text: Ending corporate welfare is important.  The $700 million paid to Big Oil this year was one of the single biggest items in the state budget. 
  
  Greater disclosure will also reveal welfare subsdies that make no finanical sense- and reporters will be better able to describe the cost of the boondoggle known as SB-21.  For example, Dermot writes about $7 billion in cash welfare in a small project- but misses the muich bigger cost to Alaska.  The welfare is not specific to the cost of the project, but to a time duration.  In the case of "new oil" the production welfare runs for seven years.  So Alaska is on the hook to pay $8 per barrel for seven years.  Any rational company will exploit this bad law and accelerate production to collect larger welfare payments from Alaska.  For example- pulling 200,000 barrels per day from the new development will cost Alaska $1.6 million per day- or $584 million per year- or $4 billion over 7 years- for $25 billion worth of oil.  ($50 bbl).