By admin 
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said Tuesday he is ordering state lawmakers into a special session to force a new decision on his top priority: property tax breaks for the company proposing to build a massive pipeline system to ship natural gas from the North Slope to tidewater.
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Dunleavy outlined his plan during a news conference at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference in Anchorage.
The special session, to start 10 a.m. Thursday morning, “will go on as long as they need to come up with a decision,” he said at the news conference.
The Legislature’s ongoing regular session ends at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night, and legislators will enter special session the following morning.
The governor has characterized property tax-relief for the project as his top priority, and at the news conference he accused lawmakers of risking Alaska’s future by rejecting his plan.
The bill would replace state and local petroleum property taxes with an “alternative volumetric tax” on natural gas that would eventually flow through the pipeline. That gives Glenfarne Group, the company developing the pipeline in conjunction with the state, a tax break that its leaders have said is necessary to attract investors.
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Negotiations to pass the governor’s preferred legislation fell apart on Monday, and Dunleavy blamed lawmakers for that outcome.
“This is a decision on the part of a handful of folks in Juneau who wish, for whatever reason I don’t understand, (to) play with the future of Alaska,” he said at the news conference.
Legislative critics of Dunleavy’s approach said Glenfarne had provided too little information on its cost estimates, thus making it impossible for them to determine whether the proposed tax break was appropriate. Some argued that the process had been too rushed. Dunleavy introduced his proposal in March, with the regular session half over.
But the governor had harsh words for those lawmakers. He said they were focused on the wrong things after an extremely cold winter that strained energy supplies in the populated Railbelt corridor.
“Last night there was time to shove a spay and neuter bill into an invasive species bill in (House) Finance,” he said at Tuesday’s news conference. “So Rome is burning and we’re shoving a spay and neuter bill into an invasive species bill.”
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