text: Of course my above comment is just a philosophical gripe. Taxation is a balance between not enough, and too much. However, the argument of the legislature being bought and paid for is a tired diatribe. If you are an expert in the economics of lift cost specific to the arctic environment, perhaps you should testify before the group you disparage. With a plentiful resource, the producers can manage an immorally high tax rate, grudgingly. What they cannot withstand is uncertainty and an entitled state government spending beyond reason. 
  Drilling budgets alone account for close to a billion dollars per year, in greater prudhoe. That is, until the commodity crashed. Then drilling was slashed, thousands of jobs were lost. Their profits are still paltry, de-insentivising drilling, increasing production, and creating jobs for Americans.