Now, Alaska Public Media spreads "fake news" ...

A piece Friday by Rashah McChesney of Alaska Public Media's "Alaska Energy Desk" discussing the cashable oil tax credit program contains "fake news."  There isn't any other way to describe it.  See "Oil company sues over Alaska’s beleaguered cash-for-credits program,"  http://bit.ly/2vTHDSX.

Here is the part that's fake. "The state will owe an estimated $1 billion in unpaid cash credits this year and the legislature appropriated $77 million."

And here's the reason it's fake.  The state "owes ... each year" only what the statutes obligate it to pay.  The statutes authorizing the cashable oil tax program -- which in this respect have been the same since the program was established -- provide that the state is obligated to pay annually no more than a statutorily established percentage of the production tax revenues the state is anticipated to receive.

This year that percentage works out to the $77 million appropriated by the legislature. The statutes don't obligate the state to pay any more than that amount this year.  And without an obligation, no more than that is "owed ... this year."

This isn't the first time McChesney and Alaska Public Media have wandered down this path.  In a piece the previous week McChesney generally took the same tack in a story about another company, saying "[c]ompanies waiting to get reimbursed for cash credits they’d already earned — they’re going to be waiting for awhile."  See "BlueCrest is latest company to stop work, citing state’s defunct cash-for-credits scheme," http://bit.ly/2xeQZrR.

And McChesney and Alaska Public Media aren't the only news sources that have repeated this particular piece of fake news.  Last week we analyzed a piece in which KTVA's otherwise credible reporter Liz Raines fell for the same spin, hook, line and sinker. See "KTVA (and others) still don't get it about cashable oil credits ...,"  http://bit.ly/2xeUrmn.

This past week on our Michael Dukes Show segment we also talked about another, similar story from KSRM's Dorene Lorenz, which went so far as to assert that the state is "delinquent" on the payments.  See "State Pushes In Clutch On Oil Exploration Incentives," http://bit.ly/2vTKwmA.  (We discuss it at the beginning of our Michael Dukes Show segment. See "This week (August 15, 2017) on The Michael Dukes Show,"  http://bit.ly/2xf9BIh.)

If Lorenz (Raines or McChesney) wanted to dig into a story where the state truly is "delinquent" on its statutory obligations they would be much better off analyzing this and last year's PFD, where first the Governor and then the legislature blatantly have ignored explicit statutory language which says at the end of each fiscal year the state "shall transfer from the earnings reserve account to the dividend fund established under AS 43.23.045, 50 percent of the income available for distribution under AS 37.13.140."  See "The Alaska Legislature tosses out the Rule of Law,"  https://goo.gl/ZXh5RN.

The state's unilateral reduction of the PFD in both years to 25 percent of the income available for distribution is an actual delinquency.

But the cashable oil tax credit payments?  Nope, not "delinquent" or "owed .. this year."

The actual facts?  The state's statutory obligations each year are being met as they come due.  That is the factual story that all three reporters have missed.