Jun 14, 2026 · 48 min · 12 segments
In this episode of Must Read Alaska's Energy and Business Edition, host Todd sits down with Marcus Moore of Alaskan Rants for an in-depth look at the special session on the Alaska LNG project. Central…
This is just a prime example of kicking the can down the road, right? We had an entire session to get this bill organized and thought through and passed through committees.
And now we're forced into this corner where it's uh they come at us with this this gas crisis it's we're going to freeze to death if we don't get this gas line built energy costs are going to go up if we don't get this gas line built and it's a kind of a a crazy bill in my opinion to start with because a year ago right glenn farn was at the arctic energy conference and claimed they didn't need any any relief they could do this regardless and then fast forward to now, right, June 12th, you're looking at them passing, you know, reducing the property taxes and allowing the cities to basically deal directly with Glen Farn, okay, and their property taxes because a 30%, you know, over cost is what the State Revenue Department says is inoperable to complete this job.
And so if the project can't get completed because it went 30% over, you know, Glenn Farrin is now asking for a billion dollars, basically $785 million in tax revenue relief for property taxes.
And if we're going to give them, you know, a billion dollars in tax breaks and only receive, you know, $100 million over the course of 10 years, when do we get that money back into the communities that are due to the community, right? And that's sort of what I feel the core, you know, messaging or the core narrative behind 381 is.
And, you know, they say this in committee, right, is that, You know, they can't leave anybody out.
But, I mean, when you're establishing an alternative volume, you know, volumetric tax, and the framework for this is basically set at, you know, what, 15 MCFs per natural gas transported through the line, right, over the course of five years.
All you're doing is basing the allocations that this only benefits the state government.
So these tax breaks that they're pushing out right now have no real benefit to Alaskans, a lot of real benefit to the state governments that are going to take on this extra burden, I guess you would say, of what they're claiming of the influx of people that are going to come for the short period of time.
Yeah, it's interesting when you look through some of the mechanics of the bill, right? And we see with House Bill 381, which is one of the components that we're dealing with, like you were saying, is instead of this traditional ad valorem property taxes on the massive infrastructures, we've got this AVT or the Alternative Volumetric Tax.
So it's a tax on the actual gas flowing through this system.
and it looks like what we're seeing is that you know 100 of the abt revenue flows to the municipalities so you know we've got multiple provisions that are in there uh it looks like from the the components that were passed the other day that they're deliberating on right now is there were three big conditions we have the 40 million dollars into a community impact fund we have the negotiating project labor agreements at municipal level, and then we've got this Fairbanks spur line that was included in there.
I'm not sure how much of that is going to continue on as they go to the House floor, but, you know, this 381.
I think with the spur line, too, you also have to add in the fact that they also dropped down the proposal rate, so I think like .01%.
And I think that matters because that's like you're directly trying to compare this to like the mill rate of what your property taxes would be.
And then when you go through the flow throughput of all that gas, let's say they're running at full blast, right? You're still at that price range.
You're not even recovering back the revenue that you lost or that you gave up for the first 10 years.
Interesting.
This is just a prime example of kicking the can down the road, right? We had an entire session to get this bill organized and thought through and passed through committees.
And now we're forced into this corner where it's uh they come at us with this this gas crisis it's we're going to freeze to death if we don't get this gas line built energy costs are going to go up if we don't get this gas line built and it's a kind of a a crazy bill in my opinion to start with because a year ago right glenn farn was at the arctic energy conference and claimed they didn't need any any relief they could do this regardless and then fast forward to now, right, June 12th, you're looking at them passing, you know, reducing the property taxes and allowing the cities to basically deal directly with Glen Farn, okay, and their property taxes because a 30%, you know, over cost is what the State Revenue Department says is inoperable to complete this job.
And so if the project can't get completed because it went 30% over, you know, Glenn Farrin is now asking for a billion dollars, basically $785 million in tax revenue relief for property taxes.
And if we're going to give them, you know, a billion dollars in tax breaks and only receive, you know, $100 million over the course of 10 years, when do we get that money back into the communities that are due to the community, right? And that's sort of what I feel the core, you know, messaging or the core narrative behind 381 is.
And, you know, they say this in committee, right, is that, You know, they can't leave anybody out.
But, I mean, when you're establishing an alternative volume, you know, volumetric tax, and the framework for this is basically set at, you know, what, 15 MCFs per natural gas transported through the line, right, over the course of five years.
All you're doing is basing the allocations that this only benefits the state government.
So these tax breaks that they're pushing out right now have no real benefit to Alaskans, a lot of real benefit to the state governments that are going to take on this extra burden, I guess you would say, of what they're claiming of the influx of people that are going to come for the short period of time.
Yeah, it's interesting when you look through some of the mechanics of the bill, right? And we see with House Bill 381, which is one of the components that we're dealing with, like you were saying, is instead of this traditional ad valorem property taxes on the massive infrastructures, we've got this AVT or the Alternative Volumetric Tax.
So it's a tax on the actual gas flowing through this system.
and it looks like what we're seeing is that you know 100 of the abt revenue flows to the municipalities so you know we've got multiple provisions that are in there uh it looks like from the the components that were passed the other day that they're deliberating on right now is there were three big conditions we have the 40 million dollars into a community impact fund we have the negotiating project labor agreements at municipal level, and then we've got this Fairbanks spur line that was included in there.
I'm not sure how much of that is going to continue on as they go to the House floor, but, you know, this 381.
I think with the spur line, too, you also have to add in the fact that they also dropped down the proposal rate, so I think like .01%.
And I think that matters because that's like you're directly trying to compare this to like the mill rate of what your property taxes would be.
And then when you go through the flow throughput of all that gas, let's say they're running at full blast, right? You're still at that price range.
You're not even recovering back the revenue that you lost or that you gave up for the first 10 years.
Interesting.
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