The Senate bill to close the glaring loophole that enriches billionaire Jeff Hildebrand to the tune of $100 million a year or more moved out of the Senate Resources Committee Wednesday.

The Legislature should have closed the Hilcorp loophole in 2019 when he bought out BP. Since then many hundreds of millions that could have gone to state services, including the Permanent Fund Dividend, went to Hildebrand’s pockets in Texas.

The oil industry propaganda, which is thoughtlessly copied and repeated year after year, never mentions this high-stakes cash flow Outside.

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Tuesday was the perfect day for Randy Ruaro to release the “robust, independent analysis” of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority that was completed more than a year ago and kept secret.

Not because it was April Fools’ Day, but because the Alaska House and Senate held a joint meeting of their state affairs committees.

Legislators should have demanded to see what they received for the $250,000 contract.

Ruaro addressed the topic “What is AIDEA and how does it benefit Alaskans?”

There is no better document to answer that question about benefits than the study prepared for AIDEA and completed more than a year ago by Northern Economics of Anchorage for $250,000.

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The habit of promoters to inflate themselves to the point of bursting with grandiose claims is worrisome, given the half-century history of exploding gas line bubbles.

Glenfarne CEO Brendan Duval said his company operates plants in Louisiana and Texas that have not been built yet.

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Sen. Dan Sullivan, during his speech to the Legislature, exaggerated his role in the passage of the Social Security Fairness Act and didn’t mention that he opposed the bill until it was clear that the measure would be approved by the full Senate.

Sullivan, who is running for reelection in 2026, became a born-again champion of the bill after it was approved.

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Alaska politicians are looking at all this and saying once again that a pipeline is closer than ever. What they aren’t saying out loud is that their new confidence is based on the dream that Trump’s blackmail threats will work.

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Among the renewable energy projects on an Trump hit list is a $50 million grant to back a major energy storage project in Healy for the Golden Valley Electric Association, the news site Popular Information reports.

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There was a lot of competition, Sullivan’s was one of the dumbest statements from anyone in the U.S. government, with Sullivan claiming the contents of the leaked information about attack plans demonstrated the competence of Team Trump.

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Barbara Haney did repeat and amplify Suzanne Downing’s lie that the Fairbanks protest was the work of imported characters brought to the Golden Heart City specially for the occasion.

Haney did this in a limited way on Facebook under her own name and more directly on X, formerly known as Twitter, where she does not use her real name but self-identifies as “Steamboat Landing.”

The Fairbanks protest was “protest tourism” and was “paid for by the 50501 fund—the Bernie Bros,” Haney/Steamboat Landing said.

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Marvin Roberts has won his case against the City of Fairbanks for wrongful conviction. The settlement is $11.5 million.

Here is a press release from his attorney, Fairbanksan Mike Kramer, of the law firm Kramer and Cosgrove.

“I don’t think any amount of money will be enough to justify what I endured as an innocent man in prison,” Roberts was quoted as saying.

“This settlement, however, give me freedom with my life, and most importantly, more time with my daughter and my parents, who supported me throughout the nightmare.”

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The president of the school board and the city mayor complained at length on KFAR Monday about my blog post headlined “Alaska Republicans invent lie that 200 Fairbanks protesters were imported actors.”

In the process, School Board President Melissa Burnett and Mayor David Pruhs misrepresented the contents of that blog post. Now I admit the headline could have been toned down, but nothing in that blog post was inaccurate.

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