BP’s Oil Spill: Why Do I Wish Sarah Palin Was Our V.P.?

Answer: BP and the oil spill in the Gulf. Governor Sarah Palin knows how to deal with Big Oil. She has been there and done that as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC) and as Governor of the state of Alaska. She also has empathy for the personal and financial fears of the people of the Gulf that comes from what she and her husband experienced following Alaska’s Exxon Valdez spill. All of this is clear by reading her 2009 autobiography Going Rogue: An American Life (Harper Collins Publishers, NY), which I highly recommend for its insights into modern politics.


Before Palin became Governor of Alaska, the big three oil companies were use to favorable deals being negotiated behind closed doors with often-corrupt lawmakers and state staffers. Palin threw the door open, having made it clear during her campaign that she was committed to “begin anew with a process that would not and could not be tainted by previous secret negotiations and corrupt legislative votes. During our first week of conferencing with the oil executives, every man – and they were all men – who entered that room knew things had changed. I made a point of saying, ‘We’re leaving the door open.’ Their inches-thick proposals would be displayed out in the reception area for the public and the media to see.” (Pg. 128)

Palin’s description of her first meetings with oil executives is priceless: “I walked into those meetings with coffee in hand, cookies to serve our guests and thought to myself, Hmmm. You just spent a year trying to kick my ass. I just spent a year trying to kick yours. And now we’re in this room together. Out loud I asked, ‘Want a cookie?’” (Pg. 127)

One of the major issues Palin confronted head-on was adherence to the terms and conditions of the leases made by the oil companies with the state of Alaska. Big Oil routinely ignored lease terms. Palin knew how to change that; she threatened to permanently pull their leases and offer them to other oil companies willing to play by the rules.

“When you deal with oil executives, you have to remember that they are used to winning…The executives themselves are armed with bottomless bank accounts and highly trained platoons of fire-breathing lawyers. Thus, reminding our friends in Big Oil that they have a contract that they’re obligated to fulfill was really not going to scare them. A $20 million fine? Pocket change. But with their leases on the line – permanently – the question…executives finally had to ask themselves was, do we really want to give up prime parcels that are loaded with billions of dollars’ worth of natural resources that the public and our shareholders want us to develop?” (Pg. 197)

Palin’s previous experience as AOGCC chair helped. “As AOGCC chair, when I wasn’t butting heads with the state GOP, I was getting a thorough education in issues surrounding oil and gas recovery and production…As a state chief executive, sitting across the table from well-heeled, lawyered-up oil executives, it was a given: you have to be committed to the position that is right for the people who hired you. You can’t blink. And we didn’t. Once we put our foot down, we won ruling after ruling after ruling.” (Pgs. 198-199) The end result was a competitive bidding process that “unlocked the Big Three oil companies’ development monopoly and threw open Alaska’s doors to true competition and free enterprise.” (Pg. 205)

Palin understands that any business is obligated to look after its own bottom line and put its shareholders’ interests first. She was crystal clear about her role. “My business was to look out for Alaskans’ bottom line. Our state Constitution stipulates that the citizens actually own our natural resources…In fulfillment of my oath, I would make decisions based on the best interests of our shareholders, the people of Alaska.” (Pg. 126)

Palin’s husband Todd worked for BP on the North Slope, “earning a king’s ransom of $14 an hour” (Pg. 50) when he started. This did not stop her from taking on BP directly as Governor for “trying to save money for years by cutting corners on oil pipeline maintenance on the North Slope.” Her administration created the Petroleum Systems Integrity Office (PSIO). “With the creation of the PSIO, Alaska became the first state to require industry operators to document their compliance with maintenance and quality assurance standards, and to share that information with the state.” (Pg. 153)

It is not just as a politician that Palin has experience in dealing with Big Oil. Her family was directly impacted by the Exxon Valdez catastrophe, the largest oil spill in American waters before BP’s Gulf blowout. Besides Todd’s employment with BP, he ran the family’s commercial fishing business in Bristol Bay, far from the site of the Exxon Valdez spill. As Todd predicted, “There will be a taint on our fish, too…Buyers will assume all Alaska salmon is oiled. Watch our price drop this summer.” Drop they did, going “from $2.35 to 80 cents a pound.” They feared for Todd’s new job with BP, too. “The rumor was that Alaska’s oil production would be shut down, which I believed would be an unnecessary, knee-jerk reaction that would destroy our state’s ability to recover.” She, her family, and friends helped in the clean up on the Sound. (Pgs. 60-61)

Palin knows the fight ahead to force BP to make good on its promises to pay for and make right the damages done by its oil spill on the people, businesses and environment in the Gulf. The Exxon Valdez occurred when she and Todd was a young couple awaiting the arrival of their first child. Twenty years later, when she was Governor of Alaska, ExxonMobil was still litigating claims from Cordova and Valdez fishermen. Knowing the suffering this caused, she stepped in as Governor, ordering “our attorney general to file an amicus brief on behalf of plaintiffs in the case, and, thanks to Alaska’s able attorneys arguing in front of the highest court in the land, in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the people. Finally, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.” (Pg. 62)

President Obama recently disparaged Palin when she spoke out about BP’s and his response to the Gulf oil spill. Instead of spewing the Democratic party line that she is ignorant, he would do well to call her in as a consultant. Palin, not Obama, has the expertise and experience needed to deal with BP effectively in defense of the interests of the people of the Gulf and all Americans in this crisis.