Photos: Backbone demonstrators protest proposed oil tax cut

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Protesters with "Backbone" assemble near the Alaska Legislature Information office in downtown Anchorage to protest SB21. April 4, 2013

From Juneau to Homer to Anchorage, demonstrators with the group Backbone held several rallies across Alaska on Thursday, protesting legislation that would slash taxes on oil companies.

In Anchorage, demonstrators protested in front of the Legislative Information Office building in downtown Anchorage. In Juneau, they protested on the Capitol steps as a state House committee reviewed the oil tax legilsation. And on a Homer beach, protestors burned a mock check from the state to ConocoPhillips.

Backbone was started in 1999, led by such statesmen as former Govs. Wally Hickel and Jay Hammond, state constitution framer Vic Fischer and former Senate Presidents Chancy Croft and Rick Halford, among many other business and labor leaders.

On Thursday, a rewritten oil tax bill that sets the base rate at 33 percent passed the House Resources Committee. That 33 percent rate is lower than what the Alaska Senate passed earlier in this legislative session. Also gone is a board that would have been established to review Alaska's competitiveness. Because of those changes, if the full House approves this version it would mean the measure will head to a conference committee to work out the differences.