What a difference a week makes.
Turns out, not much.
With gas line property tax break talks stalled, the Alaska Legislature called immediately into a special session, and a governor who refuses to engage the Capitol regarding the future of a state-defining venture … who could have seen that coming?
Just about anyone who has been paying attention to Alaska politics, that’s who.
It’s been said before: Alaska LNG deserves full support but not blind faith. If anything, the events of the past week have underlined that point on a sticky note and taped it to the Capitol doors.
In the span of a few days, lawmakers went from debating how much tax relief Alaska should offer the proposed LNG pipeline project to watching the whole discussion collapse into a familiar scramble. Then came the governor’s veto of the public pension bill, followed by a failed override attempt and an acknowledgment that pension reform had become leverage in the gas line fight. The regular session gave way to an immediate special session, and Alaska was right back where it too often lands on generational projects: big promises, too little trust and a public being asked to accept urgency as a substitute for answers.
By Thursday, lawmakers had gaveled into a special session, then voted to keep the work alive and begin hearings next week, leaving the heavy lifting to the finance committees. Their task: Find a middle path that might actually move the needle on the gas line.
Meanwhile, Glenfarne CEO Brendan Duval used an onstage interview at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference to make the company’s position plain: Financing for Alaska LNG hinges on the tax legislation. That may be true. It also makes the public’s questions even more urgent, not less. If tax concessions are central to making the project financeable, Alaskans deserve to know exactly what they are being asked to give up, what protections come with that bargain and why this particular structure is the right one.
The Alaska LNG project is worth taking seriously. Cook Inlet gas supplies are tightening, and Alaskans need long-term answers. Yet grand aspirations do not justify failures in leadership. The state cannot be governed by ransom. A governor who wants legislators to lower the tax burden on a proposed multibillion-dollar pipeline has to do more than issue ultimatums from his desk. He has to make the argument to lawmakers, mayors, borough leaders, tribal leaders and Alaskans who will live with the consequences long after this legislative session is over.
That glad-handing has not happened. Instead, lawmakers were asked to move on a bill at the 11th hour when many still had serious questions about Glenfarne, the project developer, and about whether the proposed tax structure protected Alaskans as well as it protected the financing prospects of a project that remains a very long shot.
Dunleavy’s response was to blame the Legislature, name names and point just about everywhere except at himself. If the case was not made, that failure does not belong to lawmakers who asked questions but to the executive who did not answer enough of them.
As well, if Glenfarne wants a major tax concession, it needs to come back with something more compelling in hand.
And the state should give this project every reasonable chance to succeed. Lowering the tax burden may well be part of making the gas line financeable, but that does not mean lawmakers should sign away future revenue without knowing who benefits, who pays, who is protected and who gets left out.
Rep. Robyn Niayuq Frier of Utqiaġvik underscored this point through an amendment that ultimately disrupted the House’s momentum on the bill. In an impassioned address, Frier, who co-chairs the House Resources Committee, argued that the Kenai Peninsula and North Slope boroughs should not be forced to give up their taxing authority over the venture by Southcentral lawmakers who want a gas line no matter what the cost.
North Slope and rural communities cannot be treated as scenery in a Southcentral energy drama. If a gas line crosses lands, affects communities, changes tax structures and reshapes the state’s economy, the people most directly affected deserve a seat at the table.
That is not how a durable deal gets built, nor is using public employee retirement as leverage for a gas line tax cut.
Whether one supported or opposed the pension bill, holding it hostage to a tax package for Alaska LNG is the height of bad governance. Alaskans deserve better than a Capitol version of “you give me mine, I’ll give you yours.” The gas line is too important for that while public trust is too fragile.
A special session that restages the same fight with the same unanswered questions will not move Alaska closer to a gas line. It will only confirm why so many people remain skeptical.
Alaska LNG deserves a chance. It does not deserve a blank check written in blind faith, and it certainly does not deserve to be muscled through by ultimatum.
The Alaska Legislature must prioritize the long-term health of our state over executive convenience, corporate interests or the political ransom typically demanded during Capitol chaos. Establish a compelling argument, engage the affected boroughs, and secure the public interest before demanding a legislative tally.
That is how a durable deal is built. Everything else is a ransom note.