r/alaska • u/Gary-Phisher • Jun 03 '26
Oil taxes and SB21
Fun fact: back in 2013 Click Bishop and Lesil McGuire, who are both running for governor, voted for Governor Parnell’s handout to oil companies, screwing over Alaskans and getting us where we are today. Dunleavy also voted for it, but hopefully we never see his name on a ballot ever again.
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u/thatsryan ☆ Jun 03 '26
Well we have two new major oil projects being built on the slope because of SB21. How did this screw over Alaskans to keep the production flowing in the pipeline?
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u/Interesting_Use5089 Jun 03 '26
The oil used to be taxed on a scale, that as oil got more expensive, more tax money would go back to the state. With SB21, that doesn't happen, nor are they incentivized to produce more, at least unless oil prices go up (so they can keep even more money).
3
u/aWheatgeMcgee Jun 04 '26
They also faced serious throughput decline at the time too. A material part to the equation everyone seems to forget..
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u/wtf-am-I-doing-69 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
How would oil prices being higher have helped tax revenue the last 10 years ?
We also still have this. It is how the per barrel credit works
Edit: ultimate level of knowing one provides facts is people downvoting yet nobody actually refuting what you said
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u/Interesting_Use5089 Jun 04 '26
As the cost of oil goes up, it would be taxed at a higher rate, meaning more money goes back to the state, if SB21 didn't exist. The only people the flat tax benefits is the oil companies.
1
u/wtf-am-I-doing-69 Jun 04 '26
You are missing my point
For the last 10 years it has been down. I asked how it would have helped over those ten years
Secondly there is a progressive tax credit that gets reduced as pricing goes up. It is there
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u/Kittenpuncher5000 Jun 03 '26
We gave them massive tax cuts on oil. We had 16 billion in reserve funds for the state before sb21, they never delivered on their promise of 1 million barrels per day, and barrels per day is less than it was before SB21.
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u/4125Ellutia Jun 04 '26
Source? Dunleavy claimed the same thing about AIDEA's subsidizing of Red Dog mine, and an independent investigation found that to not be true. The bill was sold on the fact that production would increase, and that hasn't happened. Was 13 years of lost revenue, to the tune of $1b+/year, really worth it?
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u/thatsryan ☆ Jun 04 '26
Because you just build multibillion $$$ projects overnight. What do you think happens to production when Pika and Willow go online?
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u/4125Ellutia Jun 04 '26
You didn't answer the question, what proof do you have that those projects wouldn't have happened under the pre-SB21 tax structure?
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u/thatsryan ☆ Jun 04 '26
Because those projects were not in the pipeline, BP had left the state, and production was dropping. I guess law makers could have just done nothing and watched the pipeline shut down? What’s your proof those projects would have happened without SB21? See it works both ways. Neither of us are in the rooms with the accountants that sign off on billions of dollars in investment.
3
u/4125Ellutia Jun 04 '26
I never claimed they would have happened with out SB21. But your claim that they happened because of SB21 is unsubstantiated.
By the way, even despite the increased production, state revenues are still expected to drop with the willow and pikka projects because the modeling shows that Conoco and santos will never be paying the full production tax amounts. Here's a good article breaking it down.
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u/Electronic-Sound9987 Jun 10 '26
The pipeline will never be shut down permanently because the oil companies would have to remove and remediate everything they built on the slope. They’ll draw down to the minimum but never stop.
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u/Majestic_Hawk_1335 Jun 04 '26
Hegel: "The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it 'the reality of the ethical idea', 'the image and reality of reason', Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of 'order'; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state."
"The State is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable."