A fiscal responsibility to be wise stewards of our oil wealth

At the same time the Alaska Legislature continues to consider tax rate changes for the oil industry, residents are reminded they have just days to apply for their cut of this year’s oil wealth payments.

Nothing brings out the oversized mirrors and industrial-strength smoke machines like discussions of how to charge oil companies that want to bring to market and sell the natural resources we own collectively as Alaskans. The bottom line, though, is always the same: Big oil wants a bigger slice of the petro pie.

When trying to explain how Alaska’s mineral rights are different than elsewhere in the Lower 48, we often turn to a familiar TV scenario. Remember Jed Clampett and how he struck oil while shootin’ at some food? If Uncle Jed had been hunting in Alaska when he triggered that TV land gusher, “The Beverly Hillbillies” would not exist without rewriting Alaska’s Constitution.

In Alaska, the state retains all mineral rights. So here, regardless of where Uncle Jed found that bubblin’ crude, it would belong to all of us equally and we would all share in the wealth it produced through the annual Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend.

Eligible Alaskans have until March 31 to apply online at pfd.state.ak.us to receive the 2013 dividend payment, which will be disbursed in October.

Unique to our makeup as a state is the fact that we own Alaska’s billions and billions of dollars in mineral rights collectively, and that the PFD is our annual slice of the revenue generated from monetizing these finite natural resources.

Our system of mineral ownership was established when Alaska became a state in 1959. Congressional leaders saw the state’s natural resources as a savings account of sorts inherited at statehood to provide a funding mechanism for Alaska government for generations.

Under the leadership of Gov. Jay Hammond, the Permanent Fund was created by amendment to the Alaska Constitution in 1976 as a depository where a percentage of Alaska’s oil wealth would be saved for future generations.

As members of the Legislature consider a rewrite to state tax rates, on the table is more than just the amount to be paid to state tax coffers this year or for the next decade.

Also in play are the payments from this shared tax wealth to be deposited into the PFD for the benefit of our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren — and their great-grandchildren.

Yes, more oil is needed in the trans-Alaska pipeline system. But as we consider renegotiating oil tax rates with some of the biggest, richest and most powerful companies in the world, we also must keep in mind that we own this oil. We remind our legislative delegates that with this ownership comes a fiscal responsibility to be wise stewards of the shared wealth entrusted to us by future Alaskans.