No one envies the Alaska Legislature being called back into a second special session on the proposed liquefied natural gas pipeline. One wonders if legislators are being held hostage to the governor’s predetermined decision. While the benefits of an LNG project are easily imagined, the economic risks of the Alaska LNG project must not be ignored.

Alaskans are not assured that Glenfarne, the company that was granted 75% of this project in an undisclosed document, won’t just flip it — sell it — to another entity after it gains billions of dollars in concessions from Alaska. Why the sudden change by Glenfarne and the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation from saying no legislative action was needed to the recent assertion that billions of dollars in property tax reductions are now necessary? It is without question that local municipalities will collectively incur hundreds of millions of dollars in direct impact costs.

Will Alaska give away another resource “farm” again? How would Alaska respond if the LNG project stalls and our resource continues to be a stranded asset? No purchaser has signed on the dotted line to actually buy fixed quantities of our gas. Are prospective purchasers interested? Yes. Have they signed binding contracts? No.

Russia has natural gas pipelines flowing into China. Russia has substantial volume to sell, having lost its natural gas sales to Europe after invading Ukraine. China currently produces 60% of its oil and natural gas needs by fracking its resources in western China. What would keep the Chinese from selling their or Russian natural gas to Alaska’s potential customers in Asia?

Natural gas prices have remained steady, which says there is plenty of it. Can Alaska’s project, including costly export facilities, be built at a cost that allows it to compete?

Legislators, please respond. But don’t sell out the interests of Alaskans. Glenfarne’s and AGDC’s lack of truthful answers raises many red flags. The correct decision is to let Glenfarne pay for its project. If it can’t or won’t, it isn’t economic.

Patrice Lee is a 49 year resident of Alaska, a retired math and science teacher, and a former elected member of the Interior Gas Utility Board of Directors. She lives in Fairbanks.

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Widening income inequality and a growing number of U.S. billionaires is supercharging the political debate around wealth taxes, at both the national and local level. Democratic lawmakers and candidates, including some from the party’s energized democratic socialist wing, are promising to impose new levies on the über-wealthy should they win control of Congress, citing both fiscal and moral imperatives. Many blue states and cities are exploring similar measures, even as critics warn of high-income residents fleeing to lower-tax red states.

A key test will come this fall in California, where voters will decide whether to impose a one-time 5% tax on the state’s billionaires. The Golden State has a history of pioneering policy ideas via ballot initiatives.

Supporters say the ballot measure, sponsored by a healthcare workers union, would generate needed funds to cover rising healthcare costs for low-income people. Critics – including Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom – say it could decimate the state’s tax base by driving wealthy people away. Opposition groups, funded in large part by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, have spent over $100 million to try to defeat the initiative. They are backing two counterinitiatives that would undercut the billionaire tax and that will also appear on this November’s ballot.

“What happens in California is going to determine the course of what happens in this country on this issue,” said California Rep. Ro Khanna, who supports the billionaire tax, on a call with reporters last month. “This fight is defining, for what type of Democratic Party we’re going to be.”

Taxing the rich has long been a familiar refrain among Democrats. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been calling for wealth taxes for decades, and President Joe Biden proposed a billionaire tax in 2024. With the top 1% holding nearly one-third of household wealth in the United States, efforts to impose new levies on high-net-worth individuals have been gaining traction.

In Washington state, which historically has not had an income tax, legislators this spring passed a 9.9% tax on incomes over $1 million. Opponents there are mobilizing behind a referendum to repeal the measure, which appears headed for the November ballot. Maine’s governor this spring signed into law a new income tax surcharge on incomes exceeding $1 million, and legislatures in Minnesota and Rhode Island have passed similar measures.

In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani won a historic victory last fall with a campaign that promised to impose new taxes on the wealthy while making life more affordable for ordinary New Yorkers. While New York legislators have not moved ahead on Mr. Mamdani’s biggest tax proposals, in May they passed a tax on second homes worth more than $1 million.