Just five days remain until the end of the special session Governor Mike Dunleavy (R – Alaska) called for his gasline bill. The House overwhelmingly passed their version of the bill on Friday (6/12/2026) afternoon. The Senate is coming in tomorrow to receive the House bill, which will be referred to the Senate Finance Committee. It’s not clear what will happen with such little time left and factoring in the Senate has very different ideas than the House on the bill. After opening an investigation, the Division of Elections has determined that Dan Sullivan of Petersburg (Decoy Dan) is ineligible to challenge Senator Dan Sullivan (R – Alaska). The matter may ultimately be decided by the courts if Decoy Dan decides to go that route. The June 27 withdrawal deadline for the primary is 13 days away. And just over two months remain until the August 18 primary! 

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Check out the eleventh episode of Governor Peninsula! In this episode, after deciding not to run for the Den, Nancy finds out she has a big job to do. And make sure to tell us what you think.

Gasline bill overwhelmingly passes House, faces uncertainty in Senate

The following is an excerpt from this week’s special edition of the Alaska Political Report. You can click here for more information about the Political Report. A subscription is $1,299/year per organization. Discounted pricing is available for non-profits and government entities. Our coverage of the budget starts with the governor’s proposed budget, and we track everything in detail through the entire process. If you have any questions or would like to subscribe, please email jeff@akpoliticalreport.com.

The House overwhelmingly passed their version of the gasline bill, House Bill 381, early Friday afternoon by a vote of 34-5. This came after hearing only four amendments – one of which was withdrawn, two of which failed, and one passed that was a cleanup amendment. 

The bill was the result of work done in the House Finance Committee over the last several weeks. Several amendments were adopted in the finance committee last week, including many conceptual amendments that were done on the fly. This made it difficult to properly analyze all of the changes made to the bill in the finance committee. Here are some highlights:

• Alternative Volumetric Tax (AVT): The House version includes 6 cents for pipeline components, 13 cents for treatment and capture components, and 13 cents for the LNG plant. This is an increase from the 6/12/12 amounts included in Senate Bill 2001 – the version currently in Senate Finance. Based on the example given by Legislative Finance in a recent presentation to Senate Finance, this would result in a roughly 4% increase in the tax rate for in-state gas and a 7% increase for exported gas over the Senate version of the bill. The tax rate grows with inflation but the inflation adjustment has a floor of 1% per year and a ceiling of 2%.
• The new version of the bill limits the price charged on gas sold to utilities. The limit is set at $16 per million BTU and grows with inflation.
• The majority of AVT revenue goes to impacted communities and will be collected directly by the local governments.
• Provisions are included in the bill to allow for legislative disapproval of certain actions by the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. (AGDC) including issuance of bonds and transfer of sale of interest in the project. Legislative Legal drafted a memo that calls into question the constitutionality of those provisions in the bill. 
• The bill also includes a variety of reporting requirements for AGDC regarding project cost and activity.

Most House members left Juneau Friday evening. The Senate is scheduled to gavel in on Monday morning. They will receive the House bill, which will be referred to the Senate Finance Committee. The committee has been holding hearings on their version of the bill for the last several weeks. 

Many senators have different ideas on what kind of gasline legislation should be passed. Some want to add in the S corp tax, while others want to increase other oil taxes and increase revenues for the haul road. There is also disagreement on how long the property tax holiday should last for the gasline. 

It’s hard to predict what the Senate will do, but one thing is certain – the clock is running out for the special session. It ends on June 19.

Another factor is all the bills that were sent to Dunleavy. He must act on those bills by June 18 – one day before the end of the special session. If Dunleavy vetoes a bunch of their bills, it could potentially create a big problem for his gasline bill. 

There are two potential outcomes in the Senate. The more likely outcome is they amend the bill to include some of their priorities and send it back to the House for a concurrence vote. There will not be enough time to work out the differences in a conference committee.

The less likely scenario is they wait to see what Dunleavy does on all the bills that were transmitted to him. If Dunleavy waits until the evening of June 18 to act, the Senate could opt to not pass the bill if Dunleavy vetoes enough priority legislation. The Legislature could decide to hold a joint session on June 19 to take up veto overrides, though they lack the votes to override most of his potential vetoes.  

If the Senate does send the bill back to the House for a concurrence vote, there is no guarantee it will be agreeable to Dunleavy and Glenfarne. In that case, the House could fail to concur with the Senate’s changes. This would kill the bill. Dunleavy would then need to decide if he wants to call them back into another special session. Dunleavy is in D.C. this week and has not indicated what he will do if the Legislature fails to pass a bill he wants.

We are watching things closely and will have updates as they become available. 

Other Happenings 

The Alaska Division of Elections disqualified Decoy Dan Sullivan of Petersburg from challenging Senator Dan Sullivan, at least for now. It’s possible Decoy Dan sues over the matter. But so far the evidence does not look good for him. He filed and changed his voter registration to run as a Republican, though he’s never been registered as a Republican. Then he hired Amber Lee, a Democratic strategies, which is very suspect. If Decoy Dan is up to no good, that is he is running to deliberately try and confuse voters, or if there is a conspiracy behind his candidacy, he might think twice about taking it to the courts. He, Amber Lee, and others could be deposed and have to take the stand at a trial. If they are up to no good, they might decide ending their game is the best move. 

I doubt Julian Chapin, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins‘ communications director will be calling me again. Pro tip, Julian: don’t call up members of the media, or anyone for that matter, and be a condescending asshole. This was one of the weirdest political phone calls I’ve ever received.  

There are 13 days before the June 27 withdrawal deadline for the August 18 primary. So far no one has withdrawn from the governor’s race or any of the 50 legislative races. Two people withdrew from the U.S. Senate race and U.S. House race, but those happened a while ago. After June 27, the primary ballot will be set. There is another withdrawal deadline, August 31, for the general election. 

This Week’s Loose Unit

This week’s designee is a real doozy. This week’s Loose Unit is Anchorage Assembly member George Martinez. 

If you been paying any attention to the news, you would know an Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) complaint was filed against him in February for using campaign funds for a roundtrip flight to Fort Lauderdale, at a cost of $1,255 plus a $1,000 for a carbon offset. He did not even stay in Florida! He just turned right around. The ticket was purchased on December 29, 2025. It’s clear homie was using campaign funds to go on a mileage run. This alone is very loose behavior. But just wait. 

APOC held a hearing on June 3 to look into the matter after staff recommended Martinez pay back the $2,225 and be penalized the same amount for his loose behavior. The Commission’s order following the hearing is maximum loose! I HIGHLY recommend reading it all if you want to laugh. It honestly reads like a satire piece. 

Dude refused to answer questions about the trip, would not disclose how many Atmos points he received or if it put him over for a new status tier, claimed the trip to Florida was for a “strategic session” to work on his campaign, and said the $1,000 carbon offset was for his “campaign’s commitment to offset emissions for campaign travel.” The funny thing about that is $1,000 is the maximum you can spend for the carbon offset scam to get 5,000 Elite-Qualifying Miles. This guy is the epitome of a Loose Unit!  

Here are just a few highlights.

If you have a nomination for this week’s Loose Unit, or if you have any political news, stories or gossip (or any old pics of politicians or public officials) please email me at jeff@alaskalandmine.com.