In 2010, voters in North Dakota approved the creation of a state-administered fund that would collect hundreds of millions of dollars a year in severance taxes generated by the oil and gas boom that was beginning to explode across the Peace Garden State. As production in the Bakken Formation raced upward from 112 million barrels in 2010 to nearly half a billion barrels last year, the severance taxes feeding the North Dakota Legacy Fund have swelled its balance to $6.2 billion.