Bush May Be Asked to Ax Oil Export Ban : Energy: Alaska Gov. Walter Hickel says such a move would boost his state’s revenues.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska —  When Gov. Walter Hickel meets President Bush today, he is expected to press for an end to what Alaskans consider an unfair ban on the export of North Slope crude oil, a Hickel spokesman said Sunday.

“It’s my understanding that they’re going to discuss it,” said Hickel’s press secretary, John Manly.

It would take a presidential order to lift the ban, and state officials are hopeful that one is on the way--even though Bush renewed the ban Sept. 30.

“Obviously, we’d really like to see that happen. We could use another $185 million a year in our state treasury,” Manly said.

That is the amount that Alaska officials estimate the state loses in royalties and tax revenues by having no international markets for their North Slope oil.

Hickel has sued the federal government to overturn the ban, long a sore point for Alaskans, who rely on royalties and taxes from North Slope oil fields for 85% of their state government’s operating budget.

Congress slapped the export ban on North Slope oil in 1973 as part of the deal that authorized the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The ban was justified as a means to keep badly needed oil from an environmentally controversial development in domestic possession.

But officials here say the ban was imposed and retained at the wishes of the powerful domestic maritime lobby, which is loathe to give up the lucrative Alaska oil routes that have been built up since a fourth of the nation’s domestically produced oil began flowing through the 800-mile pipeline in 1977.

The congressional ban expired two years ago but has been retained through executive actions by the Bush Administration, Manly said.

Economists here say the export ban causes a price-depressing glut of Alaskan oil on the West Coast and drives down prices to the Gulf Coast.

State officials say the oil-hungry Japanese market is closer to Alaska and offers cheaper shipping routes--and thus higher wellhead prices--than the Panama Canal route to the Gulf of Mexico.

In lawsuits filed in Anchorage and Washington on April 30, Hickel demanded that the U.S. government overturn the ban and pay $2.5 billion in damages--the amount the state claims to have lost over the 15 years its oil was limited to domestic markets.