Politics

Alaska Legislature: As oil tax debate slows, the budget pace picks up

As the third to last week of the 2011 legislative session shuddered to a close, the House managed to finally get the governor's oil tax bill over to the Senate.

There, it's sure to find a tough crowd, made a bit harder by the fact that the governor called them "do-nothing senators" at an Anchorage rally last week. "Name calling," as some senators have characterized it, doesn't seem to be going over so well with them. And on Friday, moments before the Senate adjourned for the weekend, Sen. Hollis French challenged Gov. Sean Parnell to a debate.

French told his colleagues on the Senate floor that he was offended by Parnell's remarks. He says he is happy to stack his facts on Alaska's oil tax structure up against the governor's rhetoric "any time and place of his choosing."

French, an Anchorage Democrat and staunch supporter of the current tax system known as Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share or ACES, said in his experience "when you start calling names you're out of facts."

He pointed to information revealed this week that the state's tax audit system is in "shambles" which underscores the problem that the state has not been able to conduct any audits of oil company tax returns since ACES was implemented in 2007.

On the other hand, he said, a new state report shows oil and gas employment in Alaska is at near-record levels and one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world, the Spanish giant Repsol, recently announced it would begin a project on the North Slope.

"The hard working Senate," as French called it, needs more respect from the governor who, as French pointed out, recently led a series of statewide rallies dubbed "Choose Respect."

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"I'd ask the governor … to keep that in mind as we close out the session," French said.

Matters of public importance

While the oil tax debate may have captivated the business and political chattering class, the public it seems has a broader mind when it comes to issues of significance, according to a new survey by Dittman Research released by the House majority on Friday.

The veteran pollster surveyed 400 people in 64 communities between March 3 and March 17, asking their opinion on a variety of topics the Legislature is addressing.

When asked the one most important thing that should be accomplished before the Legislature adjourns April 17, 12 percent mentioned ACES or oil taxes, 10 percent said a gas pipeline but the rest -- 78 percent -- had any number of other things on their minds, including 24 percent who said they weren't sure.

On other matters of public importance:

  • 58 percent favor returning to a 120-day legislative session or rotating a longer session every other year.
  • 58 percent think ACES should be repealed or modified, and 75 percent of those think the action should be taken now.
  • 61 percent want the state to pull the plug on the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, or AGIA, the state's big natural gas pipeline project, and 75 percent of those want the state to immediately stop giving money to TransCanada, the company under contract with the state to build the line.
  • 87 percent think the state should support an in-state gas line from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska and 82 percent think the state should invest state money in the line if that's what it takes to make it economically viable.
  • 57 percent oppose the state building a 500-mile road from Fairbanks to Nome.
  • 51 percent support the state building the Susitna Dam hydroelectric project.
  • 80 percent support the governor's merit scholarship program.

Also last week, debate continued to intensify over the Alaska Coastal Management Program, which is set to sunset in July if action isn't taken on it. That's likely to be a big topic in the coming week as two bills addressing it are up before Sen. Donny Olson's Community and Rural Affairs Committee. Olson has vowed to let the program be taken over by the federal government if the Parnell administration won't compromise and let local communities have more input into development in their areas.

And Rep. Carl Gatto late Thursday dropped his bill to curtail many collective bargaining rights for public workers, legislation that had followed on the heels of a similar dust-up in Wisconsin.

And on Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to oppose the nomination of Valdez resident Don Haase to the Alaska Judicial Council. Haase had testified before the committee that he thought people should be prosecuted for extramarital affairs and that pre-marital sex could spread disease and cause violence. Haase was nominated to the post by Parnell and must be confirmed by the full Legislature, which plans to meet in joint session to take up all confirmations late next week.

The coming week is shaping up to put the state budget at the center of lawmakers' attention. On Friday, the Senate approved an operating budget that had already made it's way through the House but with enough difference that it will go to conference committee for reconciliation.

The operating budget is $8.9 billion with $5.7 billion in state general funds -- the rest is federal dollars and other sources. The Senate also put $1 billion in the state's statutory budget reserve account and another $400 million in the Power Cost Equalization Fund, which senators see as a savings account of sorts because the goal is to use the earnings of the fund to offset high energy costs throughout the state.

"This has been interesting times," Senate President Gary Stevens told reporters earlier last week.

Contact Patti Epler at patti(at)alaskadispatch.com

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