This is CBS Eye on the World. I'm John Batcher. Alaska, the dreams of Alaska, I learned

from Charlotte Howard at the Economist, the Executive Editor, that Alaska has been a blank

sheet for people to write their dreams on for many decades, many centuries, but right

now it's important to define what next for Alaska. We begin with my first understanding

of Alaska, which was in the 1970s, 1980s, because I knew people who were talking in New York

about going on off to Alaska to build the Trans-Alaskan pipeline, the taps, because there was

a discovery like gold in Alaska, 10 billion barrels of oil. Well, that was then, and this

is now Charlotte, a very good evening to you, the discovery of gas, of oil in the north

slope of Alaska, led to a bounty for the people of Alaska. I believe for some years, maybe

it still continues. They were getting a check every year if you were an Alaskan citizen.

And that changed the political environment. It also changed the environment today. In

your recent trip to Alaska, do you see the damage or the environmental leftovers of that

early exploitation of Alaska's riches? Good evening to you.

Thanks for having me. It was really a remarkable boom that began in the late 70s, once that

pipeline that stretched all the way across Alaska, is 800 miles from the north slope, all

the way down to the Port of Valdes. When that was completed in 1977, what came after was

this huge bounty for Alaska, and you're right, that there was a sovereign wealth fund that

was created to help manage the oil wealth, and there was a dividend that was created to

go to Alaskans each year. And that dividend is still paid in a bluer state than Alaska.

You might think of it as universal basic income, but that still is very much part of Alaskan

political life and Alaskan fiscal, Alaska's fiscal situation. And so you see now, you know,

the oil industry over the past several decades since that boom began in the late 1970s, it

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