The Alaska Legislature’s regular session ends in just over a week, on May 20, and lawmakers are racing to pass a wide range of bills and resolutions before the deadline.
Alaska Public Media’s Eric Stone has been at the Capitol tracking what lawmakers are up to, as the end of the session approaches. Stone joined Alaska News Nightly host Casey Grove for a preview of what’s in store for the session’s closing days.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity.
Casey Grove: So, Eric, what’s in store for the last week of the session?
Eric Stone: Well, Casey, it’s gonna be busy. This is the second year of a two-year Legislature, so any bill that doesn’t pass before that May 20 deadline dies. Lawmakers would have to start over again next year — or, whenever the next session is. More on that ominous suggestion in a minute. But there are a few big things to watch.
There are the budget bills, of course — those are always a big deal because they encompass so much of what the state government does, and the operating budget sets the amount of the Permanent Fund Dividend.
There’s also the gas pipeline tax bill — legislators are debating how much to subsidize the Alaska LNG project.
And then there’s everything else.
CG: Right. Just the rest of all of that. Let’s dig into the budget bills.
ES: Always a good place to start. The operating budget, the big one, has passed the House and the Senate. Now, a conference committee is working out the differences.
The House’s budget has a $1,500 PFD, about $160 million in one-time funding for public schools and a deficit that would likely require spending more than $300 million from the state’s main savings account. It also includes the revival of a state-funded heating assistance program, more money for child care, early learning programs, and other social programs.
The Senate’s budget is far more conservative — it’s built on a more modest forecast for oil prices next year than the Department of Revenue predicted back in March. It includes $1,150 in payments to Alaskans. That’s a $1,000 PFD and a $150 energy relief payment enabled by high oil prices this year. It also includes up to $111 million in one-time funding for schools, plus another approximately $30 million specifically to help schools with high energy costs, though much of that depends on oil prices coming in higher than the forecast.
For now, prices have been a lot higher than the forecast, which was $91 per barrel for the rest of the fiscal year when it was issued back in March — and Alaska’s oil is selling at a weirdly high premium to global benchmarks, lingering well above $100 a barrel since mid-March. There’s obviously a lot of uncertainty around that given the chaos in the Middle East.
But as far as the budget goes, we’ll start seeing where things land here pretty soon as the conference committee works out the final draft.
So, that’s the operating budget. The capital budget, which funds longer-term infrastructure projects, has seen less debate. Most of the state general-purpose money in that budget is devoted to school and state facility maintenance and upgrades, and that bill should be up for a final House vote soon.
And one quick thing on the third budget bill, the mental health budget — senators added funding for homeless assistance programs to match an agency request. That eliminated a cut that was proposed by the Dunleavy administration. The fourth and final budget bill, the supplemental budget, actually passed earlier this year.
CG: OK, so there we have all the budget bills. Let’s talk about the gasline bill.
ES: Yeah, Casey, this is the big one. To boil it down, there’s a large statewide tax on the books for oil and gas properties — 2% of the assessed value per year. Back in March, Gov. Mike Dunleavy proposed replacing that property tax with a tax on pipeline throughput, which would vastly reduce the amount of state and municipal revenue from the project but would also make the risky and complex project more attractive to investors.
Now, a month and a half later, everyone seems to be on board with that so-called alternative volumetric tax as a concept. But what that tax rate should actually be — and what conditions should be attached to that tax relief, basically — that’s not something that is close to settled.
The House Resources Committee approved a bill last week with a tax about two and half times what Dunleavy proposed. But now it’s onto the House Finance Committee, and listening in on those hearings, a lot of lawmakers are starting from square one.
In the Senate, it’s yet to pass out of its first committee despite dozens of hearings. Senators seem reluctant to give up any state revenue to make the pipeline pencil out — and they’re frustrated that they’re being asked to make decisions without knowing key details like the most recent estimates for the project’s cost.
So, for now, leaders in the House and Senate are doubtful they can get the bill done before the regular session ends. Meanwhile, Gov. Dunleavy says he’s willing to call a special session on the issue, though he insists there is enough time to get the bill through both chambers. Dunleavy has an hour after adjournment to call lawmakers back into an immediate special session, otherwise he’d have to wait 30 days.
So this one is definitely one to watch as we get down to the wire.
CG: All right. Now we’re left with that third bucket — everything else.
ES: It’s a big bucket, Casey, because this is bill-passing season.
There’s a crime bill — a package of 10 proposals rolled into one that’s moving through the Senate. Among other things, it would raise the state’s age of consent to 18, criminalize AI-generated child sexual abuse material, update laws on sexual assault by a healthcare worker, and many others. That one is in the Senate Finance Committee and could head to the floor soon.
There’s a bill that would link eligibility for resident hunting and fishing licenses to PFD eligibility — that’s now awaiting a vote in the Senate after passing the House earlier this year.
And lots of folks are anticipating a veto of a bill that would allow the state to once again offer its employees a pension plan. Lawmakers passed that late last month, and Dunleavy has to sign or veto it before lawmakers leave town, or it’ll go into effect automatically. You can expect movement on that in the closing days of the session.
And there’s so much more I wish I could get into — including a bill to make the giant cabbage the state vegetable — but I think we have to leave it there for now.
