The annual legislative skits were this weekend in Juneau. That's a big social event where legislative staff get together to make fun of their bosses. The 2015 Alaska Legislature is certainly a target-rich environment for parody.
For example, there was the amazing spectacle of Republican Sen. Peter Micciche grilling Attorney General Craig Richards about his "conflict of interest." It happens that Micciche is an expert on conflict of interest. He's the ConocoPhillips employee who helped write the oil tax bill: you know, the law expected to give ConocoPhillips tax breaks worth billions.
So Micciche, that paragon of ethical rectitude, was "deeply concerned" by the "perceived conflict" of Richards having represented the city of Valdez in a dispute with the owners of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System over the valuation of the pipeline for tax purposes.
Let that sink in for a minute.
The pipeline owners (including Micciche's employer) were doing their best to lowball the value of the pipeline in order to whittle down the property taxes they would have to pay to Valdez and other local governments along the pipeline route. Fortunately for the residents of Valdez, Richards was among the lawyers hired to prove the pipeline was still pretty darn valuable -- particularly in light of all the new oil promised by the oil companies once the Legislature slashed their taxes.
The court agreed with Richards and company. As a result, the state and local communities thwarted the oil companies' effort to chisel them out of tens of millions of dollars in rightfully due property taxes.
I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that the state of Alaska, under the stewardship of former ConocoPhillips employee Sean Parnell, took the position that the pipeline was worth about half of what Richards argued.
So of course Sens. Micciche and Cathy Giessel were "very concerned" that Richards chose to take a position contrary to that of the state and oil industry. Can we have confidence in an attorney general willing to stand up to the oil companies and defend the interests of regular Alaskans, the senators wondered.
What else is happening in Juneau? Well, the "fiscally conservative" Republicans keep pushing for more taxes and fees on working Alaskans. You heard me right: Republicans love taxing Alaskans – as long as they aren't oil companies. There's a bill to increase hunting, fishing and trapping fees. House Republicans hosted a presentation on raiding the Permanent Fund and imposing a state income tax and/or a statewide sales tax. (If you voted for these people, remember that you did this to yourself as well as to the rest of us.)
Then there's the Alaska oil spill fund, which for decades was funded by charging the oil companies a couple of cents per barrel. With oil production continuing to plummet in spite of promises that it would increase once we slashed the companies' taxes, our spill fund is broke.
Instead of upping the per-barrel fee on the oil companies, Micchiche is pushing for millions in new gasoline and heating oil taxes on Alaska residents. That's right. He thinks we should pay the cost of cleaning up the companies' future oil spills whenever we gas up the old Subaru. That makes sense.
Then there's Republican Sen. Anna MacKinnon's bill to gut school bond debt reimbursement. For 42 consecutive years, the state has reimbursed local communities a portion of the costs of building and maintaining schools. It's part of the state's ongoing commitment to education, and it helps keep down local property taxes.
The state supported this program when oil was $8 a barrel as well as when it was $147. But MacKinnon wants to flush it -- even though the state promised last December that the latest bonds approved by Anchorage voters would be eligible for reimbursement. The result will be -- you guessed it -- higher taxes for Anchorage property owners.
All these Republican proposals to increase taxes on working Alaskans prompt me to ask: Where is all the new oil they promised us under SB 21? Sure, oil prices are down now but the state Department of Revenue predicts they'll be back above $100 a barrel in the next few years and then continue to rise.
Remember all those promises by the oil industry and its legislative handmaidens that if we approved massive tax cuts for them, we'd get new oil, new revenue, a bigger PFD? Well, in the next two years we're actually going to pay the oil industry $500 million more in tax credits than we'll take in.
I think they should have had a skit that began with Republican legislators shoving both hands into the pockets of working Alaskans. Not everyone may have thought that was funny but I bet they'd have been howling over at the ConocoPhillips building.
Shannyn Moore is a radio broadcaster.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com.