The Oklahoma Sierra Club has not given up in its campaign to boost the gross production tax on oil and gas.
“Tell lawmakers to make oil and gas pay their fair share and stop holding our future hostage!” wrote Johnson Bridgwater, Director of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Sierra Club in a recent newsletter. “Oklahoma lawmakers still have not come up with a balanced budget that puts our schools, hospitals and our people first.”
Two weeks after Bridgwater asked Sierra Club supporters to send a message to the Governor and lawmakers, nearly a hundred responded with personal messages.
“Give oil companies tax breaks for what???” wrote one. “For causing all these earthquakes, for polluting our drinking water, for polluting our air—Jeeze, I didn’t realize just how much greed does for us common folk (sarcastic)!”
Another wrote, “There is no good reason for Oklahoma to be in such dire straits! Please do the right thing and repair this debacle!—-Stop protecting the oil and gas industry.”
In his most recent newsletter, Bridgwater maintained that Oklahoma oil and gas companies not only got sweet deals, but the “sweet deals have come at the cost of our future.”
He blamed special interests who convinced legislators to slash the oil and gas gross production tax from 7% to 2% in 2014. He also asked supporters to stand with Oklahoma teachers and residents to demand the legislature restores the gross production tax rate back to pre-2014 levels of 7%.
“Oil and gas has no excuse to not pay their fair share,” he stated.