It's ironic that after 30+years of depending on oil revenues to fully fund government - we have no plan yet how to do it when money runs low without going back to the petro industry and asking for more. I think the authors did a great job of laying out the 'rationale' for the petro credits and how it differentially affects big and little companies.

Someone should write an article about the vision of the legislature leading to these credits. It happened because we kept looking at the trajectory of declining production matched against the escalation of raw prices - and it was rife with possible disaster. It happened and now we are rightly scared. 

The irony is that if we don't take steps to insure the continued petro industry interest AND development in a stable tax and incentive climate - the state will be right back here very shortly considering the very same things: using the PF earnings, imposing taxes, and cutting budgets.

We can't be cavalier about oil industry jobs.