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The cost of living in Fairbanks has long been higher than that in Anchorage.

But the energy crisis is increasing the disparity and putting Fairbanks at an economic disadvantage.

In the cost of electricity and heat, Fairbanks rates continue to climb higher, while in Anchorage and its environs, rates are stable.

For electricity, customers in downtown Anchorage pay $77 and those in the surrounding areas pay $94 for 700 kilowatt hours of power.

In Fairbanks, the cost for the same amount of power is $157.

For heating, almost everyone in Southcentral relies on natural gas. In Fairbanks, with heating fuel above $4.50, we are now paying roughly four times more — on a per-BTU basis — than the denizens of the big city.

While heating costs have been stable in Anchorage this year, Fairbanks has witnessed a steady rise. The cost of heating fuel has more than doubled in the past four years.

Fairbanks, as we all know, has warmer summers, but it does have longer and colder winters.

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DRILL DOWN: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that the National Petroleum Reserve “is a bigger source of oil than the ANWR, the refuge in Alaska.”

In a presentation I watched on C-SPAN, she said she didn’t catch on at first that the name of the “DRILL” bill was an acronym, meaning “Drilling Responsibly in Leased Lands.”

It would be more accurate to call it DROLL, for the drilling is “on” leased lands. The bill strikes me as a grab-bag of items cobbled together as a public relations move to fend off complaints about Democratic opposition to drilling in ANWR.

Among other things, the bill bans Alaska oil exports and instructs the president to follow a four-year-old law and “facilitate” building of the gas pipeline. Alaska oil is not being exported, but it has been allowed since the Clinton administration. The eagerness to insert a ban in this bill hints at the opposition that would face any effort to export North Slope natural gas to Asia.

The bill also calls for the feds to “facilitate” new oil and gas pipelines from NPRA to existing North Slope facilities.

In a report six years ago, the USGS disputed the idea that NPRA is more attractive than ANWR for oil development. USGS said there is a 95 percent chance that there are 5.9 billion barrels of undiscovered oil in NPRA and a 5 percent chance that it contains 13.2 billion barrels, which have yet to be found.

USGS said that ANWR is expected to contain “more accumulations in larger size classes” and that the undiscovered oil of NPRA is probably spread out across an area more than a dozen times larger than the 1.9-million-acre ANWR study area. USGS said that at prices above $35 a barrel, “estimates of economically recoverable oil for the two areas are similar.”

Pelosi said President Bush has not done enough to advance a gas pipeline, but she made the immense and complicated project sound as simple as installing the pipes for a septic tank.

“All the president has to do is use the good offices of the president of the United States to enable this pipeline, this natural gas pipeline from Alaska, to come to the United States to increase our domestic supply and its availability, but he has failed to do that,” Pelosi said.

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OPEN HOUSE: The Fairbanks Fire Department is holding an open house Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with 1,000 hot dogs, chips and soft drinks. There are numerous activities planned for kids and adults. Stop by after the parade to tour the new building on Cushman Street.

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CONCERT: The Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival invites the public to “An Evening With Our Guests” tonight at 8. in the Davis Concert Hall at UAF.

The program is to include music of all sorts performed by visiting artists from across the country.

Those who have lived in Alaska at least 30 years and are 65 or older are invited for free. Call Marcia Boyette at 479-4900 for reservations.

Admission for others is $10.

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PARADE: The biggest event of Golden Days is the parade, which starts Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Carlson Center and proceeds downtown and south on Noble Street.

The theme this year is “49th State, 49th Year, Celebrating in the Golden Heart.”

Expect a large showing from the political realm. The miners were recruiting people who look “stunning” in hard hats to help back up their efforts on the anti-mining initiative.

For the candidates, one of the best themes I’ve heard is Cynthia Henry’s “49th State, 49th year, 49 Reasons to vote for Cynthia Henry.”

She is running as a Republican for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Gary Wilken.

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VOLUNTARY: A reader asked if the Palin administration bill that says those who are “voluntarily and physically present” regarding applications for the proposed energy rebate would mean that military people wouldn’t qualify because they are not here of their own volition.

The goal is not to exclude the military, a state attorney said. The word was used to apply to “folks brought to Alaska on extradition warrants.”

Those are the people who are not voluntarily in Alaska.