A lawmaker casts a vote during a floor session at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau in May 2025. (Marc Lester / ADN archive)

JUNEAU — The Alaska House of Representatives rejected the Senate’s changes to a tax break bill for the proposed Alaska LNG megaproject on Saturday, the first day of a new special session focusing on the legislation.

The House voted 28-12 to reject the changes, instead choosing to send the bill to a conference committee so the two chambers can reach a compromise between their versions of the bill.

The Senate on Saturday afternoon agreed to meet in a conference committee after voting against pulling back its changes to the House-passed legislation.

House Speaker Bryce Edgmon said their intent is for the conference committee to meet over 10 days to come to an agreement on a tax break bill for the project, before the Legislature is set to reconvene July 1 to vote on a new version.

Saturday’s House vote came after the Senate on Friday approved several changes to the bill providing a multimillion-dollar tax break to the Alaska LNG project, including a provision that applies the state’s corporate income tax to project developer Glenfarne and other privately held oil and gas companies in Alaska. Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Glenfarne and leading industry groups said that such a provision will hurt the project’s chances of securing financing.

Late Friday night, Dunleavy sharply criticized the Senate’s changes, saying “this bill right now is not going to work.”

[Previous coverage: Legislature heads into another Alaska LNG special session after governor blasts Senate changes]

Earlier Friday, before the Senate approved its changes, Dunleavy called a second, 30-day special session that would start Saturday for lawmakers to continue working on the tax break bill to facilitate the project’s construction. Dunleavy and Glenfarne, which owns a 75% stake in the project, have been pressing lawmakers for months to put together a steep tax cut package that they say is instrumental to the 800-mile pipeline receiving necessary financing.

Three members of the House will represent the chamber in the conference committee to resolve differences on the legislation: Edgmon, a Dillingham independent, and Rep. Calvin Schrage, an Anchorage independent, who are both members of the bipartisan majority, will be joined by House Minority Whip Justin Ruffridge, a Soldotna Republican.

Two members of the Senate’s bipartisan majority — Sen. Lyman Hoffman, a Bethel Democrat, and Sen. Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican — and Minority Leader Mike Cronk, a Republican from Tok, will represent that chamber in the conference committee.

“Sometimes it takes lengthy, contentious floor sessions to sort of establish the outer parameters of an issue and help bring it to where we can get to that middle concentric circle where we can all agree that this is the best that we can do,” Edgmon said after the Saturday morning House floor session.

Dunleavy has said both he and Glenfarne supported the version of the bill with a more generous tax cut that passed in a 35-4 vote by the House of Representatives last week.

The Alaska LNG project is the latest iteration of a proposal to build a pipeline from the North Slope to the Kenai Peninsula to sell huge quantities of long-stranded natural gas. Under the current proposal, gas would be sold first to Alaskans starting in 2029, and for overseas exports to Asian entities starting in 2031. Similar concepts for the project — which is estimated to cost up to $55 billion, though critics say it will likely cost more — have been proposed and failed for decades.

[Alaska Legislature overrides 2 of Gov. Dunleavy’s vetoes]

The new special session is set to adjourn July 20. It is the third special session overall in the current two-year legislative cycle, following the session in August 2025 and the recently concluded first special session on the gas line tax cut package.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.