A Democratic lawmaker from Chickasha is proposing a nickel-a-barrel fee on liquids dumped into any injection or wastewater disposal well in the state. Rep. David Perryman’s HB 1330 would also require operators of commercial disposal wells to maintain logs of all loads of “deleterious” substances disposed at the wells. The logs would also have to include the location of the source, the amount received and the operator/owner of the source of the substance. He contends his nickle charge would have raised $77 million in 2014 and 2015.
But his bill does not include any requirements on how the funds would be spent. In a press release this week, Perryman said millions of gallons of wastewater that originates outside of Oklahoma and neither the saltwater nor the production that caused it, generates any revenue for Oklahoma.
Oklahoma Corporation Commission records show commercial well operators in the state accepted 2.44 million barrels of saltwater or about 102 million gallons from five neighboring states in 2015. Those states include Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, New Mexico and Colorado.
HB 1330 provides that if the wastewater is generated from an Oklahoma oil or gas well on which gross production taxes would be paid, the operator could reduce the amount of gross production taxes due by the amount of nickel-per-barrel fees paid. Those Oklahoma wells that already generate gross production taxes for the state would not be required to pay additional taxes after the credit was applied.
“Oklahoma should not be serving as the repository for out-of-state wastewater and having to cope with seismic activity caused in part by out-of-state wastewater injection, and not receive any revenue as a result of the disposal of our-of-state wastewater,” said Rep. Perryman.
