There are lessons to be learned in the presentations that attorneys Robin Brena and Craig Richards have been giving this week to the Senate Resources Committee in Juneau.

One of the most important, perhaps the most important, is contained on the 98th slide of their 101-slide summary. It's about information.

Brena has worked on major pipeline tariff and other oil cases for many years, representing Tesoro, Anadarko and lately, the Fairbanks North Star Borough. Through his work in court and before agencies such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, he has helped uncover key documents about the inner workings of the oil industry in Alaska that lawmakers have not been exposed to.

I'd wager that Brena knows more than anyone in Alaska about what information the oil companies strive to keep secret. The companies are looking out for their shareholders, which is what they are supposed to do.

For decades the state of Alaska has not pushed the companies to provide crucial internal information, which is a big reason why, as one state oil consultant  put it  last year, Alaska is like a man who goes into a dark room to throw darts, not knowing which wall contains the dartboard.

In the recent property tax pipeline case, Brena argued that the state has the right to require the release of more information from the oil companies, but it doesn't exercise that power.

It's a tradition to keep it voluntary and refrain from using legal authority to compel the release of important data. This is why the state doesn't get far beyond the public relations level of corporate understanding.

It's also a tradition to keep most of what is provided secret, which led Brena to an exaggerated question in court to the state assessor. He asked whether a McDonald's menu  could be submitted as an oil company document and stamped confidential. Would it be treated by the Department of Revenue as a confidential document? 

“It’s an extreme hypothetical. If they stamped ‘taxpayer confidential’ on it, you know, I’m not sure that would pass muster, but again, that’s not part of my purview,” State Assessor James Greeley said.

But just about anything short of the McDonald's menu qualifies as not being fit for public consumption.

The result, according to Brena's slide 98, is that the Department of Revenue and the "Legislature do not have access to information necessary to be informed about oil and gas tax issues in Alaska."

One example of knowledge that the state should have had, but didn't,  was that BP, for the past seven years, has been working on the assumption that the pipeline would be able to run at much lower flow rates than those officially planned for by Alyeska, of which it is the largest owner.

The state did not have the internal reports that BP used to justify that decision and did not know the reports existed, though the knowledge should have been a factor in making judgments about the future of oil production in Alaska.

Another example of information that should have been known to policy makers is a concise statement contained in a Feb. 9, 2004 BP document in which the Alaska branch of BP was recommending that the company move ahead with electrification for four pump stations.

The document described BP's Alaska holdings by saying,  "Alaska's role in BP's portfolio is to provide a stable production base and cash flow to fuel growth elsewhere in the business while improving margins and returns. Driving cost savings in TAPS is a key element in delivering margin improvement of BP's North Slope production."

This is the kind of statement that should have been part of the information mix for the executive and legislative branches in Alaska, and it should have led to a serious discussion about Alaska's role in BP's portfolio.

The report came to light as a state exhibit in a case now before FERC on pipeline tariff rates.

In a Jan. 30 presentation before the Senate Resources Committee, Revenue Commissioner Bryan Butcher and Deputy Commissioner Bruce Tangeman showed a slide that asked if those who wanbt more information before cutting oil taxes are employing an "obvious double standard."

"The rally cry has been 'need more information' & 'must have better systems in place in order to make such significant changes to the tax structure," their slide said, "An obvious double standard in place?"

They assert that today the state has a good deal of "actual information" about oil industry operations, whereas the Legislature only had modeling, projections and theoretical assumptions during the PPT tax debate and the ACES debate in 2006-2007.

The information that really matters, Butcher and Tangeman said, is that Alaska oil production is declining, while Alberta, North Dakota and Texas are booming.

They are correct in part. That is part of the information that matters. 

But nothing would beat a solid justification for specific tax cut numbers, a credible analysis of what the consequences would be at various prices, a review of what steps the companies plan to take with tax cuts or without tax cuts and research that shows the many ways Alaska is different from those other places.

That is the type of "actual information" that has been missing since last year.

The revenue department should focus on filling this part of the information gap. That would shift the debate away from the over-simplistic claims and elevate the discussion.

Brena is right. The Department of Revenue and the Legislature do not have the information they need to be informed about oil and gas tax issues. But it doesn't have to stay that way.