Alaska Senate opens special session on natural gas tax overhaul

The Alaska Senate opened a special session Thursday to rewrite the state's natural gas tax system.

Senate Bill 2001 changes how the state taxes natural gas property and pipelines. It creates a new volumetric tax on gas throughput. It revises municipal property tax calculations for school funding. The bill also sets up community impact grants and regulates liquefied natural gas import facilities.

The Senate Finance Committee will hold its first and Senator Bert Stedman chairs the committee. He said staff are working with the Senate Resources Committee to prepare documents.

Stedman said the committee wants to avoid costly mistakes. "So when we put a package together, we hopefully do not have to suffer from gaposis and find out we missed something of significant significance, and that could be very expensive to the state where we cannot back up and fix it," Stedman said.

The Senate is coordinating with the House to avoid scheduling conflicts. Stedman said the goal is to keep witnesses from returning multiple times. "We are hoping the other body will run their finance schedule as they normally do in the afternoon so the members here, including committee members, could keep an eye on what the other body's presentations are because sometimes those create questions that the observing body may have, you know, generated from the testimony," he said.

The committee will work with the Department of Revenue, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Department of Law as it reviews the bill.

Governor Mike Dunleavy called the special session under a proclamation dated May 19. The proclamation limits the session to bills related to House Bill 381. That bill addressed natural gas pipeline property taxation, municipal tax limits, a volumetric tax on natural gas, and revenue allocation from the tax.