Glenfarne and its allies have spent months attacking the Alaska legislature for failing to pass the tax legislation the project needs. The Alaska Landmine published the argument in its bluntest form, accusing lawmakers of launching "spiteful attacks" on the developer and calling the legislature itself the greatest risk to Alaska LNG. Governor Dunleavy compared the legislature to Nero fiddling while Rome burned. The message is clear: the legislature is the problem.

There is just one difficulty with that argument. Every specific thing the legislature has asked for — and not received — is information that Glenfarne controls. The legislature is not the obstacle. Glenfarne is the obstacle, and the contradictions in its own public statements prove it.

The Question That Ends the Argument

Before getting to the contradictions, consider the foundational irony that Glenfarne's attack on the legislature cannot survive:

Tax Certainty = f(Project Cost)
You cannot calculate a fair tax without knowing the cost being taxed

Glenfarne has spent this entire legislative session arguing that the current tax structure is unfair and will kill the project. They have told the House Resources Committee that their proposed tax structure will lower energy bills for Alaskan families. They have backed calculations showing $26 billion in state revenue over 30 years. They have warned that legislative changes will "indefinitely delay" gas delivery to Alaskans.

Every single one of those claims flows from a project cost figure. You cannot know if a tax is too high without knowing the cost base it is applied to. You cannot calculate revenue projections without knowing what the project actually costs to build and operate. You cannot tell Alaskan families their energy bills will fall without knowing the real economics of the project.

Glenfarne built its entire argument — every threat, every projection, every attack on the legislature — on a cost number it refuses to show anyone. They used the hidden number to make the case. Then hid the number from the people they were making the case to.

The legislature hasn't failed to act. It has refused to be stampeded into a generational tax commitment built on arithmetic no one is allowed to check.

Three Positions on One Cost Estimate

The most damning contradiction is not about politics. It is about a single document that Glenfarne commissioned, received, and will not release.

The Worley Cost Estimate — Three Contradictory Positions
May 2025
Glenfarne publicly announces it has hired Worley to produce a final cost estimate "in sufficient detail to achieve final investment decision for the pipeline." FID anticipated late 2025. Work begins immediately.
Early 2026
Glenfarne confirms to legislators that a cost estimate exists — but says it is confidential and cannot be shared because it could affect commercial negotiations.
May 2026
Glenfarne and project developers acknowledge no overall cost estimate will be available before mid-2027 — while simultaneously demanding the legislature pass tax certainty legislation in a special session this week.

Read those three positions again. In May 2025, the cost estimate was imminent and sufficient for FID. In early 2026, it existed but was confidential. In May 2026, it won't exist until mid-2027. These cannot all be true. At least two of these statements are false. The legislature is being called back into special session to act on a cost structure derived from a number that apparently simultaneously exists, doesn't exist, and won't exist for another year.

The Constructive Conversations That Weren't

Glenfarne CEO Brendan Duval told Alaska's News Source in January that conversations with lawmakers had been "extremely constructive" and he saw no frustration from delays. The company has repeatedly said it "meets regularly with legislators, consumers, unions, and industry groups."

Here is what lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were saying at the same time:

"We don't have enough information about the fiscal costs for this Glenfarne project. It's a little difficult for us to say this is the tax relief we should give." — Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, March 2026
"I'd like to see more information shared. I'd like to see more of the economics of the project shared so that we can understand what the full potential is and what's on the table." — Congressman Nick Begich (R-Alaska), after urging the legislature not to "roadblock" the project, March 2026
"Glenfarne has thus far declined to provide new estimates for the cost of construction or its expected cost of gas when the pipeline is complete. That has made it impossible for them to determine whether the proposed tax break is too large, too small, or just right." — Alaska Beacon, May 19, 2026

These are not fringe critics. Giessel is a Republican. Begich is the governor's own consultant on the project. The Alaska Beacon is a straight news outlet. All of them — independently — say the same thing: Glenfarne has not provided the financial information the legislature needs to act responsibly.

Conversations that leave every participant saying they lack essential information are not constructive. They are theater.

The FID That Never Came

When Glenfarne took majority control of the project in early 2025, it announced that Phase One FID — the final investment decision that would commit financing and trigger construction — was anticipated by the end of 2025. Worley was hired specifically to produce the cost estimate needed for that FID. Construction was to begin by end of 2026. Gas was to reach Alaskans by 2029.

It is now May 2026. There is no FID. There is no construction start date. There is no public cost estimate. The legislature has been called into special session to pass tax legislation that Glenfarne says is essential for the project — for a project whose FID was supposed to have happened six months ago.

The legislature did not cause those missed milestones. The legislature was not even involved when Glenfarne missed its own self-imposed FID deadline. Yet the legislature is being blamed for the project's stalled momentum.

The Cost Overrun Promise

Glenfarne told the legislature that cost overruns would not be passed on to Alaskans. That assurance was offered as a reason to trust the project economics and pass the tax bill.

Independent analysts at Rapidan Energy Group looked at the same project and reached a different conclusion: given the scale and complexity of Phase One, no EPC contractor would undertake construction on a fixed-price basis because the financial risk is too great. The Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia — a comparable project — ran from initial estimates of $5 billion to roughly $15 billion by completion.

So Glenfarne promised Alaskans protection from cost overruns on a project where independent experts say fixed-price contracting — the only mechanism that would actually protect Alaskans from overruns — is not feasible. That promise has no mechanism behind it. It is a statement, not a commitment.

And we only know this because independent analysts did the work Glenfarne won't allow the legislature to do for itself.

What the Attack Actually Reveals

Glenfarne's attack on the legislature is not an argument. It is a pressure tactic. The goal is to reframe the legislature's entirely reasonable demand for financial information as obstruction — and to do so loudly enough, and with enough political backing from the governor and the Trump administration, that lawmakers feel the political cost of asking questions exceeds the political cost of signing a blank check.

That tactic has a name in Alaska. It is what Frank Murkowski tried in 2003. Present a deal, apply pressure, call skeptics obstructionists, and hope the legislature folds before anyone does the math. The legislature didn't fold then. It shouldn't fold now.

The Only Question That Matters

Glenfarne knows its project costs. It commissioned the study. It received the results. It has used those results — without disclosing them — to calculate every claim it has made about tax fairness, energy bill savings, and state revenue projections.

The legislature is not asking for Glenfarne's trade secrets. It is asking for the number that every one of Glenfarne's public claims depends on. It is asking for the arithmetic behind the argument being used to justify a generational tax concession.

That is not obstruction. That is the legislature doing exactly what it was elected to do.

Release the Worley estimate. Then we can talk about tax certainty.