On April 19, 2026, Alaska Democrats adopted a platform that reads like a manifesto of process values: “open, honest, transparent, and accountable” leadership; “intentional inclusiveness”; leaders who “promote public participation and easy access to government proceedings.”
On energy, the platform is explicit. It supports “pausing all pending export permits for liquefied natural gas (LNG) until updated criteria that consider the impact of climate change have been adopted.”
Fair enough. Democrats have a policy position on LNG exports, coherent with their climate commitments. They’re entitled to it. But here’s where the story gets interesting.
After more than 30 hearings, the regular session ended May 20 without a gasline tax relief bill, and the governor called a special session. On June 12, the House passed HB 381 by 34-5, with overwhelming bipartisan support for a framework the governor and the project developer, Glenfarne, had both pronounced workable.
Democrats aren’t using these tactics despite their stated values. They’re using them in direct violation of those values…
Then came the Senate. On June 19, “Filibuster Friday,” the pivotal moment arrived in two acts. Amendment No. 1, sponsored by Sen. Lyman Hoffman, would have imposed a new income tax on pass-through entities engaged in oil and gas activity, a concept Senate Democrats have championed for years, and one the House had already rejected that spring. It failed, 9-11.
That victory lasted a few hours. Amendment No. 2 arrived that afternoon: largely the same tax, delayed to January 1, 2028. It passed, 11-9. The Senate Majority didn’t accept the outcome of its own floor vote. It repackaged the tax and ran it again until it passed. Gov. Dunleavy immediately announced he would veto the bill and called a second special session.
On June 20, the House rejected the Senate’s loaded version 12-28; the Senate refused to recede, 0-16. HB 381 went to a conference committee carrying one chamber’s 34-5 consensus product buried under the other’s twice-voted tax agenda.
On paper, the committee looks balanced: Speaker Bryce Edgmon (I-Dillingham), Rep. Calvin Schrage (I-Anchorage, chair), and Minority Whip Justin Ruffridge (R-Soldotna) from the House; Sen. Lyman Hoffman (D-Bethel), Sen. Bert Stedman (R-Sitka), and Minority Leader Mike Cronk (R-Tok) from the Senate. Both minority caucuses have a seat at the table.
But a seat at the table is not the same as a seat in the room where the work gets done.
This isn’t about whether LNG is good or bad policy. It’s about whether Alaska’s Democrats will abandon their stated principles when those principles get in the way of preferred outcomes.
When the committee convened publicly on July 2, it adopted “work draft Q.” That draft didn’t emerge from committee deliberation. By Speaker Edgmon’s own account, it was the product of working with the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. and a representative from the governor’s office. The substantive negotiation happened outside the committee, in meetings the minority conferees were apparently not part of. Ruffridge and Cronk were left to raise concerns in public session and in op-eds published by The Alaska Story, reacting to a document that arrived pre-negotiated. Notably, Hoffman, who sponsored the pass-through tax on the Senate floor, sits on the committee reconciling it.
Conference committees operate under the Legislature’s Uniform Rules, which contemplate all six appointed members doing the committee’s work. When drafting migrates to private sessions among a subset of conferees and outside parties, the public process becomes theater: minority members formally included, functionally excluded.
And the bill-stuffing isn’t speculation. The two-act amendment sequence played out on the record, vote by vote. Senators have publicly insisted they support getting gas to Alaskans and that the changes merely ask Glenfarne to keep its promises. But you don’t attach a long-sought, unrelated tax agenda to a bill you want to survive, especially when you know it draws a veto. The maneuver also gave members cover: a yes vote on a bill they could be confident would die elsewhere.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
Here’s what makes this worth telling: Democrats aren’t using these tactics despite their stated values. They’re using them in direct violation of those values, for a policy outcome their platform actually supports. They promised “open, honest, transparent, and accountable” leadership and “intentional inclusiveness.” They delivered negotiations moved outside the committee, a compressed timeline, and a bill loaded with provisions its own House sponsors had already rejected.
This isn’t about whether LNG is good or bad policy. It’s about whether Alaska’s Democrats will abandon their stated principles when those principles get in the way of preferred outcomes. They answered that question in July.
The gasline tax relief bill isn’t just dying because Democrats oppose LNG. It’s dying because they’re willing to violate their own stated process values and use a transactional coalition to make sure it stays dead.
You don’t need to take anyone’s word for it. Look at what they said in April. Look at what they did in July. Draw your own conclusions.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
15 Comments
The elephant in the room is still standing. Why hasn’t anyone from the legislature asked the question and required the answer (for the official record) from the administration, Glenfarne and AGDC – why in 2025 when Glenfarne presented to the legislature about the milestones for the pipeline project: property tax reductions (aka gasline tax relief) were not listed as a key component for the alaska gas pipeline to move forward- all the legislature had to do was “get out of the way” and Glenfarne/AGDC partnership will do the rest. Fast forward to 2026 when Glenfarne, AGDC, and Gov. Dunleavy all state that major concessions regarding local government property tax relief is the “key” to making the AK Gas Pipeline project “work”. If the legislators don’t pass legislation regarding gasline tax relief, then the gasline project will fail or some other doomsday predictions. Show your homework and back up your statements with real data Glenfarne/AGDC on why gasline property tax relief is all of a sudden the key milestone for making or breaking the gasline project in Alaska.
The problem is that you assume that the Democrat party HAS values other than control. It’s all just gaslighting.
I don’t disagree Kevin. But complaining about Democrats ignoring their stated party platform seems pretty ironic. We elected a Republican majority in this state and watched as turncoats switched sides without consequences.
45q??? Carbon sequestration!!! You and your ilck are the problem maccabe!!!
What’s killing the Alaska gas pipeline, if it was ever meant to live in the first place, are useful idiots, cheerleaders -like yourself-, Kevin, who can’t, or won’t, answer reasonable questions any investor in high-end things like gas pipelines, would ask.
.
In case you missed the first dozen times we asked, we ask again:
.
1. How much will Alaskans’ heating and electric bills increase after pipeline construction?
2. Will product be sold directly or indirectly to Communist China?
3. If supply or demand issues arise, are Asian buyers prioritized over Alaskan customers?
4. Are Communist Chinese entities involved in project financing, insurance, or construction?
5. Are contingency plans in place to assure political or labor instability don’t disrupt the project?
6. Recall Governor Palin’s $500M giveaway to TransCanada, what protects taxpayers from a similar giveaway or debt trap?
7. What assures pipeline-control gear will be CISA vetted? (https://www.cisa.gov/)
8. When LNG development is actually over, will AGDC be disbanded?
9. What assures Alaskans and the Permanent Fund won’t be liable for up-front costs, contractor fraud, and losses if Glenfarne can’t get, or later loses, binding financial commitments from Asian companies and governments?
(https://ptop.substack.com/p/guide-to-uncovering-contractor-fraud?)
10. What makes Polar LNG -not- better positioned to move natural gas by leveraging existing Prudhoe Bay infrastructure, minimizing new onshore development, and delivering a more efficient and lower-impact path to market …at a quarter of the cost?
(https://polarlng.com/project/)
.
11. On June 25, 2025, AGDC released an updated $38.7 billion cost estimate for the Alaska LNG Project.
(https://agdc.us/updated-38-7-billion-project-construction-cost/)
.
Now Glenfarne wants $44B plus.
.
Then there’s this, also from a year ago: “The latest evidence that no one knows what the gas will cost comes from an independent report by Rapidan Energy Group, which says the likely cost of the pipeline project is far higher than the $44 billion estimate still in circulation …Add in the cost of the so-called first phase—building a pipeline from the North Slope to Anchorage without compression and export facilities and the total project cost would exceed $70B.”
(https://www.dermotcole.com/reportingfromalaska/2025/6/24/glenfarnes-latest-deceptive-press-release-about-alaska-lng-project)
.
Who pays when project cost runs up to, say, $90B, or reaches a point at which it’s not cost effective anymore because financial, geopolitical, legal, and physical risks outweigh benefits, making it unlikely to turn a profit during the lifetime of anyone alive today? What is that stop point?
.
12. Are Alaskans right to be concerned about what the Rapidan analysis shows, which the Dunleavy administration, AGDC, and Glenfarne analyses apparently don’t show?
(https://www.rapidanenergy.com/about)
.
13. Are legislators wrong to tax to the max natural gas taken from Alaska and sold to communist China, and use the revenue for individual property-tax reductions and full PFD’s?
.
14. What protects Alaskans from Glenfarme using Alaska, with its 25% stake in the project, (a) as a cash cow to cover cost overruns and rate increases, (b) as hostage to pay for overruns and increases already baked into “increased” project cost, and (c) using the legislature as a scapegoat to be conveniently blamed if “increased” project cost turns out to be problematic?
.
15. What proves beyond doubt that (a) Cook Inlet gas reserves are bouncing on empty, and therefore (b) other practical, viable, -less expensive- options to Glenfarme’s project are unworkable, shouldn’t be discussed, much less be allowed to happen?
.
16. What proves Glenfarme’s apparent promise of price controls on customer rates is a promise Glenfarme and government can keep?
.
Their promise seems disturbingly amnesic. Remember how price controls affected supply during the 1970’s oil crisis? They’re saying more of the same’s coming?
.
Does this ring a bell, something different’s happening now? “We economists don’t know much, but we do know how to create a shortage. If you want to create a shortage of tomatoes, for example, just pass a law that retailers can’t sell tomatoes for more than two cents per pound. Instantly you’ll have a tomato shortage. It’s the same with oil or gas.”
(“Friedman Blames Mess on Federal ‘Helpers’,” Los Angeles Times, February 10, 1977)
.
17. What protects Alaskans from corporate lowballing, setting domestic prices artificially, temporarily low to discourage popular support for, and investment in, the other three alternatives to Glenfarme’s gas line?
.
18. Was it just a coincidence that the lobbyist whose job, according to the “Alaska Lobbyist Directory”, is helping out with “All legislation and administrative action relating to taxation of resource industries in Alaska” …helped out with getting taxpayer-subsidized housing for legislators who, coincidentally, write the taxes on resource industries in Alaska?
.
“Reed Stoops, a lobbyist, is a member of the board of the Juneau Community Foundation and helped organize the latest housing donation. The ultimate goal is to give the Legislature more housing options to keep legislative sessions in Juneau, ‘especially during a special session like this,’ he said.”
(https://alaskabeacon.com/briefs/nonprofit-foundation-gifts-alaska-legislature-16-apartments-in-juneau/)
.
19. What parts of Roger Marks’ “Build the Line is a pressure campaign designed to amass power” article in ADN are wrong?
.
Marks begins with: ‘The “Build the Line” marketing craze currently sweeping Alaska, as a way to pressure legislators into passing the tax relief, aims to conflate reducing taxes with actual construction of the project. The proper response should be, “Build it with what?'”
(“Anchorage Daily News”, July 11, 2026, https://www.adn.com/opinions/2026/07/11/opinion-build-the-line-is-a-pressure-campaign-designed-to-amass-power/)
.
Is Marks wrong?
.
Again, any investor in high-end things like gas pipelines, would be expected to ask these questions, and get factual, verifiable answers before investing.
.
But we’re investors too! We’re not entitled to factual, verifiable answers before investing? Are you saying it’s up to Alaska’s Democrats to hit the brakes on this damned thing until Alaska’s non-Democrats can figure out what’s really happening?
.
Look at it this way, son. Alarms going off, crew’s praying out loud, you the pilot just sit there worrying more about Alaska’s Democrats abandoning their stated principles than what’s gonna be left of -our- principal when -you- run out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas, …you better thank whatever god you pray to that, right now, it’s just simulator time, not real life.
.
You ever decide to get real, Kevin, we’re here for you.
Wow. I’m going to clip and save that information
Transparency Cuts Both Ways
Rep. McCabe argues that Senate Democrats violated their own transparency platform by negotiating HB 381’s conference committee substitute outside the full committee room. He may be right about that. But the same complaint applies closer to home, and to a body he sits on.
HB 381 replaces Mat-Su’s standard property tax authority over the AKLNG pipeline corridor with a capped, discretionary state grant fund, an arrangement that does not revert until 2060. The bill passed the House 34 to 5 with the Mat-Su delegation’s support, McCabe included. Nothing in the floor debate or committee record shows anyone asked whether that tax structure could survive a challenge under the state constitution’s Uniform Application Clause, or whether other similarly situated operators could later claim the same treatment at this borough’s expense. The borough that stands to lose the revenue was not in the room when that question went untested, any more than Ruffridge and Cronk were in the room when work draft Q was drafted.
That is worth sitting next to McCabe’s own account of how HB 50 became law. He has said in writing that a provision he considered kind of a scam was inserted into that bill specifically to secure votes, and that Sen. Shelley Hughes said much the same thing on the floor while still voting yes. A legislator who has already conceded that his own chamber uses vote-securing insertions on measures he privately doubts is on complicated ground building an entire piece around the other party doing something comparable being uniquely disqualifying.
None of this requires assuming bad faith on McCabe’s part, in the Senate’s conference committee or in the House vote that moved Mat-Su’s own tax authority to Juneau’s discretion. It does raise the question his own closing line invites. If the standard is whether stated principles survive contact with a preferred outcome, that standard should apply to the vote his own delegation cast just as readily as it applies to the one he is writing about.
THIS from the most republican of Republicans? What a lie, what hypocrisy.
Rep. McCabe’s op‑ed argues that “Democrat dogma” is stopping the gasline, but the situation is more complicated. HB381 was the Governor’s bill, and not all of the financial information was visible to the people drafting it. That is part of why there are legitimate questions about the upstream pricing, the cost structure, and the long‑term impact on local taxation. Those questions are structural, not partisan.
There is also a narrative shift happening. HB381 is now being described as a tax bill, which is exactly what its title says. If HB381 is a tax bill, then it is not the gasline bill. And if it is not the gasline bill, then nothing in current law prevents Glenfarne from building a pipeline. A private developer does not need a tax bill to build infrastructure. They already have access to federal incentives and already know the regulatory path. If they want to build a gasline, they can.
The concern many of us have is about long‑term impacts on the borough. Under standard 20‑mill taxation, DOR’s own modeling shows the Mat‑Su corridor generating about $116 million a year by 2033. HB381 replaces that with a municipal impact grant fund capped at $80 million total, split among six municipalities, and distributed at department discretion. The sections that return the borough to normal taxation do not take effect until 2060. That is a significant shift of local authority upward.
None of this argues against getting Alaska’s gas to market. It simply means the tax structure should be reviewed carefully, with full transparency on upstream pricing and project costs, and with the borough at the table before decisions are made. Those numbers have not been released yet, and that is the real stall. Not Democrats, not “dogma,” and not the Senate. Just missing information.
If Glenfarne wants to build a pipeline, they can. If the Legislature wants to restructure taxation, it should do so with full review and with the borough involved from the start.
Glenfarne has copied Soapy Smith’s playbook. If an LNG pipeline had any ROI, Exxon would have built it years ago. In 50 years with climate change the stranded gas will be at tidewater
JUST BUILD the pipe line. Please, I’m being nice. Get out of the way you loser, Juneau representatives.
You’re just hurting Alaskans, it’s all about jobs, natural gas to our state, it goes on and on, the benefits we will receive.
Yeah PA, but you’ve shown yourself to believe a lot of things that can’t be true.
Follow the $$$$$!’
The Lower 48 is criss-crossed and cross-hatched with pipelines distributing natural gas to every American state (other than AK and Hawaii). I don’t hear them complaining about the local supply of natural gas to heat homes, cook, and act as backup electric power generation. But allow Alaskans to harness the world’s largest resource of natural gas (one which we currently FLARE AWAY) for our benefit… that cannot be allowed! And our own representatives in legislature are getting in the way. In other words, we’re doing it to ourselves. Nice. Alaskans are realiable for one thing, and one thing only. We pull out our figurative revolvers, cock the hammer, point directly at our own feet and–FIRE!
Dee Cee. Morrigan, in a comment in this thread, offers why the LNG project cannot be dismissed with your revolver analogy.