2:50 p.m. – AP
An Alaska lawmaker has argued that Gov. Bill Walker overstepped his authority in reducing the size of the yearly check that state residents receive from Alaska’s oil-wealth fund.
Sen. Bill Wielechowski appeared before the Alaska Supreme Court Tuesday in an effort to restore the portion of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend vetoed by Walker last year.
Wielechowski is hoping to reverse the governor’s action after losing in a lower court.
The Supreme Court did not issue an immediate ruling.
Walker last year cut the amount available for dividends after lawmakers failed to agree on a plan to address the state’s budget deficit.
Wielechowski argues that the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. was required by law to make available nearly $1.4 billion from the fund’s earnings reserve for dividends despite Walker’s veto.
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Original Story – by Jennifer Williams
The Alaska Supreme court will be hearing arguments on Tuesday, June 20, in a lawsuit over the Permanent Fund Dividends.
Bill Wielechowski, the East Anchorage Senator, is appealing a recent Judge’s ruling from November against his challenge to Governor Walker partially veto of the Dividends to Alaska residents last year.
Wielechowski has argued the transfer of money for the annual dividends does not need to be an annual appropriation, but the state argued that the money allocated for dividends is subject to a line-item veto.
The PFD wouldn’t be possible without the oil from Prudhoe Bay, and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which began in today, in 1977. This day 40 years ago, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company has moved more than 17 billion barrels of oil to the Valdez Terminal.
BP which operates all of the facilities in Prudhoe Bay stated that the field has beyond exceeded the initial projections set for it, and has become the most productive US oil field ever.