The batters are up, but will the Alaska Legislature swing at the newest pitch on oil and gas drilling subsidies?
House lawmakers could vote as early as today on a plan to cut the state’s backing of oil and gas drilling across the 49th state. On Thursday, members of the House Rules Committee passed a version of House Bill 247 to the full House for consideration.
The House will consider many amendments to the proposal today, then cast a vote on the main motion.
“It’s time to break the logjam. It’s time to break the impasse, pass or fail,” said Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage and chairman of the rules committee.
The House previously considered HB 247, but when it lacked the votes to pass, it was returned to the rules committee for further deliberation.
Passing (or failing) HB 247 is considered the key to progress on the rest of the state budget.
When Gov. Bill Walker unveiled a plan to erase the state’s $4 billion annual deficit, reducing the state’s subsidy for drilling was the second-largest piece of the fix. Lawmakers are reluctant to approve new revenue measures — such as tax increases or spending a portion of the Permanent Fund — without knowing where the money will go.
Walker’s original plan proposed savings of up to $305 million in fiscal year 2017, which starts July 1. Those savings would have risen to as much as $515 million in fiscal year 2019 before decreasing in following years.
The bill headed to the House floor would save up to $5 million next year and up to $310 million in fiscal year 2020. The rules committee’s version of the bill is designed to assuage the concerns of representatives from districts reliant on oil-industry jobs.
“We need to address the issue, but we also need to look at Alaska’s future. Alaska’s future will be fairly bleak if we don’t have investment in the industry that pays the bills for the state of Alaska,” said Speaker of the House Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski.
The rules committee heard extensive public testimony calling for deeper cuts to the state subsidy but declined to make any significant changes on Thursday before sending the bill to the full House.
Ten amendments were proposed in committee. Among them was a measure from Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, D-Sitka, who suggested limiting companies to $25 million of a particular kind of subsidy.
“I believe If we listened and followed directly the public testimony last night, we wouldn’t be having this (discussion) because zero would be the number,” Johnson said.
The Kreiss-Tomkins amendment was defeated.
Speaking just before the bill passed from committee, the Sitka representative cautioned that the bill doesn’t do enough to meet the state’s principal goal.
“We just can’t afford it. Mathematically, we can’t balance the budget with it,” he said. “I think it’s gotta be more for us to balance the budget.”
