"It was and is our oil."
This is the great leftist/environmentalist lie; the oil from which we derive revenue is NOT our oil because we sold it to the producers.   We sold the leases to the main Prudhoe Bay province in 1968 for, IIRC, $968 Million, the right to tax property and income, and a 12.5% share of the oil recovered as royalty in kind, which they pump and transport for us, though we do pay a tariff on the transportation.   Since that lease was signed it has been the producers' oil except for the royalty oil that Alaska sells on the open market and keeps the profit as State revenue.