The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has told the state’s Alaska Gasoline Development Corp. that it will not begin the Alaska LNG Project’s Environmental Impact Statement until early 2019. Under the schedule a FERC Record of Decision would issue in early 2020, a year later than that schedule hoped for by Gov. Bill Walker and AGDC. How the delay will affect negotiations now underway with a Chinese group (the potential LNG customers and financiers) is unknown. One good sign is that a large group from the China entities recently visited the North Slope and the Kenai Peninsula, where the LNG export plant would be built. A more sober note: The president’s new 25 percent tariff on steel imports could raise the project cost by 25 percent, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said.