We weren’t entirely sure this moment would ever arrive – and who knows? It still might not – but in just four days, the comment period on the Interior Department’s five year energy plan for 2010 to 2015, barring hell, high water or holy hand grenades, will come to an end.

It’s a comment period that started in January, was extended by an additional six months by incoming Secretary Ken Salazar, and, if Salazar’s statements today are any indication, it’s a comment period that won’t get us a single step closer to gaining reasonable access to new offshore energy, at least anytime in the near future.

The Washington, D.C.-based trade pub E&E News (subs. req’d) was out first with the gory details:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today said it remains unclear whether offshore leasing plans his agency is crafting will supplant the existing 2007-2012 outer continental shelf program or take effect afterward. …

That [current] plan is in place until 2012. So, in a legal sense, we have until 2012 to redo a plan on the outer continental shelf,” Salazar said this morning. “Whether we take that long or not is something we’ll decide based on the information we collected and the analysis that’s been done during this period. I haven’t yet reached a decision yet on what the next steps are going to be.”

For teachers of seventh grade civics class who previously believed that only the president could execute a pocket veto, observe the maneuver that Secretary Salazar is trying to pull off here. Back in February, when he needlessly extended the comment period by an additional 180 days (on top of the 60 days already established), the real objective was extending the de facto ban on offshore energy exploration beyond the Gulf of Mexico that Congress had kept in place for 27 years, but was forced to let expire in 2008.

Now, with the time for reckoning fast approaching, Salazar informs us that the clock never mattered in the first place. You thought the comment period was six months? Think again: The law says we don’t have to even read those comments for another three years – and assuming we don’t, we’ll have been able to effectively continue the offshore ban that the American people THOUGHT they had gotten Congress to remove in 2008.

Salazar might claim membership in the Democratic party, but, to the extent he decides to sit on these comments and do nothing to accede to the will of the American people (and Congress) on offshore energy exploration, it’ll be quite the undemocratic act, indeed. Let’s hope he doesn’t do that, but let’s prepare as if he will.

For a state so large that 420 Rhode Islands can fit inside it, and so wide that both America’s westernmost and easternmost points are found within it (see if you can figure that one out), it’s awfully easy sometimes to forget the massive contribution that Alaska makes to continued health and economic well being of the United States.

Maybe it’s the fact that 30 percent of the state resides above the Arctic Circle, or that only 683,000 people occupy a land of 665,000 square miles. But for far too long, far too many Lower 48’ers have known far too little about the fundamental role that Alaska plays in heating our homes, fueling our cars, and more generally, enriching our lives. And the tragedy of it all? Thirty-two years and 15 billion barrels since the first shipments of Alaskan oil arrived on the U.S. mainland, the state and its people have so much more to give.

So much more, that is, if we let them. Unfortunately, even as the vast majority of Alaskans support the responsible exploration for and development of their homegrown energy resources, courts and congressmen in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere have acted forcefully and creatively to deny full and fair access to the billions of barrels of American oil and trillions of cubic feet of American natural gas that consumers need to raise their standards of living, and improve their quality of life.

The state flower of Alaska is the Forget-Me-Not, and on this site it’s a command we intend to follow with care. Along the way, we hope to educate our friends, foes, and casual onlookers alike about the critical link between responsibly developing Alaska’s natural resources, and the growing our economy in a way that puts Americans back to work, and stands as a bulwark against the encroachment of our reliance on foreign energy. All while protecting our environment and reducing our footprint.

To do that, we’ve included a library section capturing the latest and greatest studies, research papers and fact sheets on Alaska’s energy potential, along with a news and views section that brings together some of the perspectives on these issues that are informing the policy debate across the country. It’s a debate in which we hope you will participate, and one this new online platform seeks to facilitate.

Welcome to “What About Alaska?”. Welcome to the future of American energy.