STEVE INSKEEP, host: The business news starts with more energy from Alaska.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: Alaska's Governor, Frank Murkowski, has reached a deal with three major oil companies. It would hasten construction of a massive natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the lower 48 states.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: Elizabeth Arnold reports.</s>ELIZABETH ARNOLD reporting: Governor Frank Murkowski wants a legacy. He's spent the last two years negotiating with Conoco Phillips, ExxonMobile, and BP, to build a pipeline to tap into the largest known reserve of natural gas in North America.</s>ELIZABETH ARNOLD reporting: The gas comes up with the oil pump from Prudhoe Bay, but it's been re-injected back into the ground for decades. Now, Murkowski says, he has a deal. He's offered the oil companies a new tax structure that would be based on profits instead of production as an incentive for the industry to build the $20 billion dollar gas pipeline.</s>Governor FRANK MURKOWSKI (Republican, Alaska): While the oil stands independent of the gas, clearly there is a connection, because what the producers basically accepted was a package.</s>ARNOLD: While the tax change could add as much as a billion dollars more a year to state coffers at current oil prices, it could also mean a lot less when oil prices drop.</s>ARNOLD: The Legislature is eager for a new gas pipeline, and lawmakers have argued for years the tax system needs to be revamped. But they're wary of the deal, crafted behind closed doors without their involvement.</s>ARNOLD: Juneau Democrat Kim Elton summed up the sentiment, saying, Alaskans aren't just going to kiss the pinkie ring of the oil industry.</s>ARNOLD: For NPR News, I'm Elizabeth Arnold, in Anchorage.
Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski has reached a deal with three major oil companies that would hasten construction of a $20 billion natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the lower 48 states.