Alaska News

Disclosures: Alaska oil tax lobbying totaled more than $1 million

According to required disclosure documents filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, oil companies and industry groups spent more than $1 million in an effort to convince legislators to reduce Alaska's oil taxes by an estimated $1 to $2 billion per year, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

The legally required disclosures show that the lobbying effort that took place in and around the last legislative session ranged from free meals for legislators (singly and in groups) to social media and statewide advertising.

The Alaska Oil and Gas Association reported spending $144,147 on lobbying in the first quarter of 2012, mostly on advertising. The group also reported a $2,775 lawmakers' luncheon at the Baranof Hotel in Juneau and a $3,120 "Energy Council Dinner" in Washington, D.C., during the Legislature's annual mid-session "Energy Break," when lawmakers take a break from making laws to travel at state expense to the nation's capital for meetings with industry representatives.

Conoco Phillips reported spending the most on lobbying out of all Alaska's oil companies, $665,004 total, and $400,000 of it went to Anchorage advertisers Bradley Reid and Associates.

The Make Alaska Competitive Coalition, an advocacy group and perhaps the most vocal supporter of tax reduction, did not register any lobbyists with the state and therefore was not required to report any expenditures.

Read much, much more, here.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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