Yes, Harold Hamm is one of the oil and gas leaders behind the billboard campaign against the Wind Industry continuing to get tax credits in Oklahoma. He admitted it over the weekend when he joined Pete Delaney, former OGE chairman in an interview on KFOR TV’s “Flashpoint” show.
“We’re wasting money and we desperately need money to fund education and other services to the state,” said Delaney. “It’s not a good incentive. We’re not getting the value for the dollar—-only common sense.”
Hamm added his explanation.
“Obviously we’re in a crunch, a budget crunch,” he said referring to the economic challenges at the State Capitol. “There’s no need for doing this any longer. The normal course of events is away from the subsidies. We saw it in Europe. We’re seeing it in California and we need to see it here in Oklahoma.”
Hamm, chairman of Continental Energy Resources, contends most of the nearly $300 million in tax credits given the wind industry by the state goes to out-of-state and foreign companies.
“They’ve got that windfall we need to stop in Oklahoma now. We’re in a crunch here in Oklahoma. Schools need it. Education needs it and the highway patrol, corrections—everywhere you look needs the money,” said Hamm.
He contends the wind industry got too rich to quickly and it should be taken from it.
“They’ve had a huge windfall at the national level,” added Hamm. “They just got re-upped another five years of these ten-year credits.”
Listen to part of the interview on KFOR TV’s “Flashpoint” as Hamm explains how oil and gas is taxed at the well head but wind is not taxed on what it produces.