American Oil and Gas Reporter - December 2019 - 93

ConventionCoverage: The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma

Alliance Developing Ties
With New Lawmakers
By Dan Holder
BRANSON, MO.-Oklahoma's term
limits for state legislators have changed
the state's power dynamics and strengthen
the need for promptly educating each
new group of freshmen, assessed Chad
Warmington, president of the Petroleum
Alliance of Oklahoma.
Warmington and Alliance Vice President of Government and Legal Affairs
Zack Lee previewed the state's 2020
legislative session at the group's fall
conference, held Oct. 21-24 at the Big
Cedar Lodge. The presentation included
a look at the 2018 group of lawmakers,
which Warmington classified as an unusually large rookie class. He noted the
Alliance's Board of Directors had discussed the possibility of having the association recruit legislative candidates
during the meeting that opened the convention.
"We cannot just wait until legislators
get to the statehouse and see if they are
good. We need to find good candidates
to run and get them plugged into the
process, so they can better understand
our issues prior to taking tough votes,"
Warmington urged. "We are doing a lot
on candidate recruitment-making sure
we have good people who are qualified
and understand our issues."
The 2018 session had more than 60
freshmen legislators, Lee pointed out,
and when they got to the statehouse, he
said they quickly recognized their collective power. Veteran lawmakers moved
to develop relationships with that bloc,
and as a result, many newer legislators
ascended to influential positions quicker
than normal, he said.
Supporting candidates during the election process gives the Alliance an entryway
into the offices of all the newly elected
legislators, Warmington noted. Before
term limits accelerated turnover rates, he
recalled, the outlook for a bill's fate focused on gaining the support of a committee chairman. In today's political climate, Warmington said it was crucial to
garner the backing of both novice and
veteran lawmakers.

Priorities In 2020
After successfully lobbying against
all the 2019 bills the Alliance's Legislative Committee deemed harmful, attention shifted to supporting several
pro-industry initiatives, Lee said. One
focus will be continuing encouragement
for upgrading the Oklahoma Corporation
Commission's information technology
system, he added.
The OCC wants to continue to require
hand deliveries of required forms, Lee
noted. "You could not email them either,
because the commission's IT would not
allow it," he said. "The Alliance got together
with the commission and appropriators
and pushed for more IT funding."
Those initial efforts produced $5.3
million for IT upgrades, Lee described
Warmington added that sum was the
down payment of what he hoped would
be $19 million for new technology at the
commission.
"You all know the OCC is desperately
in need of technology upgrades. That
will make business easier for us," he indicated. "We should have online permitting. Before we got there, the OCC was
analyzing well disposal and earthquake
data by hand on a spreadsheet. This is

something we really need to lean in on."
He emphasized that funds were not
coming from new taxes or fees from the
oil and gas industry, and the Alliance
told legislators fee or tax increases were
not up for consideration. "We are going
to help get this, and we think it will pay
for itself. But we need to make sure
everyone understands this is just a down
payment," Warmington said.
Lee reported the Alliance also supported increased state funding for roads,
recalling hearing from legislators about
constituent frustrations with damaged
roads often associated with industry truck
traffic. He said legislators approved supplementing current road expenditures
with an additional $30 million, although
there were efforts to boost that amount.
"Not necessarily everything you do in
a session is about passing or killing a
bill. Some of it is developing relationships,"
Lee said. "We pushed one bill to get the
attention of some people. We got the attention of the Oklahoma Municipal
League. We had some struggles with
mayors and city managers passing harmful
restrictions that they probably shouldn't
be able to lawfully pass under state law.
We started working with the league on
some of the issues we had. It has been

Chad Warmington, president of the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma, and Alliance Vice
President of Government and Legal Affairs Zack Lee give their predictions for
Oklahoma's 2020 legislative session at the group's fall conference, held Oct. 21-24 at
the Big Cedar Lodge.

DECEMBER 2019 93

American Oil and Gas Reporter - December 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - December 2019