analysis  ·  Climate Science  ·  Indonesia  ·  Updated from June 2004

From This Blog — June 14, 2004 "The greatest area of volcanoes both above ground and submarine are around Indonesia. Indonesia contains over 130 active volcanoes, more than any other country on earth and when you look for the highest sea surface temperatures, Indonesia and the area east has the highest temperatures. This natural event has not been studied to its fullest."

In June 2004, as the climate debate was heating up politically around the Kyoto Protocol, this blog raised a question the mainstream climate discussion was largely ignoring: what role does submarine volcanism — particularly the extraordinary concentration of underwater volcanic activity around Indonesia — play in driving sea surface temperature anomalies? The argument was not that human activity plays no role in climate. It was that the science was being presented with false certainty, and that natural forcing factors, especially undersea volcanic activity, were being systematically understudied.

Twenty-two years later, the sea surface temperatures near Indonesia are running persistently above average, the eastern Indian Ocean is a pronounced warm anomaly that is driving global climate patterns, and Indonesia's volcanoes — above and below the waterline — are more active than at almost any point in the modern monitoring record. The question this blog raised in 2004 deserves a serious updated examination.

What the SST Data Shows Near Indonesia in 2026

The World Meteorological Organization's most recent global seasonal climate updates confirm what this blog predicted would be worth watching: the eastern Indian Ocean near Indonesia is running a persistent, pronounced positive SST anomaly — meaning sea surface temperatures are significantly above their long-term average. This warm pool is not a transient event. It has been a dominant feature of the global ocean temperature picture for multiple consecutive seasons.

The WMO specifically identified above-normal SSTs in the eastern Indian Ocean near Indonesia as the primary driver of a negative Indian Ocean Dipole — a climate pattern that suppresses rainfall in East Africa and alters weather across Asia and Australia. NASA's own SST anomaly maps for 2025 showed deep red anomalies — temperatures running up to 3 degrees Celsius above normal — in the exact region this blog highlighted in 2004 as the world's greatest concentration of volcanic activity both above and below the surface.

Current Data Point The WMO's Global Seasonal Climate Update (December 2025) specifically cited "sustained above-normal SSTs in the eastern Indian Ocean near Indonesia" as the primary driver of the negative Indian Ocean Dipole phase — a major forcing factor for global rainfall and temperature patterns. This anomaly has persisted across multiple consecutive seasons with strong model agreement.

Indonesia's Volcanoes in 2026: The Most Active Period in Decades

If the SST data near Indonesia is striking, the current state of Indonesian volcanic activity is extraordinary. In 2004 this blog noted Indonesia had over 130 active volcanoes — more than any other country. The current count stands at 84 confirmed active volcanoes with five active submarine volcanoes. And right now, multiple major systems are in simultaneous eruption or elevated alert.

Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on the island of Flores erupted in July 2025 sending an ash column 18 kilometers — 11 miles — into the atmosphere. The eruption generated pyroclastic flows, cancelled dozens of flights to Bali, and continued into 2026. Mount Ibu on Halmahera island was recording 145 seismically detected explosions per reporting period as recently as February 2026. Mount Marapi in West Sumatra erupted nine times in the first weeks of January 2026 alone.

Most significantly for the argument this blog made in 2004, Tambora — the volcano whose 1815 eruption caused the Year Without a Summer, killing crops worldwide and dropping global temperatures — was raised to Level 2 Alert in March 2026 due to a significant increase in deep volcanic earthquakes. Tambora showing increased deep seismic activity is not a minor event. It is one of the most consequential volcanic systems on the planet.

“Tambora's 1815 eruption dropped global temperatures enough to cause crop failures across the Northern Hemisphere. In March 2026, it was raised to elevated alert status. That warrants attention.”

The Submarine Volcano Question — Still Understudied

The central argument of the 2004 post was that submarine volcanoes near Indonesia — injecting heat, gases, and mineral-rich fluids directly into the ocean — were a poorly understood but potentially significant driver of sea surface temperature anomalies. That argument remains valid in 2026, and in some respects the science has only confirmed how much we don't know.

Indonesia has five confirmed active submarine volcanoes in its monitoring network. But the actual number of active submarine volcanic systems in the waters surrounding Indonesia — across the Banda Sea, the Molucca Sea, the Sulawesi Sea, the Java Trench, and the approaches to the Indian Ocean — is almost certainly far larger. The ocean floor mapping that would allow a complete census of active submarine volcanic systems in this region simply does not exist at the resolution needed to answer the question.

What we do know is that submarine volcanic activity injects heat directly into the water column, releases CO2 and other gases that affect ocean chemistry and surface-atmosphere exchange, and can significantly alter local and regional SST patterns. The 2004 post specifically cited NOAA's own oceanographic research confirming these effects. That research has been substantially expanded since, but the integration of submarine volcanic forcing into mainstream climate models remains limited.

What the 2004 Post Got Right — and the Broader Point

The 2004 post was not arguing that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions play no role in climate change. It was arguing that the scientific discussion was being presented with a false certainty that ignored significant natural forcing factors — particularly the extraordinary volcanic system surrounding Indonesia — and that this intellectual dishonesty served a political agenda rather than scientific understanding.

That argument holds up. The persistent SST anomaly near Indonesia — running multiple degrees above average for consecutive seasons — is being attributed almost entirely to greenhouse gas forcing in mainstream climate coverage. But the simultaneous extraordinary level of volcanic activity in the same region, including Tambora showing elevated deep seismic activity for the first time in years, is receiving almost no attention in the context of SST anomalies. The question is not whether one factor or the other is responsible. The question is whether the scientific models are properly accounting for all the forcing factors.

As this blog noted in 2004, drawing on direct experience briefing NASA pilots during the Mount Pinatubo and Mount Redoubt eruptions: volcanic eruptions and their stratospheric injections have documented, measurable effects on climate. Submarine eruptions inject their heat and gases directly into the ocean rather than the atmosphere. The mechanism is different. The effect is real. And the concentration of that activity in the exact region showing the most persistent SST anomaly in the current global record is a correlation that deserves serious scientific scrutiny — not political dismissal.

“The greatest concentration of volcanic activity on Earth sits directly beneath the ocean region showing the most persistent temperature anomaly in the current global record. That is not a coincidence to be waved away.”

The Alaska Connection

This blog was written from Alaska — and Alaska sits at the other end of the Pacific Ring of Fire from Indonesia. The same tectonic system that drives Indonesia's extraordinary volcanic activity also drives Alaska's. Mount Redoubt, referenced in the 2004 post in the context of the author's direct experience as an Air Force meteorologist providing upper air soundings for NASA missions, remains one of Alaska's most active volcanoes.

The Axial Seamount — a submarine volcano off the Oregon coast in the same Pacific Ring of Fire system — is now projected to erupt in mid to late 2026, with researchers at Oregon State University monitoring its inflation closely. Pacific submarine volcanic activity from Indonesia to Alaska to the Pacific Northwest is elevated simultaneously. The climate models that drive policy decisions in Juneau, Anchorage, and Washington D.C. are not fully accounting for any of it.

In 2004 this blog asked a question the climate establishment didn't want to answer: what are all those volcanoes doing to the sea surface temperatures near Indonesia? In 2026, with Tambora on elevated alert, Lewotobi sending ash 11 miles high, and the eastern Indian Ocean running its hottest anomaly in the modern record, the question still deserves a serious answer.

This post updates the June 14, 2004 analysis originally published on The Anchorage Daily Ruse. The author served as an Air Force meteorologist in Alaska, personally briefing NASA pilots during the Mount Pinatubo and Mount Redoubt eruptions. Sources include: WMO Global Seasonal Climate Updates (October and November 2025), NASA Earth Observatory SST Anomaly data (2025), VolcanoDiscovery Indonesia Activity Reports (March 2026), NASA Science Earth Observatory (Lewotobi Laki-Laki, July 2025), Nature Communications on Indonesian marine heatwaves and sea level extremes (2022), and NOAA OSPO Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly products. Analysis assisted by Claude AI.