By Dave Donaldson
Governor Parnell today formally sent the legislature a bill listing changes he wants to make to the state’s oil tax regime. The bill puts details on the proposals he made January fourteenth that he said would increase industry investment in the state.
He says the bill would be a good step to offer more incentives that would spur on more oil development.
My choice on behalf of Alaskans is to increase jobs and increase oil production, and that’s what my tax credits and tax benefit proposals do. It only allows credits and benefits if companies drill here, develop here and put jobs here in Alaska. I got a phone call from one of the producers two hours after I made the proposal and he said that’ll produce jobs, it’ll produce new oil. So I’m confident that I’m on the right track, we’re on the right track as an administration when it comes to improving the job picture for Alaskans, improving the production, which means more revenue for the state.
There has been debate and legislative hearings on the subject already this year. And Finance Co-chair Bert Stedman says that overview will accelerate.
At Finance Committee next week, we’re going to start taking a detailed look at ACES — the component parts of that , the strengths and weaknesses. And it’ll take several days to go through that. Also we’re going to take a look at what happens to our tax collections when we have a gas line, and what impact it may or may not have on that. Some of us are a little concerned it may have a negative impact to the point where we have no gas revenue at all.
The bill will be formally read into the House and Senate records tomorrow.
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