Alaska's gas-line tax bill stalls in committee

The committee writing Alaska's gas-line tax bill hit a wall Friday: House and Senate members each voted down the other side's version, leaving no agreed text. Rather than collapse, the panel is now asking for broader authority to write a true compromise from scratch.

The votes didn't break cleanly by chamber, which is the telling part. When the House version came up, all three senators and two of three House members rejected it. The Senate version then died too, with all three House members opposed. So neither body's bill could stand on its own.

Chair Rep. Calvin Schrage laid out the path forward: with neither version adopted, the committee will keep working under the expectation that "limited powers of free conference will formally be granted later in the process" — authority that lets the panel rewrite language, dates, and effective dates rather than just pick between the two bills.

He said the starting point will be the Senate Finance version, which largely mirrors and builds on what the House passed. "From there, we will move on to amendments adopted on the Senate floor," Schrage said, "which I expect will form the basis of most of our decision-making."

What's at stake is the tax deal meant to lure the $44 billion Alaska LNG project, which would pipe North Slope gas to Southcentral and an export terminal on the Kenai. The bill's tax breaks only kick in if the developer commits to the project before 2028, finishes the pipeline by the end of 2032, and has at least one piece operating by 2037. Miss those deadlines, and the whole framework lapses back to current law.

The committee meets again Saturday at 10 a.m. to finish a Department of Revenue fiscal briefing and dig into the Senate amendments.