Actually, it is communism.   If you go shooting at some food, and up through the ground comes a'bubbling crude, the State might, just might, send you a thank you because it is the State's oil.   Where the "it's our oil" crowd is wrong is that the oil in the legacy fields is no longer "our" oil; we sold it.   In the case of Prudhoe Bay we sold it in 1968 for $900 and change million, a 12.5% royalty share, and the right to tax property and production.   Unfortunately for Alaska with our remoteness, high costs, and corruption our oil economics are a creature of the Cold War and the Arab Oil Embargo.   The Cold War is over, sorta, and the Arabs as well as the Russians and our competitors in the Lower 48 are flooding the World with oil that is a lot cheaper than ours.   There really isn't any reason for a producer to do more than get what they can out of existing investments in Alaska and it is well to remember that if they shut down the TAPS, they have to disassemble it and restore it.