House resources committee hears Tom McKay on AOGCC nomination, questions flaring, carbon‑storage role

Tom McKay, the governor’s nominee for the public commissioner seat on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, told the Alaska House Resources Committee on March 9 that the AOGCC’s role is technical oversight of well placement, engineering and reservoir protection and that the commission had already begun pushing back in places where its staff judged operator practices insufficient.

McKay, a petroleum engineer who said he arrived in Alaska in 1980 and joined the AOGCC in January 2026, told the committee, “we do we do swear an oath to uphold the Alaska Constitution” and said that duty requires commissioners to weigh the public interest alongside industry concerns. He added that since joining the commission he has taken positions “which have not made the industry happy,” and that tightening engineering standards is underway.

Why it matters: The AOGCC is a three‑member, quasi‑judicial board that reviews permits, enforces well‑control and safety rules, and issues technical orders intended to maximize resource recovery while preventing waste. Its technical decisions on issues such as flaring, off‑take for a proposed gas pipeline and primacy for class‑6 carbon‑storage wells can affect production choices, environment‑and‑safety outcomes and the economics of North Slope projects.

Committee members pressed McKay on several specific topics. Representative Hall asked whether McKay had ever sided with the public over industry interests; McKay pointed to safety interventions he pursued privately, including bringing concerns about slope fatalities to the labor commissioner and once recommending a statewide safety stand‑down. When asked about operators’ gas flaring, McKay said the commission is “dealing with some of those issues right now with ... operators who ... have been, in our view, flaring gas, beyond what is ... allowed by statute.”

Representative Fields asked how the commission prioritizes duties. McKay said AOGCC is primarily technical, not economic: “The DNR handles the leasing ... and revenue,” he said, while AOGCC reviews well design, placement and engineering to protect correlative rights and prevent waste. He noted the commission recently transmitted carbon‑storage regulations to the Attorney General and is pursuing primacy for class‑6 carbon‑disposal wells.

On the proposed natural gas pipeline, McKay said AOGCC’s role centers on off‑take analysis — how much gas can be withdrawn from identified source reservoirs without harming oil recovery — and that the commission has issued off‑take orders and studies to that effect. “We don't ... determine the economics of the project,” he said, but AOGCC can study and authorize quantities that preserve reservoir health.

Members also asked about staffing, funding and confidentiality. McKay said commissioners had recently hired additional technical staff and described funding for AOGCC as a producer‑paid per‑barrel charge rather than general‑fund support: “It’s a ... per barrel charge that the producers pay.” He described protocols for maintaining confidentiality over exploratory logs, cores and flow tests and said the commission cooperates with federal agencies — for example, on plugging and abandoning orphan wells using federal grants and on cross‑agency work with the EPA on carbon‑storage rules.

Representative Mears asked about commission structure; McKay said the board includes one geologist (Greg Wilson), one petroleum engineering commissioner (Jesse Kamilowski) and one public member, and that staff handle routine permit work while the commissioners hear contested matters in quasi‑judicial proceedings.

There was no public testimony on McKay’s nomination in the room or online. The committee also opened and closed public testimony for three nominees to the Big Game Commercial Services Board (Brianna Hodge, Larry Kunder and Robert Mumford); no members of the public testified. Vice Chair Mears moved a committee report documenting the hearings and, with no objections, the committee forwarded the nominees to a joint session of the House and Senate.

Next steps: McKay and the other appointees will move to the joint session for further consideration; AOGCC commissioners are scheduled to hold a public "lunch and learn" at the Capitol on March 17. The House Resources Committee announced its next meeting for March 11, 2026.

Quotes used in this article are drawn from committee remarks and McKay’s testimony on March 9, 2026, before the Alaska House Resources Committee.