Video Clips
Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.
Grier Hopkins
“we here in the Fairbanks North Star Borough don't have road towers, but we have 103 different road service areas. So depending on where the developer and the contractors and the railroad agree to have an off— a pipe offload yard, it's going to be a big impact”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“That postage stamp rate language in the legislation also requires it to be approved by the RCA, making it— with acute conditions, making it a decision that is not, you know, your cost payer, cost— or cost cause or cost payer, because we're not directly causing the impact of this furlough. It was out of our control that it was created there.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“There was an estimate in House Finance, I believe, during the regular session that Ua Wai'a Consultant estimated that spurline tariff addition on top of the entire line would be a 2-cent increase. So we're looking at fractions of the the overall tariff.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Kiel
“if we're talking about building the whole thing to have a viable project, why wouldn't the cost of a Fairbanks spur be spread across all purchasers of gas, including foreign LNG buyers?”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“I would support that. I was looking at it from where I am, as my main concern is making sure we can get that, um, the most affordable gas to Alaskans.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“ensuring that we're able to get those impacts monetarily supported to be able to support our roads, our fire service areas, and the ancillary impacts is what's important. And so the— I don't— we were not able to exactly calculate what those impacts would be to our community. Because we're not able to say this is what, how many accidents we would have or what an estimate would be. But we are able to look at the, how we can handle our trash and solid waste disposals, which would increase substantially. We have an enterprise system here where we are, we pay for what you bring across our landfill waste stations.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Speaker C
“many of these are indirectly supported. We're a limited local government, so many of our critical services that our residents and visitors depend on are provided by local nonprofits with support, supplemental support from the borough. And so those include mission-critical fire and EMS services up and down the Parks Highway. Solid waste service is one of our responsibilities.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Speaker C
“We really support the mitigation fund. And I do have concerns about the way SB 2001 is written.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Speaker C
“We know the impacts are going to be immediate. And I think as written, the— excuse me— the bill, you know, it looks as though revenue wouldn't flow until the, the ABT is flowing to the state, which could be up to 5,000 or 5 million units of throughput or 5 years, and those impacts are going to be immediate. And so I would encourage you in your deliberations working with Glenfarm, see this as this mitigation and impacts as an investment in the overall project, an investment in the state, an investment in municipalities so that we're better suited to meet the needs of the project when they occur, the impacts as they occur, fire and EMS service, road impacts, the demand for housing and healthcare, things like that.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Edna DeVries
“However, we have concerns with proposal to redistribute tax revenues away from the jurisdictions directed impacted by the project infrastructure.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Suzanne LaFrance
“Over the 9-year project period, New service costs would exceed revenues by tens of millions of dollars. Since we rely on property taxes, we don't get new tax revenues from an influx of people until new homes and commercial properties are built and added to our tax rolls, and that takes years. But there will be immediate pressure on public safety, emergency response, transportation systems, parks, and other municipal services.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Suzanne LaFrance
“The Anchorage Community Development Authority, ACDA, commissioned a report from economist Jonathan King who analyzed the fiscal impacts on the municipality. The analysis shows that providing services to workers and to their families will cost more than locally generated revenues can support.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“the— anywhere between the $180 million that was estimated 12 years ago and the $245 million that was put into the fiscal note instead of finance would be unaffordable for the community here.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“That language is currently in Senate Bill 2001 and has been agreed to between the Fairbanks North Star Borough and Glenfarm, the developer. We worked closely with them to come up with language that would not prohibit the project from moving forward, not create roadblocks, but at the same time be able to ensure that a spur line was going to get built.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“About 12 years ago, when the current route was selected, uh, the KPC and permitted, it was routed about 30 miles outside of, uh, what we'll call our city gate, our interior gas utility infrastructure. So we don't have any access to one molecule of gas off of this mainline without that spur line. And with only approximately 3,500 ratepayers to pay for that gas and to monetize, to pay the tariff for that spur line, it is essential that we would be seeing that a postage stamp rate across the whole gas line itself to pay for access for everybody along the rail belt who would be be able to get access to that natural gas.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“We're currently paying between $24 and $26 per MCF here in Fairbanks, which comes out to mid-$3.50 or so equivalent for diesel, if I remember correctly, for our BTU basis.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“The biggest impact we would see in terms of road usage would be our emergency medical services, our EMS services along the road. And that is something that we hear provide locally through our 5 fire service area contractors. We have a tax mill rate that covers almost the majority, almost the complete area of our Fairbanks North Star Borough plus the city of Fairbanks for those EMS services. And that's going to cover accidents along the highways and along the roads that is bound to happen when you're adding upwards of 1,000 trucks.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Grier Hopkins
“my understanding, which is exceedingly limited, is FERC deals with interstate gas transmission. This being an intrastate line, they would not be dealing with it, but I'm no expert in that route. During our conversations in developing this language, we only had to stop the necessary— only thought it necessary to deal with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Speaker C
“We support the Fairbanks spur line for many of the reasons the mayor mentioned, the primary one being this would That spur line would provide our utility, Golden Valley Electric Association, better access to gas to offset their diesel— what is likely their highest cost of power, which would be their diesel generation. So we strongly support this, the Fairbanks spur line.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Edna DeVries
“The Borough Assembly has adopted a resolution that supports a volume tax, protects education funding— that's very important to us— by exempting the increased property values from new project infrastructure, ensures effective municipalities receive the associated tax revenue”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026
Suzanne LaFrance
“That's why we support the approach in this bill to provide a community impact fund as well as ADT revenue sharing on a per capita basis. Impact funds would help us prepare for increased service and housing demand. Revenue sharing would close the gap between our local tax revenues and the delivery of services.”Alaska Legislature: Senate Finance - June 10, 2026 9:00am · Jun 10, 2026