Alaska Dispatch

Proposals to institute a death penalty in Alaska and to create a law against price gouging by refiners may not be moving far, if at all, this session.

Speaking with reporters on Monday morning, House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, said he hasn't decided how much weight, if any, he'll put behind his bill to institute the death penalty.

Introduced last year, the bill is highly controversial. It's also one of those issues that falls on the far right of the political spectrum. That means lawmakers running for re-election this year may tread carefully in support or opposition. And, as happened last session, the Senate's bipartisan majority isn't likely to disturb its coalition with hot-button social issues.

And now to gas gouging. Rep. Kurt Olson, R-Kenai, chairs the House Labor and Commerce Committee, which has sat on a bill supported by House Democrats that would make it illegal for refiners to sell fuel at "exorbitant or excessive prices."

Rep. Pete Petersen, D-Anchorage, filed the bill early last session.

Olson said the bill isn't going to move, and pointed at a couple of reports that found no illegal pricing or behavior by refiners, following those nightmare fuel prices of 2008.

"There's just not enough to work with on that bill," Olson told reporters. "Unless it comes back in a different version, it's dead."

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