The House Rules committee has passed the latest version of HB 247, an overhaul of the state’s oil production tax credit program which would end most cash credits by 2020.
Committee Chair Craig Johnsen says there needs to be an agreement before the legislature’s 120-day constitutional deadline that arrives within the next week.
Rep. Johnsen(R-Anchorage): “It’s time to break the log jam, it’s time to move forward, pass or fail.”
House Democrats are unlikely to support the bill, meaning the majority caucus may not have enough votes.
Turning to the Senate, the Finance Committee moved out the state’s Capital Budget, minus a substantial amount of funding for one project.
Committee members held back $7 million for a new school in the northwest village of Kivalina.
Co-chair Anna MacKinnon reasoned that the project plan should be further along before the funds are released.
Sen. MacKinnon(R-Anchorage): “Until we see a plan, pigeonholing, for lack of a better term, additional money that could go out into our economy or to a project that might be shovel ready I think is not the place to allocate additional funds.”
That $7 million in funding would be the final installment of payments from the state under a 2011 court settlement requiring state monies.
