House and Senate leaders said there’s not enough agreement to immediately consider a bill for a gas line property tax cut package, while Glenfarne Alaska LNG’s president continued to express optimism about the passage of a bill this year.
Ahead of another Alaska LNG special session, lawmakers express low hopes for passing bill to support projectSenate President Gary Stevens, left, and House Speaker Bryce Edgmon look at the unsuccessful vote to override Gov.
Dunleavy's veto of a public pension bill during a joint session at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau on May 19. With a third straight special session on the Alaska LNG megaproject set to start soon, legislative leaders on Tuesday indicated that the chances are “low” and “unlikely” that the Legislature will pass a multibillion-dollar property tax break to support the project this year.
The measure has already failed to pass both chambers multiple times in the regular session and in two consecutive 30-day special sessions, with disagreement over an expansion of the state’s corporate income tax a key sticking point. The Alaska LNG project is seen by many Alaskans as critical to provide most of the state with natural gas for heat and power, as shortfalls loom for local gas production from Cook Inlet.
Proposed at a cost of up to $55 billion, the project would deliver North Slope natural gas in an 800-mile pipeline, first to Alaskans starting in 2029, then for overseas exports starting in 2031. Leaders in the House and Senate said the chambers will hold technical sessions on Monday, in which a small number of lawmakers convene as a formality, but they said there’s not enough agreement to immediately consider a bill for a gas line property tax cut package.
In an interview Tuesday, Glenfarne Alaska LNG President Adam Prestidge continued to express optimism about the passage of a bill this year but did not propose a compromise with legislators, particularly those in the Senate, who have continually pressed for an expansion of the state’s corporate income tax to be added to any bill that incentivizes construction of the gas line. House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, an independent from Dillingham, said Tuesday that he believes “the chances at this point are very low” for a“That doesn’t mean that the door is slammed shut on any opportunities this session,” he said.
“But right now all the members are out in their districts campaigning, taking in whatever remains of the summer and attending to certain, real-life priorities,” he said as an Aug. 18 primary election looms for candidates. “Now, this is a third special session , and I don’t know what’s going to change at this point,” he said.
House Majority Leader Chuck Kopp, an Anchorage Republican, said that there is currently not enough agreement on the details of a potential bill to assure one can pass the full chambers.
“Right now, we still have more work to do to get consensus,” he said. “We don’t want to go through the expense of bringing all the members to Juneau, which is a tremendously extensive endeavor when we’re not yet ready to vote or entertain a robust floor discussion on anything at this point,” he said. Rep.
Sarah Vance, a Republican from Homer,But the House majority’s plans to start with a technical session are an indication that it doesn’t want to meet as a full body in the special session, she said.
“I feel a little perplexed, not surprised, however, that they have essentially told the governor, ‘Pound sand,’” she said. “This is their way of saying we don’t want to come back to Juneau and do a special session. ” Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, speaks on the House floor during last day of the second regular session of the 34th Legislature at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau on May 20.
“The governor’s called us back and by law we’re supposed to convene and take up the business,” she said.
“However, this will be a battle royale. It’ll be interesting to see how it unfolds. ” Rep. Steve St. Clair, a Republican from Wasilla, said the Legislature doesn’t currently seem ready to pass a bill.
“Frankly, I do not believe there is a collective will among certain members to move forward on the Gas Line bill at this time,” he said. In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Dunleavy said he saw a path forward for reaching a deal on a tax break for the LNG project during the upcoming special session.
“The Governor believes the hard work that has been done on this legislation has created a strong foundation for a bill that can earn the support of a majority of the Legislature during the upcoming special session,” Dunleavy’s spokesperson Grant Robinson wrote in an email. “He remains optimistic about the path forward, appreciates the work being done by legislators, and looks forward to continuing efforts to move the Alaska LNG Project ahead for Alaska.
” Meanwhile, Senate President Gary Stevens, a Republican from Kodiak, said his chamber has already passed two bills that the House rejected, in May and June. He said the Senate will stay in a “holding pattern” until the House passes a bill the Senate can accept. He said the Senate will hold technical sessions until at least Aug. 10, when the Senate could convene if the House passes such a bill.
“It’s a long shot,” he said. “I’m not sure that either the House or the governor is capable of sending us a bill that we can agree to. ” “The House has turned down our bills twice, so we’re sort of saying, ‘Send us something,’ ” Stevens said.
“I don’t know if they can do that, but we’ve sort of reached an impasse now,” Stevens said. “At this point, there are things that the governor apparently can’t stand about our bills, and there’s things about this bill that we are in disagreement on. ” “The governor says, include the S-corp in a separate bill,” Stevens said.
“Well, that’s easy enough to say, but every time we have had a tax increase, he has vetoed it. So it’s unlikely he would ever agree to that, and so, what do we do? ”The proposal from New York-based Glenfarne, which owns a 75% stake in the project while the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. owns the other 25%, is latest iteration of multiple projects over more than 50 years that have failed to tap those vast quantities of stranded gas.
But many say this project has come the farthest, though project developer Glenfarne has yet to secure a final investment decision to approve construction. To help the project win financing, Dunleavy in March introduced legislation to proposing to eliminate property taxes for the project, and replacing those taxes with a much smaller gas-volume tax. The project would still bring in more than $26 billion in revenues over three decades while creating thousands of jobs, even with that property tax cut.
But the Legislature, in both the regular sessions and two special sessions that began in May and June, has been unable to agree on a bill that Dunleavy and Glenfarne say will help the project receive financing. Governor Mike Dunleavy and Brendan Duval, CEO and founder of Glenfarne Group LLC, talked about construction of an Alaska LNG pipeline during the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference at the Dena'ina Center in Anchorage on June 5, 2025.
The key sticking point has been the so-called S corporation provision that would expand the state’s corporate income tax to include Hilcorp and other oil and gas companies that are S corporations or limited liability companies. Hilcorp, which operates the state’s largest oil field and holds much of the gas that could be provided to the project, if it is built, has been viewed as the main target of the proposed corporate income tax expansion.
Applying the corporate income tax to pass-through entities in the oil and gas industry has been a major demand by the 14-person Senate majority, in part to make up for a portion of lost income to the state under the agreed-upon tax break for the project. Last week, as the end of the special session neared, the Senate passed a bill including the tax, while exempting the Alaska LNG project itself from the income tax.
Dunleavy publicly denounced the bill, and it later failed in the House on a tie vote. The House in June alsoa Senate-passed bill that contained a version of the corporate income tax expansion, after the governor also blasted that proposal. Rep. Calvin Schrage, an independent from Anchorage who chaired the conference committee that created the most recent bill,last week that Glenfarne officials initially told him they supported the bill with that corporate income tax provision.
He said they later informed him that Glenfarne would oppose the bill after Hilcorp reached out to — as he put it — “twist” the company’s arm and said it would make future negotiations with Glenfarne difficult.that version of events, saying they have long been aware of Hilcorp’s opposition to the corporate income tax expansion and there was no arm-twisting. Instead,officials said the company opposed the corporate income tax expansion because it would lead to higher up-front project costs for natural gas, at a time when Glenfarne has already accepted a price cap on what it can sell the gas for in Alaska, making the economics for the project less feasible.
Prestidge, Glenfarne Alaska LNG president, said in an interview Tuesday that the company has already made several compromises in an attempt to get a bill passed that advances the project. The compromises by Glenfarne include the price cap on natural gas for Alaskans, accepting a higher gas-volume tax than the governor had proposed, a Fairbanks spur line, labor agreements and cost overrun protections for Alaskans, among several other measures, a spokesperson with the company said.
Glenfarne Alaska LNG president Adam Prestidge gave an Alaska LNG update during the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee meeting at the Anchorage LIO on Nov. 19, 2025. Major changes “at this point, I might think that’s pretty unlikely,” he said of additional compromise.
But he also said, about the possibility of where Glenfarne might additionally compromise: “It’s not something anyone’s asked of us at this point, and you know, we’d have that conversation if and when it comes to it,” he said. Some lawmakers have said Glenfarne has gotten everything it has asked for, and it might be time to wait until a new governor takes office next year to pick upSenate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, a Republican from Anchorage, said in a text that after the Senate passed bills twice, it’s “time for Glenfarne to secure some real cash invested to demonstrate they have the horsepower to actually do a project of this size,” she said.
Prestidge said the company’s Texas LNG project, which plans to build an export facility for liquefied natural gas in South Texas, recently “closed a“That’s the precursor to construction,” he said, and Glenfarne has given “limited notice” to proceed to its contractor for Texas LNG, Kiewit, he said. He said he believes the Legislature will pass a bill supporting Alaska LNG this session.
The Legislature has continued to come closer to agreement as the special sessions have continued, and is “almost there” on a final bill.
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