Two Anchorage lawmakers stood outside Barnes & Noble in Midtown Anchorage today, gathering signatures for the referendum to repeal Gov. Sean Parnell’s oil tax overhaul. The bill narrowly passed at the end of this year’s legislative session. It’s expected to lower taxes on oil companies by hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
…Thank you…Hollis, I’ll talk to you about that resolution, OK? Yeah, OK?”
French is optimistic the referendum will make it on the ballot and pass. He says Alaskans should be able to decide whether the bill is a good idea.
“I believe they’ll say lets go back to the drawing board. And pass a bill that stimulates development in new fields, stimulates heavy oil development but doesn’t give away the farm on the legacy fields. That’s the basic idea, we think there’s a smarter way to do oil tax reform,” French said.
The referendum effort needs 30,000 signatures by July 13. They have about 8,000 so far.
