Bill to Tax E-Cigarettes, Vaping Moves to House
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- Created on Tuesday, 26 April 2022 16:36
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By Larry Persily
Wrangell Sentinel writer
The Alaska Senate by a wide margin last week approved legislation to tax e-cigarette products just as the state taxes cigarettes and tobacco products.
The legislation, which is scheduled for hearings Wednesday and Friday by two House committees, also would raise the legal age to buy and sell tobacco products, including vaping devices and liquids, from 19 to 21 years old to match federal law.
The House and Senate are working toward a May 18 adjournment deadline in the constitution, pushing both chambers to move quicker on legislation.
“The goal here is to get it (vaping products) out of the hands of our children,” the bill’s sponsor, Kodiak Sen. Gary Stevens, testified in the Senate Finance Committee on April 19, a day before the bill passed the full Senate on a 15-4 vote.
Senate Bill 45 would impose a state tax of 75% on the wholesale price of vaping liquids and 45% of the wholesale price on sticks and other devices. The state taxes cigars and loose tobacco at 75% of the wholesale price, and cigarettes at $2 per pack.
Every time the state has raised the tax on cigarettes, it has reduced use among young people, Stevens said.
As cigarette taxes increase nationwide and the percentage of Americans who smoke declines, “the tobacco industry has responded with fashionable items” to attract people to vaping products, the senator said during floor debate on the bill April 20. “It is working.”
Stevens is trying to reverse the gain of vaping products, and has been working on the tax and regulatory legislation since 2015.
The state doesn’t track the wholesale price of e-cigarettes or vaping products, but it appears the new tax, which would take effect July 1, 2023, could add anywhere from a couple of dollars to several dollars to the retail price of the products.
The municipality of Anchorage imposes a 55% tax on the wholesale price of devices and liquids, as does the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Juneau and Petersburg also tax the products.
The four votes against the bill came from Republican senators representing Anchorage, Palmer and Wasilla, including Sen. Mike Shower, of Wasilla, who said during floor debate: “You’re old enough to carry a gun, you’re old enough to die for your country, but you’re not old enough to drink? To smoke a cigarette if you want? To vape?”
Shower added, “That’s a hard choice for me to look at somebody in the eye and say you can’t be destructive to yourself. … I don’t think we’re being honest about what it means to be an adult.”
Fairbanks Sen. Scott Kawasaki objected to the tax on vape sticks and other devices that do not include nicotine liquid. He said taxing those devices would be similar to taxing shot glasses or tobacco pipes, which the state does not tax.
Kawasaki voted for the bill on final passage.
The tax would not apply to online purchases of vaping devices and liquids, only in-state retail sales.
The Department of Revenue estimates the tax would raise about $2.2 million a year.
In 2019, then-President Donald Trump signed a bill into law that raised the federal age to consume tobacco products to 21. Alaska is one of 12 states that have not made the same shift in state law.
Alaska Cruise Season Starts with High Hopes
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- Created on Tuesday, 26 April 2022 16:18
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By BECKY BOHRER
The Associated Press
JUNEAU (AP) — The first large cruise ship of the season has arrived in Alaska, marking the start of what industry and tourism officials expect will be a more robust travel year after two pandemic-stunted seasons.
The Norwegian Cruise Line vessel the Norwegian Bliss arrived at a dock in an industrial area near the edge of Juneau’s downtown area on Monday. Rows of buses and vans were on hand to whisk passengers away. The weather was cool and dreary, with drizzling rain.
The cruise ship Norwegian Bliss is shown docked in Juneau on Monday. It is the first large cruise ship of the season to arrive in Alaska. (AP Photo)
Lanie Downs, a spokesperson for Cruise Lines International Association Alaska, said the trade group is looking forward to a “full season” again, with hundreds of planned voyages.
In 2019, there were 1.3 million cruise ship passengers in Alaska, she said. No large ships sailed to Alaska in 2020 because of the pandemic. Last year, there were about 116,000 passengers on large ships that carry more than 250 people, she said by email.
Alexandra Pierce, tourism manager with the City and Borough of Juneau, said the city has been having a “larger and needed conversation” around management and capacity issues and “what we look like as a tourism community into the future.”
“That said, I’m really kind of relieved for so many of the small businesses that rely on tourism,” she said, adding later: “I think it will be nice to see people downtown again. It’s been very weirdly quiet the last couple years working down there.”
Pierce said the ships aren’t expected to be full, particularly early in the season. She said officials in Juneau have estimated they will get about 1 million visitors from cruise ships this year.
BLM Seeks More Land for Native Vets
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- Created on Monday, 25 April 2022 17:14
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By BECKY BOHRER
The Associated Press
JUNEAU (AP) — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has proposed an expansion of lands available for selection by Alaska Native Vietnam War-era veterans who are entitled to allotments.
Tom Heinlein, acting state director for the land agency in Alaska, on Thursday recommended opening about 27 million acres of land for allotment selections by eligible veterans. Currently, about 1.2 million acres are available. Concerns have been raised that some of the currently available lands are difficult to access or outside veterans’ cultural homelands.
Heinlein said the next step is to provide detailed land descriptions to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. It would be up to Haaland to sign and issue an opening order for land selections, he said.
The plan is to get her that information in the coming weeks, Heinlein said. He called the matter a “super high priority” for Haaland.
U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland laughs with Nelson Angapak Sr.,
April 21 in Anchorage. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
Haaland visited with veterans this week during her ongoing trip to Alaska, her first to the state as secretary. “We have a sacred obligation to America’s veterans,” she said in a statement, adding that she “will not ignore land allotments owed to our Alaska Native Vietnam-era veterans.”
Under the 1906 Alaska Native Allotment Act, Alaska Natives were allowed to apply for up to 160 acres of land. Many Alaska Natives were unaware of this program, in large part due to communication hurdles, such as language barriers, according to the land management agency.
There were efforts to urge Alaska Natives to apply for lands if they hadn’t already done so before a 1971 law took effect; that period overlapped with the Vietnam War. A 1998 federal law allowed veterans to apply for land, but the program was seen by some as restrictive.
A 2019 law lifted use and occupancy restrictions, the land agency has said. The application period extends to late 2025.
There are roughly 2,000 eligible individuals but several hundred for whom the agency is looking for heirs or addresses, said Lesli Ellis-Wouters, an agency spokesperson in Alaska. Of those eligible, 162 have made selections and eight have had land conveyed to them, she said.
Nelson Angapak Sr., who appeared at a news conference with Haaland in Anchorage on Thursday, said Friday that he hadn’t seen the documents or maps yet. But he said if the land base from which veterans may apply is expanded, he sees it as a “step in the right direction.”
U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, has expressed concern with the pace of the process so far and with the federal government’s approach.
Chad Padgett, a former state director for the Bureau of Land Management, is currently the state director for Sullivan’s office. Padgett, in a statement Friday, said that by “changing the process and attempting to open the lands just for veteran allotments (and excluding the state of Alaska and Native Corporations who also are allotted land under federal law), the Department of the Interior is promising land that they legally cannot.”
The plan would likely be challenged in court, he said.
The land management agency falls under the Interior Department.
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Thanks to the generosity and expertise of the the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska broadband department, Tidal Network ; Christopher Cropley, director of Tidal Network; and Luke Johnson, Tidal Network technician, SitkaSentinel.com is again being updated. Tidal Network has been working tirelessly to install Starlink satellite equipment for city and other critical institutions, including the Sentinel, following the sudden breakage of GCI's fiberoptic cable on August 29, which left most of Sitka without internet or phone connections. CCTHITA's public-spirited response to the emergency is inspiring.
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Sheldon Jackson College’s Service Programs and Civic Engagement Project is teaming up with One Day’s Pay to provide volunteer service in remembrance of Sept. 11. ... To join the effort contact Chris Bryner.
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From On the Go by SAM: The Greater Sitka Arts Council has issued its first newsletter – congratulations! Included with the newsletter is an arts event calendar.
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