newsminer.com

Lawmakers are in Anchorage this morning to study the TransCanada proposal. We’re all at a conference room in the downtown Howard Johnson’s, which isn’t bad but isn’t the most glamorous either. The floor shakes whenever anyone walks through.

The director and deputy director of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Energy Projects are talking about the FERC process and how AGIA would or wouldn’t affect it. So far, it sounds like AGIA wouldn’t really make much difference, at least not in the process of putting together the permitting record. It’s unclear whether the five FERC commissioners would consider the AGIA must-haves when they look at that record and decide whether the project is in the public’s interest.

The big news of the morning came right at the end. The two FERC guys kept stressing how important it was to get the project started through the prefiling process. So Rep. Ralph Samuels asked if anyone had prefiled, and the director, Mark Robinson, said, Actually, yes. He said he had received an e-mail this morning saying FERC should expect a request today to begin the prefiling process for the Denali project (the one by BP and ConocoPhillips).

More later.