Valdez Appeals Ruling on Taps Valuation

Valdez Appeals Ruling on Taps Valuation
(AP) The City of Valdez joined forces with the Fairbanks North Star Borough and North Slope Borough a week ago Monday and filed a lawsuit in Superior Court challenging the $3 billion valuation of the Trans Alaska Pipeline and its related properties.
"It's a disagreement about statutory interpretation of replacement costs," Fairbanks borough attorney Rene Broker told the press.
Earlier this year, the state petroleum property assessor dropped the value of the pipeline and its associated properties from $3.017 billion to $3 billion. The three municipalities appealed that decision with the assessor's office and lost. They then went to the State Assessment Review Board to seek a reversal.
The board issued a decision that upheld the state petroleum assessor's ruling.
Part of the assessment was determining how much it would cost to replace the pipeline.
The municipalities based their current appeal on three points that the review board failed to rule on, according to the court documents.
First, they said, the Alaska Department of Revenue wrongly interpreted state law by excluding the cost of construction of a replacement pipeline from the pipeline's replacement cost analysis.
The municipalities also said the revenue department didn't include taxes that would be paid during construction of a replacement pipeline. And the department didn't include the costs of roads and bridges that would have to be built for a replacement pipeline.
Excluding some expenses in the replacement cost analysis affected the resulting pipeline assessment, the appeal stated.