The head of the Wind Coalition responds to criticism from oil and gas leaders, saying it’s time to end the fight against the wind industry’s tax credits.
“Fighting one another and saying things about one another that are not true is very unproductive,” said Jeff Clark, Executive Director of the Coalition. “If Oklahoma persists in the path that Mr. Hamm and his group is pushing, what the state will lend up with is losing one of the emerging key energy industries of the next few decades.”
Clark responded to the comments of Continental Resources chairman Harold Hamm and former OGE Chairman Pete Delaney who charged the tax credits were only harming oil and gas and much of the money was going to out-of-state and foreign companies.
To which Clark had no problem.
“I don’t think Continental Resources would question if an investor wanted to invest in their company and was from outside the state of Oklahoma. The worst thing a state would say we will only take investments from within our state,” said Clark. “I don’t know where they get their numbers. They get very creative from time to time. I would argue,it’s not a matter of where the credit goes, but where the investment goes.”
In an interview with with OK Energy Today, Clark suggested Hamm and others critical of the wind tax credits don’t understand the wind industry.
“We do pay a production tax, unlike oil and gas, we pay it at the local level,” he said. “Pitting one energy industry against one another is unproductive. Oklahoma needs investments. Oklahoma needs to grow its economy. Oklahoma needs to grow its tax base. It can do it with gas and with wind.”
Listen to Jerry Bohnen’s interview of Jeff Clark.