Bad Bill of the Week: SB 286 – Two Miles, One Target: The Dalton Highway Toll That Misses the Mark
The latest version of the proposed toll on a short stretch of the James Dalton Highway doesn’t just raise concerns—it sharpens them.
This bill carefully carves out who pays and who doesn’t. Vehicles tied to oil and gas activity are tolled. Others are not. That means within the same two-mile segment of public road, the state is picking winners and losers based not on impact, but on affiliation.
The bill then goes a step further by mandating that operators—truckers and contractors—front the cost and seek reimbursement from oil and gas companies within 30 days. If payment doesn’t come, they’re expected to take legal action to recover it, with the promise of attorney’s fees if they win. In effect, the state inserts a new layer of administrative burden and potential litigation into everyday commerce, shifting enforcement from government to private parties.
That’s not efficient policy—it’s a workaround.
If the goal is to fund maintenance, Alaska already has tools to do that broadly and transparently. Instead, this approach isolates a narrow slice of road, targets a single industry, and relies on a reimbursement scheme that invites disputes.
And the precedent matters. Today it’s two miles near Deadhorse. Tomorrow, it could be any stretch of road tied to a specific user group. Once the state starts segmenting public infrastructure and assigning costs based on who it thinks should pay, the line between user fee and selective taxation begins to blur.
Alaska’s infrastructure has long been built on shared benefit and shared responsibility. This bill moves in the opposite direction—toward fragmentation, complexity, and unequal treatment under the law.
For a policy that covers just two miles, the implications travel much farther.
From the newsletters of Senator James Kaufman:
What’s not being talked about in Juneau:
There’s a few critical things that I believe that the legislature is falling behind on, such as taking meaningful, proactive steps to assure affordable energy for Alaska. We face a dwindling supply of natural gas in Cook Inlet. Potential refined petroleum product shortages increase prices on Alaskans in Anchorage and even more so in rural Alaska.
The conflict in Iran and neighboring countries has brought higher oil prices which brings more revenue to the state, but comes with raised costs for families, businesses, schools, and local governments across Alaska.
In rural communities, where fuel is already much more expensive and is barged or flown in, price spikes can have an incredible impact. A significant amount of the refined products delivered to much of rural Alaska come from east Asia refineries that are experiencing reduced supplies of crude oil which is affecting their ability to produce and export refined products. Thankfully, this is happening at a time where we are going into the summer months, but I believe that this will become a huge issue going forward that we will have to address at the state level.
Meanwhile, closer to home, there has been endless debate and numerous committee hearings about the prospect of building the gas pipeline, which I hope will result in enabling real progress on moving the project forward.
Somewhat lost in the shuffle is a growing need to address what the railbelt will do for natural gas in the near term, as we still have the looming issue of waning gas supply in Cook Inlet. We’re getting to a point where, at least in its current state of production, our railbelt gas supply may not meet the needs of the next long deepfreeze middle of winter event.
I feel that the legislature and executive branch should be working together much more cooperatively to hammer out a realistic energy management plan that can get everyone pulling in the same direction in pursuit of reliable and affordable energy for the near, mid, and long-term timeframe.
While there are a lot of legitimate questions and issues surrounding the gas line, what has stunned me in the last year has been the attitude that I’ve seen from some people in the legislature that all they care about is how much money the state will get from the gas line. These people don’t care about lowering energy costs for households, the potential expansion of mining and other industries that can happen with lower cost energy, or the wider economic development that surrounds a project of this magnitude.
Senator Robert Myers: Lawmakers Risk Tanking Alaska Gasline In Pursuit of Short-Term Revenue
For the 2025-26 Legislature, I’ve been serving on the Senate Natural Resources Committee. The committee has spent a significant amount of time collecting information and weighing various proposals regarding the gas line. I’ve spent a significant amount of my own time reading to prepare for those hearings and to gather my own information on the project.
While there are a lot of legitimate questions and issues surrounding the gas line, what has stunned me in the last year has been the attitude that I’ve seen from some people in the legislature that all they care about is how much money the state will get from the gas line. These people don’t care about lowering energy costs for households, the potential expansion of mining and other industries that can happen with lower cost energy, or the wider economic development that surrounds a project of this magnitude. The bottom line to the state treasury is the only thing that matters. It’s not every legislator or probably even a majority, but it is a large portion. Let me explain why that attitude exists.
People care more about something when it is where their livelihood comes from. It’s a cynical take, but government is the same way: it cares about where its money comes from. The gas line is projected to bring is serious money, with estimates being somewhere in the $800 million per year range. But that compares to the $4 billion that we will bring in from the Permanent Fund draw this year. To the state, that seems small enough that we can live without it. And that is not factoring in the costs that come with it.
For every other state, that would not be the calculation. While any state would love the gas royalties and taxes, the calculation would be primarily aimed at that larger economic growth that comes from the gas use in state. Every other state has some kind of broad-based tax (sales, income, property) that relies on that wider economic activity to generate revenue. Our municipalities do that and are more supportive of the project as a result, but our state does not.
To make it worse, all of that potential revenue growth is years away. We hope to get gas to Alaskans by 2029, but the real money for the state won’t kick in until the export portion starts up about 2031. Politicians already have an incentive to think in the short term because of election cycles, and construction of this project will go over at least two if not three cycles. Most politicians are focused on the short-term impacts that will happen during that time period.
