U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., introduced the WEST Act last week, extolling it as a job generator. In an op-ed he wrote Monday for the St. George News, Hatch lauded oil and gas drilling as nirvana on earth, a slam-dunk way to jump-start employment in the region.

“Job creation and energy production is typically a match made in Heaven in Utah and other western states. They are a perfect complement – much like former Jazzmen Karl Malone and John Stockton were in their heyday,” the senator wrote.

But not everyone is jumping up from their seats, hooting and hollering in favor of hydraulic fracturing.

Gathered concentrated oil burns during a controlled oil fire in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The U.S. Coast Guard worked in partnership with BP, local residents, and other agencies to conduct this "in-situ burn" to aid in preventing the spread of oil following the April 20 explosion on Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit Deepwater Horizon. (U.S. Navy photo)

“The WEST Act is not aligned with the conservation values of the American people,” said Emily Diamond-Falk, communications manager for The Wilderness Society in Washington, D.C. “In a recent Colorado College survey, a majority of independent voters across the West said that they were in favor of ‘reducing our need for more coal, oil and gas by expanding our use of clean, renewable energy that can be generated in the United States. The same poll found that voters were in strong agreement that ‘our national parks, forests, monuments and wildlife areas are an essential part of your state’s economy.’ It appears that the WEST ACT is an effort to open our shared public lands and waters to industrial development and pollution.”

The bills bundled into the WEST Act include the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act, or H.R. 2021, which was cited in a report commissioned by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Howard Berman, D-Calif., late last year that called the Republican-led 112th Congress “the most anti-environment House in U.S. history.” The legislation would upend the Supreme Court’s decision that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The bill also prohibits the EPA from collecting emissions information.

The WEST Act would undermine the Clean Air Act in a multitude of ways. It includes the so-called Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act, which would cast doubt on the EPA’s ability to regulate coarse particulate matter from mining and extraction industries, or dust that contains arsenic or other heavy metals, or dust that substantially harms public health by other means. U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis, both D-Colo., have been vocal in their skepticism of the bills’ intentions.

The WEST ACT would additionally include the expedited consideration of permits to drill in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia and end what Republicans say is the Obama administration’s de facto moratorium on new offshore drilling. The Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act, or H.R. 1230, and The Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act, H.R. 1231, are the House versions of the legislation now in the WEST ACT.

According to Hatch’s editorial, the WEST ACT would also “end the confusion and uncertainty in the EPA’s decision-making process for air permits, which is delaying energy exploration in Utah and across America, including in the Alaskan Outer Continental Shelf, a project expected to create 50,000 jobs and produce 1 million barrels of oil per day.”

Barrasso said the GOP has laid out a clear path to energy security and job creation.

“For too long, the Obama administration’s anti-American energy policies have strangled western job creators,” he said. “By removing harmful EPA and public lands regulations, our legislation encourages American energy production and economic growth.”

In reality, drilling has reached its highest level under President Obama than at any point since the Reagan administration. Domestic oil production hit an eight-year high in 2011, and natural gas production hit an all-time high that year.

Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio today went on the offensive against U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican who has sponsored a bill being debated on the House floor that would remove regulatory hurdles for companies engaged in offshore drilling in Alaska.

U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner.

“Congressman Gardner continues to live in the pocket of D.C. insiders, and doing their legwork today on the House floor is no exception,” Palacio said in a release. “He pulled his support for a natural gas tax credit bill thanks to pressure from Washington lobbyists, and now he’s pushing a bill to make life easier for big oil companies. It’s hard to imagine things getting any cushier for companies making tens of billions in profits, but Rep. Gardner has found a way.”

Palacio goes on to point out the fallacy of Gardner’s insistence that making it easier to drill off the coast of Alaska will somehow lower gas prices at the pump today – a dubious argument given the amount of time it would take to get any new leases into production. Palacio also pointed to a U.S. Interior Department analysis showing nearly 70 percent of the offshore acreage currently under lease for oil and gas production is not being utilized.

Speaking on FOX, Gardner said even the promise of more domestic production will have the effect of lowering prices at the pump. Linked to a British Petroleum lobbyist during his campaign at the height of BP’s Deepwater Horizon crisis last year, Gardner sidestepped questions about environmental concerns.

“This bill has the potential to create tens of thousands of jobs annually, $100 billion in payroll over the next 50 years, and 1 million of barrels of oil per day,” Gardner said in a release when H.R. 2021 passed by a 34-14 vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this month. “That is the equivalent of 10 percent of the foreign oil we use, which would reduce our dependence significantly.”

And now the EPA is firing back, countering that a bill Gardner introduced to remove regulatory hurdles to offshore oil drilling in Alaska may significantly increase air pollution exposure for that state’s population.

EPA assistant administrator Gina McCarthy testified last week that Gardner’s Jobs and Energy Permitting Act, which would block the EPA from enforcing air standards for the company’s drilling off Alaska’s coast, could have adverse health impacts for Alaska residents.

Testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, McCarthy said, “One exploratory outer continental shelf source could emit approximately as much on a daily basis as a large state-of-the art refinery,” according to Bloomberg.

“This bill will create tens of thousands of jobs, increase energy security, and lessen our dependence on foreign oil,” Gardner said in a release. “It will add billions of dollars in salary to Alaska and other states over the next several decades, bringing good paying jobs to our country.”

They have their work cut out for them. In conversations with The Colorado Independent, citizens say they have little faith that county commissioners elected to protect public health but backed by oil and gas money will put residents’ interests before those of the energy companies.

The Colorado dream at Battlement Mesa, where 200 oil and gas rigs may soon sprout throughout the community (Photo: Battlement Mesa)

The push for a health impact assessment, or HIA — offered through grants from Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — is coming from a group of “active retirees” who moved to western Colorado for clean living. They have urged Garfield County public health officials to ask the board of county commissioners to consider conducting the assessment prior to making any decisions on a plan to drill up to 200 gas wells in the heart of their community. Residents might suddenly see gas rigs rise as close as 400 feet from their homes. A tentative plan would also site two rigs on the municipal golf course.

“We have a community of 5,000 people here, many of them retired and many of them with health issues, and the reason they come to western Colorado is for the clean air and the clean water and the healthier lifestyle, and we feel that we’re being attacked by the gas drilling industry here and our health and welfare is at risk,” said Dave Devanney of Battlement Concerned Citizens.

The health-impact assessments, supported by the national Health Impact Project, have had success in moving the dial on these kinds of debates in the past. An HIA conducted in 2007 led to compromises between the Bureau of Land Management and Inupiat residents of Alaska’s North Slope to monitor air quality and any oil and gas drilling contamination of the wildlife they hunt.

The drilling project for Battlement Mesa would be extremely intrusive.

Although Denver-based Antero Resources has yet to submit its comprehensive drilling plan, or CDP, to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) – the state agency with oversight of oil and gas production — the company has previously discussed plans to drill up to 200 wells from 10 well pads in the community.

“Who else do we have to turn to but our county officials to help us look after the welfare of the citizens here?” Devanney said. He said county support of the HIA is not a given. “I believe they’re going to act on it. Whether they act favorably or not we’ll have to see. It seems that our three-member commission typically runs 2-1 in favor of the industry, but our intent is to request what we feel we need and force them to make a decision between energy or public health.”

Devanney said Garfield County’s environmental health manager, Jim Rada, seemed sympathetic to the Battlement Mesa cause at a meeting late last week, agreeing to present the HIA concept to the county commissioners at a Dec. 8 meeting, but the two Republican board members Monday outvoted the lone Democrat on a resolution opposing the FRAC Act, federal legislation aimed at increasing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency oversight of the natural gas industry.

Antero Resources representatives did not return phone calls requesting comment Thursday. Democratic Garfield County Commissioner Trési Houpt, also a member of the COGCC, has said she supports the FRAC Act and is concerned about the local public health impacts of drilling. Republicans John Martin and Mike Samson, whose campaigns last year both saw an infusion of outside oil and gas money, may be a tougher sell.

Devanney said another group, the Oil and Gas Committee of the Battlement Mesa Service Association, is working with Antero and the county to try to establish 1,000-foot setbacks between drilling rigs and homes. Typically the COGCC has jurisdiction over such matters, but the county approved the original Battlement Mesa PUD in the 1970s and has agreed to at least review Antero’s drilling plan from a land-use perspective once it’s submitted.

County regs rarely win out over state rules, but a 2006 Gunnison County case did establish some precedent. COGCC executive director David Neslin this summer told The Colorado Independent negotiation is always the best path, but ultimately the matter may have to be decided by the attorney general.

“Obviously, at some level the State Legislature has assigned to the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission [COGCC] the responsibility for facilitating the development of the state’s oil and gas resources in a way that’s safe and protects the environment,” Neslin said. “And at some point, local government actions or decisions that conflict with that legislative mandate could be preempted. As to any particular instance that’s going to raise a legal issue, then we’d have to look to the attorney general’s office for advice on it.”

Community activists have also asked the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to conduct a baseline study of the impacts of natural gas drilling in a residential area before the COGCC makes any decisions regarding Battlement Mesa, but costs in the current state budget-slashing environment could be an issue.

That’s where a Health Impact Project grant, which range between $25,000 and $125,000, could fill the void, Devanney said. HIAs have become increasingly popular in Europe, Canada and Australia, where they have been used to study the long-term health impacts of everything from industrial development to transportation projects. So far, other than Alaska, HIAs have not been used that much in the United States.

“We’re just one little, small community here, but we’re hoping that we might be able to find ourselves in the forefront of something more progressive with this health impact assessment,” Devanney said. “The likelihood of that happening in Garfield County, we’ll just have to wait and see …”

The Anchorage Daily News reports the governor is staying mum on how much Palin might owe the Internal Revenue Service after billing the state for meals and incidental expenses while living in her own home.

The governor’s office wouldn’t say this week how much she owes in back taxes for meal money, or whether she intends to continue to receive the per diem allowance. As of December, she was still charging the state for meals and incidentals.

“The amount of taxes owed is a private matter,” Sharon Leighow, Palin’s spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. “If the governor collects future per diem, those documents would be a matter of public record.”

Palin’s record of nickel-and-diming the state of Alaska isn’t exactly in Tom Daschle limousine territory, but that’s what makes it all the more dicey that the Republican governor could have to amend her taxes.

The payments became a touchy issue for Palin last fall when she was running for vice president and campaigned as a budget watchdog.

The Washington Post published a story in mid-September that said she had charged the state almost $17,000 for meals and incidentals while staying in her own home.

The state considers Juneau, where she lives in the Governor’s Mansion, to be Palin’s official duty station.

Palin billed the state for 312 nights spent in her Wasilla home during her first 19 months in office, according to the Washington Post.

Our colleagues at The Washington Independent note that Palin’s tax troubles have been on public view for months, and not only for her unreported per-diem collections.

One big issue that tax attorneys are pointing to is the fact that the Palins did not report as income the $43,490 that the state gave the family to cover travel expenses for Mr. Palin and the Palin children. Had the Palins reported these payments as income, the couple would have had to pay taxes on it.

Experts also raised questions about $9,000 that First Hubby Todd Palin deducted for snowmobile racing expenses — allowable if his racing counts as a business, but not if it’s a hobby.

Tran-Alaska oil pipeline near the Brooks Range and the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. (Photo/madpai, Flickr)

Even as Sarah Palin “keeps pushing” Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), environmentalists have formed a 527 group to fight the Alaska governor and her oil-and-gas industry allies and keep McCain from caving on the issue during his presidential campaign.

“We see that drilling has kind of gone from being a congressional issue to a presidential campaign issue,” said Emilie Surrusco, spokeswoman for the Alaska Wilderness Political Fund, a 527 political organization formed in the last month by the Alaska Wilderness League, a Washington, D.C., 501( c)3 nonprofit.

“We wanted to be able to comment on [drilling] in the context of the presidential campaign, because the main goal of both organizations is protecting Alaska’s wilderness, and a big part of that is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and also the Arctic Ocean, where there’s movement for offshore drilling.”

A great deal of that movement is coming from Palin, McCain’s vice presidential running mate, who “agrees to disagree” with the senator on ANWR drilling. She said during last week’s only vice presidential debate with Democrat Joe Biden that she will keep pushing McCain on the issue.

While ANWR didn’t come up specifically in Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama continued to sound the alarm that the United States has only 3 percent of the world’s petroleum reserves but consumes 25 percent of the supply, and therefore cannot drill its way out of the current energy crisis.

Republican Sen. John McCain fired back that domestic drilling, including off-shore production, must be stepped up to “bridge the gap” until a wider range of alternative energy sources are available. Obama argued that approach doesn’t adequately address the immediate impacts burning fossil fuels has on global climate change.

Surrusco said the Alaska Wilderness Political Fund 527 group (named for the IRS tax code that covers such political advocacy organizations) was formed to refute several myths Palin has been perpetuating since getting the vice presidential candidacy nod in late August.

“ANWR, of course, is a 2,000-acre swath of land in the middle of about a 20-million-acre swath of land,” Palin said in a Sept. 11 interview on ABC. “Two-thousand acres that we’re asking the feds to unlock so that there can be exploration and development.”

“The U.S. [Geological Survey] has shown that the oil speculated to be there is actually in small pockets spread across the whole coastal plain,” Surrusco said. “In fact, 800 wells would have to be drilled to access the oil and those wells would have to be connected by a series of roads and pipelines, and then they’d have to create gravel pits and airstrips, and all kinds of infrastructure would have to be built that would be spread across the entire coastal plain.”

Surrusco also said Palin overplays Alaska’s role as a domestic energy producer, even feeding the line to McCain, who, during an MSNBC interview on Sept. 15, called Palin the “governor of a state that 20 percent of America’s energy supply comes from.” In fact, Surrusco said, that figure is closer to 3 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

During last week’s debate, Palin also touted her role in pushing for $500 million in state seed money to entice TransCanada to build a $40 billion pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope through Canada.

Palin and the state legislature also have been funding an organization called Arctic Power, a lobbying group that’s been pushing for ANWR drilling and increased production statewide since 1992 and made headlines in April for bringing in conservative radio talk show host and convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy to promote ANWR drilling.

The state in recent years has contracted various out-of-state PR and lobbying firms, as well as nonprofit oil-and-gas industry front groups such as Americans for American Energy (based in Golden, Colo.), to spread the word nationally and work on getting votes from key lawmakers in other states.

Greg Schnacke, president and CEO of Americans for American Energy, acknowledged a prior subcontract with the state and said his group is still working on the issue of ANWR drilling in a broader sense.

“From a practical standpoint the state of Alaska was the one that authorized the money and appropriated it and went out and picked their lead contractor and then that flowed from there,” Schnacke said of a 2006 deal with Pac/West Communications in Oregon. “We’ve supported a couple of pieces of legislation that were introduced in Congress this year and one of them included ANWR and we support the development of oil there.”

Surrusco said attempts on Capitol Hill to slip ANWR drilling into various pieces of legislation are never-ending: “[Republican congressman John] Shadegg [of Arizona] brought it back up as a standalone bill that would have used speculative revenues from the Arctic Refuge to fund the Wall Street bailout, or at least part of it, so they’re always looking for ways to sneak it in there.”

There is widespread support for increased oil-and-gas production among Alaska residents, polls show, but some say the national spotlight from Palin’s VP run is exposing the fallacy of the “drill, baby, drill” argument.

“Some people think she is a good pick because she’s an outsider, but most see her as unprepared and far from qualified,” David Kenney, a high school social studies teacher in Nome, said in an e-mail interview. “Increasingly, people think she’s making Alaska look bad, although her debate performance was well-received here.

“Personally, I thought she was an adept governor and would have considered voting for her in re-election. Now I think she is not only bringing down McCain’s campaign, but is possibly ruining her political future.”

(Photo/Pitel, Flickr)

This November, Coloradans will be faced with two ballot initiatives dealing with how the state collects and allocates taxes on the oil and gas industry.

Severance tax, so named because it applies to natural resources permanently severed from the earth, not only dominates part of the the state’s ballot, but also much of the political discourse this election season. Some fear that increasing taxes on the industry — as Gov. Bill Ritter’s Amendment 58 will do — will only scare off oil and gas companies or raise gas prices in Colorado.

Others see it as a way for Colorado to capture some of the riches rolling out of its wells. The state’s 1.9-percent severance tax ranks extremely low among neighboring oil- and gas-producing states, and if Colorado raises its taxes, it could bring in another $300 million in the next two years.

The other ballot measure, Amendment 52, will reallocate existing oil and gas tax to benefit the state highway system. While the ballot initiative has been pitched by conservatives as an alternative to Amendment 58, opponents say that since it doesn’t add existing revenue to the state’s coffers, it will do little to help the transportation system or other struggling programs.

As the dialogue around severance tax in Colorado heats up, The Colorado Independent spoke with Mary Ellen Denomy, an accredited petroleum accountant based in Rifle, Colo. Denomy audits oil and gas profits for three Western Slope counties — Montezuma, Rio Blanco and Moffat — and she talked to us about the myths and facts surrounding oil and gas in Colorado today.

TCI: Many say that increasing the severance tax will drive the oil and gas companies out of Colorado. Is this true?

MD: Oil and gas companies do not necessarily consider the tax rate a major factor when choosing where to drill and where to go for product. The case in point is that [Alaska Gov. and Republican vice presidential nominee] Sarah Palin raised the taxes to 25 percent in the state of Alaska, and there is nobody in the industry that doesn’t want to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. That tells me these companies are willing to go there for product even though Alaska’s tax rate is the highest in the nation. Colorado is at the low end in terms of taxing oil and gas. If we were to raise our rates to bring us in line with Utah or Kansas, we would simply be in a comparable position to states around us. It is not going to deter oil and gas companies or make them go away. Because if they go to another place, such as Wyoming or New Mexico, they will be paying a higher tax rate.

TCI: Point taken. But some have argued that Colorado’s natural resources are difficult to extract, and so it’s unwise to unduly burden the oil and gas industries.

MD: It is not any less difficult to get the gas out of the ground in areas of southwest Wyoming or northern New Mexico, and yet the companies are still drilling in those areas. … The oil and gas companies all say the same thing: “If you do this, we will leave or go somewhere that is less taxing.” That is just not true. Oil and gas companies say the same thing in Wyoming. They tell people: “We are going to leave Wyoming because it is too expensive. We are going to go to Colorado instead.” But in Colorado they’re saying, “We are going to go to Wyoming because it is less complicated and less taxing there.”

TCI: So how does Colorado rank in oil and gas production as compared with neighboring states? And how does our tax rate compare?

MD: New Mexico is the top producer and they have been, historically. Wyoming is No. 2 and we are No. 3. The tax rate in New Mexico is 11.73 percent; in Wyoming it is 12.2 percent. And we are at an effective rate of 1.9 percent. … Again, you are looking at Alaska with a 25-percent tax rate. That is a primary point of production in the United States for the big guys like BP and Chevron. And that tax is no comparison with ours; you want to say our tax rate under your breath.

TCI: What do you think of Amendment 58? Will it impact small mineral owners and oil and gas companies differently?

MD: When you talk about mineral owners, no one wants their taxes raised. They are stuck paying the oil and gas tax, they pay county taxes and they have to deal with surface issues and clean up. Those folks get a stick in the eye. Amendment 58 has made an attempt to help them out. [If it passes, companies that make $300,000 or less on their wells won't have to pay severance tax. All other companies will pay a flat 5-percent tax]. The additional money available will be used for water projects and scholarships. But there is a risk that the large oil and gas companies will want to make sure they don’t pay more taxes than they do now and will attempt to lower their county taxes by asking the state legislature to do that. It is up to the counties to maintain a strong voice at the legislature.

TCI: Oil and gas companies are fighting Amendment 58 tooth and nail and have dropped $10 million into defeating the measure. What do you make of that?

MD: It is a threat to our state to say, “Look, we want to be able to not pay taxes on our income.” If any other industry said this, like if the veterinarians said, “If you don’t lower our taxes or leave us be, then we will leave,” I am not sure that they would get the traction that oil and gas does. … If Amendment 58 passes, the oil and gas companies will lose $300 million out of $10 billion in profits. We are talking not a significant amount, and it is shared among 465 companies and 5,000 or 6,000 mineral owners. Of course the top ones are going to pay the majority. The top five are BP, Nobel, EnCana, Williams and Pioneer, and they will fight the hardest against 58. The industry has always been very adamant about change. They believe if one state does it, the other states will jump in line, like, “If they raise it in Colorado, they will raise it in Wyoming.” They fought an increase in severance tax in California, and they beat it.

TCI: What is another myth that you’ve heard about Amendment 58′s passage?

MD: Companies say: “Look at what you pay at the pump. You will pay more if this passes.” I would like to throw that back to the companies and say, “If we have only been charging a 1.9 tax rate, why have our gas prices been so high?” Maybe we should have gotten a discount at the pump for years because our tax rates are so low. The cost of gas is a totally unrelated issue that has to do with access and markets.

TCI: What do you think of Amendment 52, which does not increase severance tax revenues, but reallocates them to highway projects like I-70?

MD: I am from the Western Slope, but I try to be more inclusive when it comes to statewide issues. Part of the problem with Amendment 52 is it doesn’t seek any other sources to fund transportation. It takes money away from water projects. The Western Slope has survived on dirt roads but it can’t survive without water.

Sarah Palin speaks at a campaign rally in Colorado Springs. Palin and McCain were in Colorado two days after McCain accepted the Republican nomination for president. (Photo/Jason Kosena)

In Palin’s selection, in fact, we can observe the distilled absurdity of McCain’s “maverick” pretensions. While claiming to have selected a consummate “outsider,” he actually selected someone who’d been promoted by William Kristol, whom history will forever recall as the intellectual godfather of the Iraq War; Larry Kudlow, the bog-standard free marketeer who yodeled gleefully when McCain rescinded his (hopelessly mild) approval for cap and trade carbon emissions policy; and fundamentalist elites like Richard Land and Dan Coats, who have consistently served as vital theological supporters and enablers of the Bush administration from its first days to the Last Days.

While unexpected in nearly all quarters, McCain’s choice was based on a cynical calculation that Palin would rally moribund social conservatives to the party flag. Indeed, to her supporters, Palin’s religion, family narrative and anti-liberal policy preferences are an essential part of her appeal. The social conservative base of the Republican party correctly reads Palin as a true believer, and their enthusiastic response, so far, has engorged McCain’s polling numbers in traditionally Republican hives while narrowing or eliminating Barack Obama’s advantage in swing states like New Mexico and Ohio.

Sarah Palin, in other words, has drawn the instantaneous and rapturous support of the very people who a mere four years ago steadfastly insisted that George W. Bush ranked among the most indispensable presidents in the history of republic. It is a remarkable feat that Sarah Palin has been transformed in the space of a few weeks into the second coming of George W. Bush, a man who would be creamed by most conceivable foes were he able to pursue a third term. Political scientists will spend careers figuring out how all of this became possible.

But Palin’s selection was also based on an apparently earnest — and thinly supported — argument that Sarah Palin represents a new kind of Republican who might reinforce McCain’s self-flattering “maverick” image. Here, Palin has been enlisted to help McCain court undecided voters and recover party defectors recoiling from the flagrant incompetence of the Bush administration and the “culture of corruption” that capsized the Republican party in the 2006 mid-term elections.

On its own merits, the narrative of Palin herself as a mini-maverick is implausible, a fact that only underscores how little most Americans know about Alaskan politics and how little the McCain campaign cared to investigate the governor’s own mythology before selecting her. All local and state politics have a ring of provincialism about them, and Sarah Palin has done nothing to break the mold. As mayor of Wasilla, she hired Steven Silver — a former Ted Stevens staffer and a federal lobbyist with ties to Jack Abramoff — to secure tens of millions in federal earmarks for her town.

When she ran for governor in 2006, Palin openly promised to favor her own borough, a commitment that she has effectively fulfilled in office by sparing her home region from the line-item vetoes that have disgruntled other areas of the state. During the last budget session, for example, Palin cut grants for more than three dozen youth sports facilities around Alaska. As it turns out, one of the budget items that survived was a $630,000 appropriation to the Wasilla Sports Complex, a facility whose construction and subsequent legal troubles Palin facilitated as the city’s mayor less than a decade ago. And throughout her first 18 months in office, the governor — a longtime advocate for moving the capital to south central Alaska — presided over the continuation of “capital creep,” a baleful process that has drawn government jobs away from Juneau and toward the Anchorage area.

In addition to her widely perceived regional biases, Palin has larded her administration with under-qualified friends from home, including a real estate agent and high school classmate whose professed love for cows helped land her a position as head of the state’s agriculture division. One supposes that if Sarah Palin were acquainted with someone with a background in Arabian horses, he or she would be heading the disaster planning section of the state’s Behavioral Health division.

The malignant inversion of this cronyism can be seen in the case of Walt Monegan, the public safety commissioner whose July firing has prompted a legislative investigation and has given Sarah Palin and John McCain to decry the entire interrogation as a partisan hit. After initially promising full cooperation with the investigation, Palin’s office has taken a Cheneyan turn in recent weeks — a comparison that is actually unfair to Dick Cheney, who has never promised “transparent and accountable government.”

Most surprising, however, has been the campaign’s straight-faced efforts to portray Palin as a rebellious fiscal conservative. Though she proposed reducing the operating budget by $150 million and lopped more than $200 million in spending via line-item veto, she has signed into law the two largest budgets in the state’s history. Even so, over the past two weeks, Palin’s self-aggrandizements as an “earmark reformer” have come under withering scrutiny. Everyone knows — though surprisingly few voters seem dismayed — that Palin has simply been lying about her position on the notorious Gravina Island Bridge to Nowhere, a project that the state of Alaska abandoned only when it became clear that federal money would not be forthcoming to pay for it.

Meantime, an even more expensive bridge project in the Anchorage region has been placed under review by the state for the same reasons. If Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens had been able to secure the federal dollars that Gov. Sarah Palin hoped they could, a bridge even larger and twice as expensive as the Bridge to Nowhere would be under construction across Knik Arm, securing easier access to Anchorage from the Matanuska-Susitna Valley.

In a broader sense, the McCain campaign’s focus on Palin as an opponent of federal earmarks would be strange and irrelevant even if it were true. Aside from requesting earmark submissions (or not) from their congressional delegations, state governors have minimal influence on the federal budgeting process. State and local officials are, of course, perfectly welcome to reject federal dollars — and some have — but the taboo against passing up free money remains the norm.

Were Sarah Palin a genuine earmark maverick, she would be actively supporting the Democratic opponents of Don Young and Ted Stevens, who will otherwise be riding their governor’s coattails back to the trough in January. More significantly, though, it deserves mention that the McCain-Palin campaign has sought to reinvent itself as the ticket of change by focusing on a legislative practice that consumes no more than 1 percent to 2 percent of federal outlays and less than $30 billion per year — roughly the cost of seven weeks of war in Iraq.

One would think that in a country that’s committed itself to a $3 trillion dollar mistake in the Middle East, or a country enduring a historic credit meltdown, or a country that’s witnessed an “economic expansion” that’s actually made people poorer, a campaign predicated on the evils of pork-barrel spending, would either be ignored or driven angrily into the sea. That would, of course, mean that we lived in a country where the word “maverick” was more than a cheap marketing trick designed to separate fools from their votes.

David Noon is a professor of history at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, the author of the great, sort-of-on-hiatus Axis of Evel Knievel blog, and a contributor to Lawyers, Guns and Money.