Nearing the End

Here’s the way the legislative process works at the end of the session.

Most of the committees on both sides quit working. There’s not much sense in passing a House bill through, say, the House State Affairs Committee, because its journey is too long to be completed in a few days. There are exceptions, of course. The governor’s crime package had gone through only a single House committee before it was stuffed into a Senate bill the other day. Thus does a bill that appears dead come to life.

Certain committees, particularly the Finance Committees, start working harder. Not just on budgets, either. Even with only three days left, legislators are still hoping that their individual bills will somehow wriggle through the maze into law. So the Finance committees meet, literally, night and day.

The number of bills on the floor calendars doubles, then doubles again. Not all of the bills actually get voted on right away, of course, because in the end-of-session dealing between the House and Senate, hostages are necessary to ensure good behavior.

The floor sessions are long and the breaks are longer. A lot of the real work gets done during the breaks. There are times when being off the floor to work out the details of a bill becomes more important than being on the floor to vote on a bill that’s going to pass handily anyway.

There’s more. Lots more. But I don’t have time to write it right now. Minutes have become precious.

Feeding Frenzy

I watched a jungle movie when I was a kid during which some big animal fell into a river just as the hero and heroine were about to cross. The water in the river started to boil around the animal.

“Piranha!” the hero cried, dragging the heroine back from the river’s edge. “It’s, it’s a feeding frenzy.”

So now you know what it’s like to watch as the capital budget bill grows by hundreds of millions of dollars each day. The legislature is chewing through the financial bonanza brought by higher oil taxes and higher oil prices at a prodigious rate.

Don’t get me wrong. There is some saving going on. But the spending far outstrips the saving. Here’s a table that shows, roughly, what the legislature is spending and saving.

Since changes continue to be made, the final numbers might be different. Probably will be. But this gives you an idea of the orders of scale. It’s too much spending and not enough saving -- for my money.

Is This a Contract?

Certain members of the legislature were turning handsprings of joy because two of the big North Slope oil and gas producers put out a press release saying they are going to do some work that might lead to the construction of a gas pipeline. Maybe.

I was not one of the handspringers. For one thing, I’m pretty sure something ugly would happen if a guy my age tried anything even vaguely athletic. For another, all that happened was that the companies issued a press release. During my many years as an ink-stained wretch, I saw lots and lots of press releases touting big things that were going to happen. Surprising how many of those things never happened.

For a third thing, there was the disclaimer that accompanied the press release. Read it for yourself. See how confident you feel about the announcement when you’re done.

Here it is:

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that contain projections about our revenues, income, earnings and other financial items, our plans and objectives for the future, future economic performance, or other projections or estimates about our assumptions relating to these types of statements. These statements usually relate to future events and anticipated revenues, earnings, business strategies, competitive position or other aspects of our operations or operating results. In many cases you can identify forwardlooking statements by terminology such as “anticipate,” “estimate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “should,” “will,” “expect,” “objective,” “projection,” “forecast,” “goal,” “guidance,” “outlook,” “effort,” “target” and other similar words. However, the absence of these words does not mean that the statements are not forward-looking. The forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations, estimates and projections about ConocoPhillips and the petroleum industry in general on the date this statement was released. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Further, certain forward-looking statements are based on assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecast in such forward-looking statements. Economic, business, competitive and regulatory factors that may affect ConocoPhillips’ business are generally as set forth in ConocoPhillips’ filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Unless legally required, ConocoPhillips undertakes no obligation (and expressly disclaims any such obligation) to update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Big Government Republicans

Help! I’ve fallen into a nest of big government Republicans. And I’m not talking about the awesome spending they’re doing. Or at least not just about that. They’re voting to stick the government’s nose into the private medical business of Alaskans as well. Two bills, HB301 and HB364, put the government in the room when women and their doctors are making medical decisions. And another would put hundreds, maybe thousands, of law-abiding citizens into a government database if they take certain kinds of drugs.

But that’s all right. They’ve shown they really support privacy by passing a meaningless resolution on Real ID.

More meetings. Gotta go. This is the last scheduled e-news of the session, but I’ll try to bang out a special edition after we finish.

Best wishes,