NORTHWEST BRIEFING

WALLY’S WORLD: The last time Walter J. Hickel was governor of Alaska, he was a Republican and the state was on the eve of a great oil bonanza. Now, more than 20 years later, the state’s economy is enjoying the spike in crude oil prices and Hickel is governor again, this time an independent. And Hickel has reappeared with a zealous vision of how Alaska--”this unique piece of geology” he puts it--should develop its resource wealth.

Hickel quickly appointed Harold Heinze, the past president of Arco Alaska, to run the Department of Natural Resources, which oversees oil and gas leasing and generally manages all of Alaska’s resources except fish and game. Unabashedly, a chorus of children sang the Arco Alaska theme song at Hickel’s swearing-in ceremony in early December, according to one report.

Heinze has long been at odds with what he sees as “aggressive extremists” among environmentalists who have “strangled Alaska little by little.” He once referred to the pristine but possibly oil-laden Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a “flat, crummy place.”

A cornerstone of Hickel’s agenda for Alaska is the “owner state,” a concept in which the state promotes grand capital projects for the benefit of all Alaskans--the “shareholders.” Two of his favorite ideas, for example, are for huge pipelines, one for water, one for natural gas, stretching from Alaska to the needy Lower 48. But skeptics see in this the risk of costly government boondoggles.

And environmentalists naturally view appointments such as Heinze’s as cause to be wary. Pamela Brodie of the Sierra Club says: “It’s a fox guarding the henhouse situation.”