By ALEX GIMARC
July 21, 2026 – Now that the Alaska Senate majority managed to cram so many poison pills into HB 381 that it was no longer acceptable to the House or the governor, what do we do next? More importantly, who do we do it to?
The final version of the bill out of committee was horrendous. Not only did it include multiple provisions never discussed in conference but it hid the results from minority members of the conference committee (the two minority members never saw the final product that the majority conspired to write), but the final product was embargoed from the entire Legislature for a couple days until unveiled at the last minute for the vote to pass it.
Bad faith negotiations weren’t sufficient, so the majority needed to spring a last minute take it or leave it trap, one which the House wisely rejected.
What did they reject? They rejected the Senate Majority Caucus attempt to screw over Hillcorp by changing their corporate tax structure, the worst poison pill. For if the majority can screw over Hillcorp after the fact today, so then can they screw over Glenfarne tomorrow by changing the taxation legislation well after the infrastructure is built and operational.
In short, the senate majority decided screwing over Hillcorp and denying Gov. Mike Dunleavy the ability to announce a project agreement was more important than actually having a gasline.
I am not smart enough to know if the economics of the long gasline pencil out. But I am smart enough to know that Alaska is not the only player in this space today, as the Canadians are reportedly making the rounds of customers Glenfarne signed up for Alaskan natural gas offering their product while the Alaska legislature decides who to screw next.
What do we do about this? One reasonable response would be to remove as many members of the senate and house majority caucuses from the political gene pool as soon as possible. Every single house member is up for reelection in November. Half the senate is also. My target list as a conservative would start with Republicans who cross over to caucus with democrats and move on to remove democrats. Here is the membership list for the Senate Majority Caucus. Here is the one for the House.
In this sort of who to remove from office, it is important to remember that while the RINOs who crossed the aisle to caucus with democrats should always be the first target and the anti-gasline Senate leadership (Bill Wielechowski, Cathy Giessel, Loki Tobin, Bert Stedman) the second. Never forget all the rest of the Democrats who put that leadership in charge and sat on their hands, pretending to be reasonable, while conveniently staying out of the public eye as the leadership destroyed this opportunity. In the Senate, this would include Matt Claman and Elvi Gray-Jackson. There are others, but you get the idea.
Today, the worst obstruction comes from the state Senate. That will not remain the case in future legislatures, as the lead gets handed off between the House and Senate majority caucuses (it’s always the other guy’s fault). Regardless of who is in the lead, the underlying problem is always Republicans who choose to caucus with Democrats putting them in charge. Remove enough of both from the political gene pool and that problem disappears. This will be our job during the next couple of election cycles.
Remember that in the current festivities, the House was well behaved, though that doesn’t carry much weight, nor is it predictive of the future, as we may very well be watching a rope a dope with the house and senate majorities trading leads playing bad cop, worse cop with future legislation.
Either way, we know who the enemy is. Time to start removing them from the political gene pool. Failure to even make an attempt will doom this state to a bleak economic future.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
8 thoughts on “Alex Gimarc: Who killed HB 381? Alaska voters should remember the names”
No worries, Glenfarne will just move onward to other investment opportunities. And, the AK LNG Project will just get put back on-the-shelf for another decade, maybe a century.
As for Alaska and Alaskans, we’ll be inundated with lots of back-n-forth, an endless amount of wordy excuses and accusations, and lots of finger pointing. At the end of the day, the project won’t get built, Fairbanks and Anchorage won’t be fed the critically important Natural Gas, and Donlan Gold Project will have to pivot from Natural Gas to Deisel Fired Power Generation (if they plan to move forward with the project). We’ll be forced to ‘import’ gas from someplace other than Alaska.
Good Job!!!
“……..We’ll be forced to ‘import’ gas from someplace other than Alaska………”
Yup. Alaskan gas my ass! We’re gonna’ be buying Canadian gas!
As long as supposedly conservative parts of the state like Nikiski (Jesse Bjorkman) and Eagle River (Kelly Merrick) send left leaning “Republicans” to Juneau that caucus with Democrats there’s little the rest of the state can do.
Steve-0; Without North Slope Oil Companies approval of phase 2 pipeline with Nikiski as an export terminal investors likely would not be interested in investing only in phase 1 pipeline because there is no money to be made. Oil Companies also do not want competition with their overseas and Gulf of America LNG portfolio’s.
Rate payers could never come up with enough money to build phase 1 LNG line or phase2.
Summarized opinion; Alaska’s Legislature is being used as a scapegoat for the failure of Dunleavy and the Oil Companies to get the gas line built.
Alaskans need to very seriously ask themselves if Alaska has been better off during the time that Senators Wielechowski, Giessel and Stedman – particularly Stedman – have been in office. For myself, I have concluded that Alaska has been in SERIOUS decline. Nothing new or good has happened in the last ten years. Population and incomes have declined; educational outcomes have cratered; downtown Anchorage looks like a dystopian nightmare. IMO, it is no coincidence that these three Senators have held power. Now, it appears that these three have killed the gasline. Some new leaders need to be found.
I didn’t need another reason to vote againstClaman. Hes been on my hell, No!! List for a long time
Humility reminder. Before changing legislators. You first have to change the way the district voters vote. Either move into the district get involved to flip its community council or get involved in increasing voter registration to get voters change their registration to Republican increase the Republican voter turnout.
Because I doubt AkGOP won’t see much of a change in the 2027 AK legislature, Republicans likely will remain a minority in the Senate and House. All those Republicans ( if they really were Republicans) who moved to the Kenai peninsula, Fairbanks region, or Matsu region. They probably should move back to Anchorage and start reorganizing in their districts. They have nothing to lose while Matsu will be blue in a few short years and Kenai is head to be blue. The social issues and government dependency we see in Anchorage is already rearing its ugly head in Wasilla. Now. I can’t go visit without seeing three Hobos bumming at the street corners and I seen one hobo bumming at the Palmer Fred Meyer’s.
AKGOP needs to fight hard to maintain its representation and maintain seats it holds in the 2026 legislature, maintain the US Senate and US House seat.
But its real fight is maintaining the Governor office having a real Republican sitting in the Governor’s chair from 2027-2035 just to keep the left from moving the state left any further than where it sits today.