Single Page
Sen. Gary Stevens on proposed oil tax cuts: 'Inexcusable trustfulness'EDITOR'S NOTE: On Wednesday at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Senate President Gary Stevens addressed Commonwealth North at the organization's annual legislative meet and greet. His speech covered issues facing the Legislature in its upcoming session, including the petroleum tax reduction bill, HB 110. Reproduced below is a copy of his prepared remarks. To listen to the senator's speech as it was delivered, click here. Senators Meyer, French, Wielechowski, Davis, and Menard attended. Thank you for inviting me to speak. Frankly, you’ve got a lot of nerve. I stand before you as the recipient of an “F” from the Alaska Chamber of Commerce and the Resource Development Council. Legislators were given grades by these organizations -- apparently based on our support or lack of it for the governor’s oil tax bill, HB 110. So, the biggest issue facing the Legislature this year is state oil taxes. Big surprise, right? This has been the biggest issue for many years running. All Representatives who got A’s voted for the governor's oil tax bill, while those of us who got D’s and F’s either voted against it in the House, or like myself, dared to question it in the Senate. Former Gov. Jay Hammond was a constituent of mine for several years after he left office. Hammond liked to quote Article 8, Section 2 of the Alaska Constitution:
That’s people, not businesses or corporations but the people of Alaska -- You. It’s a very unusual constitution in this regard. Now, you should know, I love the oil industry. I want to see more oil flowing through the pipeline. Oil provides jobs to Alaskans as well as lots of jobs to outsiders. But it is our oil, and Prudhoe Bay belongs to us. It is true oil pays the bills here in Alaska. Some 90 percent of our annual revenue comes from oil taxes. So, we like you, we respect you, and we need you. We want you to be profitable. So let’s not forget the Constitution or Jay Hammond. But, to be fair, let’s not forget the abuses we have suffered at the hands of the oil industry. Remember Edmund Burke’s famous quotation, "Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it." I don’t want to dwell on those abuses, but I would ask you to remember just three events in our historic relations with the industry, so we won’t repeat them. Surprisingly enough, so many Alaskans don’t know or remember these events:
Those three events are not the only abuses we have experienced. These are just the three I’d like you to remember. Alaska v. Amarada Hess was a court case which found that from 1977 to 1992 companies were guilty of “deliberate falsification in computing the price paid to Alaska for its royalty oil.” And ended with the judge saying that we, the state, were guilty of “inexcusable trustfulness” in dealing with the oil companies. You did get that, didn’t you? The judge said we trusted the oil companies too much. That we were guilty of inexcusable trustfulness. WOW. I think you can get into heaven for that. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was a disaster I well remember. With enormous damage to Prince William Sound, the Alaska Oil Spill Commission said Alaskans were abused in Exxon’s approach towards risk management saying the company showed “a corporate culture of irresponsibility” and was unwilling to jeopardize profit when it came to safety and risk mitigation. HB110, How they voted: http://www.votesmart.org/bill/votes/34342 Of 25 Republicans in the House - only two voted against HB110. If we continue to blindly vote Republicans into office, there will be a price to pay. Wow, since Steven’s talk, I’ve been trying to get a handle on what materialized allowing this “report card” stink to take root. After looking at the organizational makeup of The Alaska Chamber, Alaska Support Industry Alliance, Resource Development Council and Prosperity Alaska I now realize how a Jew, liberal, Gypsy and a few others must have felt in 1931 when absolutely surrounded by Storm Troopers, the Schutztaffel (SS), and Hitler’s financial and industrial cronies. Alaska is currently overwhelmed by these moneyed demagogues and their subordinate lackeys attempting to fleece the hard core Alaskan. Just look around you, they have many of our gullible public absolutely believing that unless we throw open the Alaskan treasury to Big Oil, no more oil well flow, and no more exploration will take place. While the truth is, out of 25 top petroleum producing countries, the net revenue kept by governments after all expenses of production and transportation have been deducted from the gross— Alaska and the federal government take 73% of net in taxes and/or royalty. Norway is second at 74% then it goes up, the highest three include Iraq at 98%. Alaska guarantees the highest profit return for the oil industry of any of these. I should have paid more attention while attending a pitch by Trond-Eric Johansen, head of Alaska Conco-Phillips, at the ANC Chamber lunch back on Oct 10th, when I noticed lurking throughout the tables was Dave Harbour, passing some sort of petition. Remember Harbour, the Anchorage Parking Meter Fairies put his name into infamy a few years back? So I should have realized he was up to something. Turned out his petition was a precursor to this demeaning report card charade. Strange though, as the lunch was October 10th and apparently Harbour became a salaried quasi-state employee on Oct. 4th as Director of External Affairs of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. What are we doing? Paying our own employees to sabotage our legislative process? Or does this simply hearken back to the days of Bill Allen’s VECO? Pretty good article. I don't like that Gary Stevens took money from Bill Allen during the bribery time frame, but I do believe Alaskans best interests are his first priority. Voters - If you like the idea that your legislators want to "inexcusably trust" the oil companies, keep those legislators in office. Check how your legislators voted on HB110 last year, and vote accordingly next election cycle. "It gives away billions of dollars in taxes to the oil industry. Upwards of $9 to $10 billion of your money with very little in return to Alaska." Spoken like a true communist. Why don't we tax them at 100% since its our money? Flush this turd down the toilet, along with the rest of his queer "coalition." Btw, I noticed there's an error in Sen. Steven's signature line. It should read: Senator Steven's is a RINO from Kodiak. The minute you start labelling someone as a commie or a turd, you prominently identify yourself as a tool who can't formulate a substantive, counter viewpoint. Congratulations for disqualifying yourself from serious consideration. Besides, you might be a homophobe for your own hidden guilts about your own orientation. Senator Gary Stevens for Governor! Thank you Senator Stevens for standing for the people of Alaska, and not solely for an industry who finds it easier to fearfully shake down the state for more profits by buying legislators with tens of thousands in campaign contributions, (which seems to have embarrassed Representative Chennault, if you have listened to oil-lobby radio central lately) rather than invest their RECORD profits by re-plowing them BACK into Alaska to increase lease production, applying all that new efficient production technology (fracking) that is looking to add shale oil and shale gas to the mixture in Alaska! The effective(actual) production tax rate under ACES never exceeds 50%, when credits and deductions are taken for new production infrastructure and from infield drilling. For the companies to use the "marginal" rate as a measure of comparison to other oil provinces is an intellectual lie. If we`re going to touch the tax system again for Pete`s sake, do a proper state AUDIT over time first, using COMPUTERS this time. Don`t tear the guts out of a good tax system that appears by all measurable indications to be working as intended (the exception would be the loud whining of the oil non-producers through all their rubber stamped media shills, cloaking themselves under party/politics patriotism (we`re patriotic and your not...) The progressivity section was put into ACES as a windfall profits tax so the people of Alaska could share some of the periodically "spiking" value of our resources. That wasn`t possible under PPT or ACES as the value was figured over a YEARLY price average rather than monthly, which it is now. Prior to ACES if oil shot to 150 dollars for three weeks straight then dropped down to 120, that`s a 30 dollars per barrel increase in value that Alaskans could never share in. ACES fixed that by averaging the value "monthly" for tax purposes rather than "yearly", and it`s a far fairer deal for the state. Do an audit on it if you must, but don`t tear the guts out of it in a rancorous legislative session ruled more by emotion and threats than facts. That is why an audit is called for if ACES is to be amended in any committee and tossed to the floor, tying up yet another session in an oil tax fight. Let the state tax auditors do their jobs for once. Dear Sen Stevens: When the pipeline shuts down because of insufficient throughput, then and only then will you be able to trust the producers. Check. Until then maybe you could put your big boy pants on and try and keep that from happening - you incredibly gifted public servant who should be keelhauled along with all of the other badge of honor recipients. BREAKING NEWS: State predicts oil production to drop to 574,000 barrels per day in fiscal 2012 Read more: http://www.alaskajournal.com/#ixzz1ggFOlwZB So looking forward to next November's election cycle so we can finally fix Alaska's broken and non-representative 'bipartisan' senate. Enough already of those in the senate so skilled at saying NO to Alaska's future economy, it's just so easy for these buffoons to say NO. How about a senate organization with leadership and representation that can get off their duff and find Solution's for a change. Thanks for the Census process and resulting redistricting. November will be here soon enough, until then expect more naysayer jibberish like Steven's during the session. Believe in change because it's coming to the Senate. Ain't going to happen Jon. It takes a change of six Senators for oil and gas companies to own the Senate. At most there will be a change of two seats - with a likely a net change of 0 seats to the bipartisan/pro-Alaskans majority. And in the House, those who voted for HB110 (the giveaway of the public's money with nothing promised in return) are facing a backlash. My representative has some serious explaining to do of his vote in favor of HB110. He works for you and me, not ConocoPhillips. I am glad you spelled your first name out: You are no Jay Hammond. |
Comments