text: I'll play that game. If you increased the royalty rate from 12.5% to 50%, the only money the state would have coming in from oil would be the money the oil companies spend to dismantle their infrastructure and restore the landscape to whatever status state and local requirements dictate. Imagine how valuable all of that oil would be safely stranded in the ground! So valuable that it would never leave because the world would likely have switched to alternative energy sources that would never make AK's oil economic to develop again. Awesome!