Dunleavy, Glenfarne claimed no tax cut was needed for gas line a year ago
Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Glenfarne, the leaders of the Alaska Gas Development Corporation and other Republican politicians claimed a year ago that the Alaska LNG project needed no state property tax cut.
The Legislature should keep out of the way and allow Glenfarne to work its magic, they said.
But now the same people are claiming that without a gigantic tax cut the project will die.
And anyone who asks questions is attacked by political gasbags as someone who wants to kill the pipeline.
All I want to know is what happened?
Were they lying a year ago? Was it an honest mistake? Were they uninformed about market conditions? How could they have been so wrong? Were they trying to hide something?
Is Glenfarne trying to make the project seem more valuable because a lower tax rate means there is more alleged potential value if Glenfarne walks away and seeks compensation from AGDC?
And does this have anything to do with the folly of putting blind faith in Donald Trump to use his alleged energy dominance to force Japan, Korea and Taiwan to pay for the pipeline?
Whatever the case, the conflicting claims need to be addressed by the Alaska Legislature during its special session. We deserve the truth.
The flood of letters and columns claiming that the gas line lives or dies on the basis of the 90 percent tax break never mention what was promised a year ago.
Why believe the hysteria Dunleavy is whipping up now when a year ago there was none?
Missing from most of the news coverage of the legislative debate is an examination of why everyone said the current property tax system was acceptable to Glenfarne in the spring and summer of 2025.
Here is a look at what Glenfarne, Dunleavy, AGDC, Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich the Third said a year ago:
Former House Speaker Mike Chenault, appointed by Dunleavy to the AGDC board, made the most direct warning last year about the danger of the Legislature doing anything on the project. This was when he testified to the Joint Legislative Budget & Audit Commitee on April 23, 2025.
"I believe that if the Legislature gets involved that this project will go away," Chenault said.
The Legislature created AGDC as an independent corporation and should allow it to proceed, he said.
"I thought I heard a statement that if the Legislature gets involved in this, this project will go away," Sen. Bill Wielechowski said, asking Chenault about whether the Legislature should exercise oversight and delve into the details of the secret AGDC contract with Glenfarne.
"I believe that if we start changing the terms of the statutes then that creates indecision. And that will cause the project to possibly go away. I don't know that for a fact, but I believe that's what will happen," Chenault said.
Chenault never mentioned that the project would die without a tax cut.
Warren Christian, chairman of the AGDC board, wrote in early April 2025 that “Alaska LNG has been determined to be economically viable. No additional feasibility studies are required for private investment. Wood Mackenzie found that Alaska LNG can deliver LNG to Asia at prices lower than competing US Gulf Coast projects.”
Christian never mentioned that the project would die without a tax cut.
During a April 9, 2025 hearing before the Legislative Budget & Audit Committee, Rep. Zack Fields asked if the secret agreement between AGDC and Glenfarne included language under which Glenfarne was promised a reduction in property taxes.
Frank Richards, the CEO of AGDC, mentioned this 2024 Wood Mackenzie study that analyzed a 90 percent reduction in property taxes as a way of making gas more affordable, but said that was not what Glenfarne was asking. Or what it had agreed to, he said.
Richards said “there’s no consideration for property taxes. The existing statutes are what are in place and will be abided by.”
Richards never mentioned that the project would die without a tax cut.
The company showed a short video that included the statement: “Despite some market misconceptions, the Alaska LNG project is an economically attractive, competitively priced source of reliably delivered LNG for Asian buyers, with or without government support.”
Duval outlined the work for the rest of 2025 that would focus on financing, loans and final engineering, with the goal of issuing a notice to proceed by December 2025.
“That gives us 2026 to do a lot of the detailed engineering, the detailed planning, issue the purchase orders into the steel mills, so they can send the steel to the pipe mills and then we’ll start stockpiling pipe towards the second half of next year (2026) so we can hit the construction seasons of 2027, 2028,” he said.
The pipeline would be done by 2029. He said there was a lot of “derisking” to be done, but he didn’t talk about property tax as a risk.
Duval never mentioned that the project would die without a tax cut.
Dunleavy did not mention that property taxes were so high that they made the project uneconomic. Instead, Dunleavy predicted that Glenfarne would be able to put the project together pretty rapidly and he was upbeat. No legislative action was required.
“Well the governor makes it so easy,” Duval said last year. “The reality is everyone in this room knows megaprojects are difficult.”
But Duval said he agreed with Dunleavy that almost everything was in place to go forward. “As odd as it sounds, it is just hard to believe how much is lined up here. And once you break it down into the pieces, then the scale of it becomes less, less daunting. So there’s no doubt this is gonna be really, really hard and a lot of angst, but it really is a tremendous opportunity.”
“Confidence level—are we gonna have a pipeline here in a few years?” Dunleavy asked Duval in 2025.
“I’ve put my name on it and when I put my name on something I’m stuck. I’ve got to get it done. The fundamentals allowed me to do that with good decision making, not rolling the dice. So the answer’s yes,” Duval said last year.
On April 4, 2025, Dunleavy predicted that a final investment decision would come by last summer.
"We’ll be making some final decision investments, at least Glenfarne will, which is the outfit that is the private investor and lead in this project, probably by August, September at the very latest,” Dunleavy told Fox Business.
"It would be 60 years, I think, of prosperity," Dunleavy told Stuart Varney. "You know, very importantly, it would provide fuel for our bases. Alaska has a number of military bases.”
Dunleavy never mentioned that the project would die without a tax cut.
On April 10, 2025, Sen. Dan Sullivan claimed to Fox News that “We’re talking about laying pipe as early as the end of this year, the beginning of next year. Think about the jobs that would come with that.”
“The estimates are 15 to 20,000 thousand jobs. This would be one of the biggest construction projects in American history. And it’s got President Trump’s name all over it, cause if it happens, it will be largely due to him,” Sullivan said. The project “makes complete sense” just from a business perspective.
“When you get long-term secure off-take agreements from buyers, that’s a really key component of being able to finance a project. So if we get those agreements, particularly with the president and his team making them part of these reciprocal trade agreements, then you can finance theses agreements and start to build them,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan never mentioned that the project would die without a tax cut.
“Right now, as many as 50 companies from across the globe - including allies in Asia, Europe, and India, have expressed interest in liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Alaska. This is not mere speculation. It’s serious demand backed by serious capital that is aligned to unlock and export clean, reliable energy,” said Begich.
“The Alaska LNG project, backed by Glenfarne Group and now prioritized as a national energy and trade asset, represents a turning point,” said Begich.
Begich never mentioned the project would die without a tax cut.
Though they never mention what they claimed a year ago, Dunleavy, Glenfarne, the AGDC and others are now saying the project will die without a tax cut. More on that next.
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