Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- Alaska legislators this weekend continue to bandy ideas on how large a "resource rebate" to pay Alaskans.

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It's the most high-profile item remaining on the table before the special legislative session ends at midnight Thursday. Lawmakers on Friday disposed of their main issue by approving an exclusive license to encourage a Canadian energy company to build a natural gas pipeline.

Legislators are considering the resource rebate, which Gov. Sarah Palin proposed last month, as part of comprehensive energy relief packages. Palin offered the rebate as a way for Alaskans struggling with high fuel and heating costs to share some of the state's multibillion-dollar surplus of oil tax and royalty revenue.

On Saturday, the Senate took up a bill setting the rebate at $500, which would be added to this fall's Permanent Fund dividend checks. That's up from the $250 the Senate previously was considering.

In the House of Representatives, members of the powerful Finance Committee were still working late Saturday on amendments to their own energy bill, which includes a $1,000 resource rebate.

Palin originally proposed $1,200 for each resident.

With five days left before the session ends, Senate and House leaders will have to find a way to harmonize the bills.

"I guess the House gets the guns and we get the knives and we all go into a room and fight it out," said Sen. Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican and co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

The great challenge in front of lawmakers is figuring out how to use some of the state's great wealth to equitably help people around the vast state cope with higher energy costs as winter approaches.

Circumstances vary greatly between urban and rural areas. For instance, villagers generally face much higher electricity and heating costs than residents in big cities such as Anchorage, while many city dwellers do a lot of highway driving and are feeling pinched at the pump. Politically, lawmakers are grappling with how to fairly treat city and rural residents alike.

"This is really two states," said Rep. Les Gara, an Anchorage Democrat and member of the House Finance Committee. "There's Anchorage with some crisis and rural Alaska with an unprecedented crisis."

Aside from the resource rebate -- a simple cash payout to people regardless of their place of residence or income level -- lawmakers are considering a range of other major energy relief measures:

• The Senate wants to subsidize heating oil, used predominantly in areas outside Southcentral Alaska, by allowing residents to seek state reimbursement of costs above $3 a gallon.

• Both the House and Senate are considering substantial increases to the state's electricity subsidy program. The subsidies could be extended even to residents in the largest city, Anchorage, which has relatively low power rates.

• The House is contemplating Palin's proposed temporary suspension of the state fuel tax, which is 8 cents on each gallon of gasoline. This measure appeared to be in peril Saturday, however, as some lawmakers don't believe fuel sellers would pass the tax cut along to retail consumers.

Find Wesley Loy online at adn.com/contact/wloy or call him in Juneau at 586-1531.

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