The centerpiece of next year's political debate, beginning with the legislative session in January, needs to be Alaska's economic future. To those who have studied Alaska's economic fundamentals, that future is bleak. If the next Governor and legislators do not alter Alaska's present course, the second fifty years of statehood will be much, much more difficult than the first.

The future currently is bleak because of the trajectory of Alaska's oil industry. Oil accounts for 90 percent of state general fund revenues and one-third of Alaska jobs. No other industry comes close to having the capability to generate the same level of wealth for Alaskans. As James Carville - who repeatedly reminded the Clinton team during the 1992 election that "it's the economy, stupid" - would say if he looked at Alaska today, "it's the oil, stupid."

The future of Alaska's oil industry is in significant doubt. From a high of over 2 million barrels per day, North Slope oil production - the lifeblood of the Alaska economy - is down to 700,000 barrels per day. Absent continued investment, the existing sources of production (and oil's contribution to state government revenue and jobs) will decline at a rate approaching 10 percent per year in the coming years. Because the trans-Alaska oil pipeline is not designed to handle low flow, knowledgeable people talk about the need to shut down the trans-Alaska oil pipeline when production reaches roughly 300,000 barrels per day.

On that trajectory, the Alaska oil industry may reach shutdown as early as 2017. Even if the date for shutdown is extended, by that time the continued decline in revenues nevertheless will result in significant reductions in government services, the beginning of state income and sales taxes, the outmigration of a significant number of people, and the resulting collapse in home and local business values.

The shutdown - and even the decline - is not inevitable. According to testimony submitted before the Alaska Legislature in 2006, there is roughly as much known oil and gas resource remaining on the North Slope as has been produced since the start of Prudhoe.

Decline and shutdown is a likely scenario, however, unless our state government's current oil and gas policy changes. The 2006 legislative testimony additionally demonstrates that developing the remaining known resource will require significant amounts of investment.

Because of the policy decisions made by the state's political bodies since 2006 (with the continued encouragement of the state's largest newspaper), a significant portion of the investment that would otherwise have been made in Alaska over the last few years has gone - and is continuing - to go elsewhere. The result is that Alaska is living on the fumes remaining from prior investments; without making the new investments required to develop additional resources, Alaska's economic gas tank inexorably is moving toward empty.

How have we come to this place? In her book, Sarah Palin recounts that she came into office to "kick industry's ass." The pendulum swung much farther. She, Hollis French and the legislature that followed them, succeeded in kicking oil investment out of Alaska.

As a result of Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share, the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, and other, similar regulations and executive decisions, dollars that would have gone to replenish Alaska's economic future instead have gone to places like Angola, Australia, Norway, the Gulf of Mexico and the ten or so other locations which the New York Times recently named oil industry "hot spots." Like the Kennecott mine and Southeast's timber industry before it, Alaska's oil industry is rapidly becoming a historic footnote.

Because they have it in their power to do so, how do Alaskans change that future? There are three steps.