Jim Thiele - oil tax credits are SOP for oil-reserve nations. Every country with oil pays the oil industry something to produce their oil. Iraq pays BP $2 a barrel, for example, regardless if a barrel is $5 or $110. They then tax the sale of the oil and that's how they fund their government.

So, doing away with the credits isn't going to happen ... unless you think oil companies will produce the oil for free and also give us a share of the sale price. It hasn't happened anywhere, so ....

BUT ... Alaska pays the oil companies $46 a barrel (last I checked) and that seems pretty high, especially when oil is $30 a barrel.  So getting rid of tax credits shouldn't be the goal. Reducing them to a sane level should.

Iraq - civil war, beheadings, terrorists ... Alaska - cold weather, isolation, Alaskans ... Yup, I'd say $2-10 a barrel would be a fair production tax credit ... with a rider that if the price of oil drops below whatever the credit is, we don't pay them.