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On Alaska’s New Natural Gas Pipeline
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: You have a big energy deal that’s in the works right now, and you announced it with a lot of fanfare. A $26 billion natural gas pipeline which would bring natural gas from Alaska through Canada down to the Lower 48. Not everyone is enthused, including “The Wall Street Journal.” They say this: “Among the most serious questions it faces is whether the Alaskan gas is even needed. North America is in the midst of a natural gas glut, driving down prices, and observers believe liquefied natural gas imports are set to grow as overseas producers seek to unload their gas in the United States.”
Why do you disagree with “The Wall Street Journal”?
GOV. SARAH PALIN (R), ALASKA: Well, I think very short-sighted, whomever wrote that for “The Wall Street Journal,” assuming that market conditions are going to stay as they are today. Demand for natural gas is increasing. In fact, by probably 2030, we’ll see about a 40 percent increase in demand for natural gas. Domestically, we have the supply. The resources are up there in Alaska, and it’s time that we build this infrastructure and flow that very valuable resource into hungry markets throughout the U.S.
This is going to be the largest energy project in the world by the private sector. It’s a great venue that we have, a vehicle called AGIA, the Alaska Gas Line Inducement Act, and believe me, Exxon, the largest company in the world, and TransCanada, the best pipeline building company in the world, I’m sure they would not have aligned and committed to building this project had they not crunched the numbers and figured out that for their bottom line and for our nation’s security and for our environment, for our economy, this project is right. It is time. Short-sighted to assume that there won’t be growing demand for energy sources.
On the feud with David Letterman
BLITZER: In recent days, there’s been a huge brouhaha over David Letterman’s jokes involving your family and your daughter. He said he made a mistake. He says, yeah, it was probably in bad taste. He – he shouldn’t have done it. Are you willing to forgive and forget?
PALIN: I will always forgive whomever is…
BLITZER: He says, yes, it was probably in bad taste. He shouldn’t have done it. Are you willing to forgive and forget?
PALIN: I will always forgive whomever is asking for forgiveness. It goes beyond, though, David Letterman’s crude, sexist, perverted joke about a 14-year-old girl being, quote-unquote, “knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” I think he’s like 30-some years old. I think that that’s, you know, pretty perverted.
But it goes beyond that. Not just that joke, but this insinuation that it’s OK, it’s acceptable to talk like that, and then that it’s acceptable for the media to not provide the American public, the listeners, the readers, the full context of that joke. Letterman says, now, hey, I wasn’t talking about her 14-year old. David, my 14-year-old was there with me at the game. She was the only one there with me. It wasn’t my older daughter, who’s in college and taking care of her young family. It was my 14-year-old.
So, for the American public to not be given the full context of what that joke was all about, I think that’s quite unfortunate.
On President Obama
BLITZER: How do you think President Obama’s doing now in these early months as president?
PALIN: I think he’s growing government way too quickly, and he’s digging that hole of debt for our country that we’re going to pass on to our children and our grandchildren, expecting them to pay off debt for us. It’s a selfish thing that we’re doing right now if we think that is OK. So, I do like some of the talk that he’s giving Americans right now, though, about eventually here getting to the point of reining in spending and finding efficiencies within government. I encourage him to
follow through on that. We have to follow through on that because it is unfair to our kids and grandkids to expect that we grow government…