| June 9, 2006 Editor’s Desk by Aaron Selbig, insurgent49 It’s been a hurried week here at Insurgent Headquarters. Well, it’s official. The state legislature’s special session (the first of at least two) ended a few hours ago (do all of our legislators turn back into pumpkins now?) with the House and Senate unable to come to an agreement on restructuring the state’s oil and gas taxes. Good. In addition, three key components of Governor Murkowski’s so-called gasline “contract”, including locking in the tax rate on natural gas for forty-five years, also failed to make it out of committee. Good, good and good. Don’t get me wrong ... the way the state collects taxes from the ‘Big Three’ oil producers does need to be restructured, and it’s only a matter of time before the legislature reaches some sort of compromise on the matter, but the way this whole thing came about is positively disturbing, and the fact remains that these are two separate issues: taxes collected on North Slope oil should have nothing to do with construction of a natural gas pipeline. Our elected officials in Juneau were right to hold off. As a matter of fact, we all need to hold off ... it’s time to take a knee and collect our senses, because the way this debate is being framed right now stinks to high heaven. For starters, the details on the gasline proposal have been out for less than a month, and the citizens of Alaska (and likely many legislators, as well) have certainly not had time enough to digest it. The governor and his lackeys have been doing their damnedest to shove it down our throats, traveling around the state armed with misinformation and outright threats, holding “public hearings” that are all show and no substance. The majority of the testimony presented at the first Anchorage hearing, for instance, came from employees of British Petroleum who had been bussed over from their midtown headquarters. Do you know how long you, dear Alaskan, get to make your statements at these hearings? Three minutes. The House passed a bill the other day which would have extended the public comment period form thirty to ninety days. The Senate rejected it. According to Senate president Ben Stevens, ninety days is just too long. That’s right, Alaska ... ninety days of public testimony is too long, but locking taxes in for forty-five years is not. Also, the hard numbers being bandied about in Juneau (by our count, the latest version is the unlucky thirteenth) regarding the PPT tax are way, way off target. Throughout the not-so-special session, none of the proposals coming out of either the House or Senate has had a base oil tax rate of higher than 25% (the two competing rates legislators couldn’t agree on at the “witching hour” were 22.5% and 23.5%). Does anyone remember waaay back in February, the week before Frank Murkowski made his big announcement that he’d struck a gasline deal with the producers? He was publicly throwing out a figure of 25%. Then, after a long weekend spent with his oil company buddies in a cave deep in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains, he suddenly had an epiphany: 20% was the rate at which to tax, and if we went any higher than that, the oil companies would have no choice but to pull up stakes and leave Alaska. And where exactly would they go, Governor? Venezuela? Libya? Oh, right ... they already do business in those places, even though the tax rates there are triple or more what the governor is demanding. Obviously, Murkowski’s twenty percent is a lowball figure. And that’s exactly why legislators were correct to put the brakes on this debate right now. The framework is all wrong ... the cloud of a gasline deal is interfering with peoples’ best judgment ... and the legislature’s own consultants are telling them they’re getting lowballed. But, most of all ... Alaska, unfortunately, has a crooked Governor. Let’s wait five months for a new one before we rush into anything, shall we? Aaron Selbig is an activist and media junkie who resides in an undisclosed location in downtown Anchorage. He is the winner of a 2006 Alaska Press Club award for Best Editorial Writing, host of KUDO 1080 AM's 'The Aaron Selbig Show' and a co-founder of Insurgent49. Aaron may be contacted at editor@insurgent49.com |
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All rights reserved. in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership. |
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