Making Alaskans Whole: How Regulators Can Restore Trans-Alaska Pipeline System Lands and Recover Billions for the Public

This Article examines the dismantlement, removal, and restoration requirements associated with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). These decommissioning obligations, rooted in the right-of-way lease agreements between state and federal agencies and the pipeline owners, require the lessees to remove pipeline infrastructure and restore Alaskan lands at the end of the pipeline’s useful life. Yet the regulatory structures governing TAPS decommissioning are deficient in several respects. Regulators have failed to safeguard decommissioning collections using a designated fund or a comprehensive liability regime. An opaque and overly permissive approach to transfers of ownership between the TAPS carriers has substituted private agreements for concrete assurance that a new owner will complete decommissioning. Finally, it is unclear when or how regulators will define the scope of restoration or compel the TAPS carriers to refund excess decommissioning collections. Despite these ongoing regulatory failures, opportunities remain to enforce state and federal lease obligations. Policymakers have the power and the mandate to expand public governance, protect Alaskan workers, and transfer billions from out-of-state companies to public coffers.