text: The land owner does Mark. So in Texas, owning the land is key. This is why the Koch brothers are so rich...from oil royalties on their land. For Alaska, the people are the land owner as in 1976 they realized the state should not be the only beneficiary of the royalties...hence why Alaskans receive about 10% of the surplus. Had the PFD not been constructed, the state would have had all that money and our economy would have been ruined like Africa or Brazil.