State tax credits awarded to Oklahoma's oil and gas industry help support thousands of jobs across the state and are unlikely to be scaled back, the chairman of a task force that is scrutinizing some of the state's estimated $5 billion in tax credits and exemptions said Wednesday.
Oil and gas industry executives appeared before the House Task Force on State Tax Credits and Economic Incentives to discuss the benefits of tax credits for deep oil and gas production wells, wells drilled horizontally and other expensive, high-risk ventures they said help support about 300,000 jobs in the exploration and production fields and their support industries.
"There are tens of thousands of people working at good-paying jobs in our state who would simply not be there without the oil and gas industry," said the task force's chairman, Rep. Dave Dank, R-Oklahoma City. Dank told reporters following the meeting he expects no changes in the tax credit package for oil and gas producers.
"Job creation has always been a recognized benefit of incentivizing a business," Dank said. "I can't say enough good things about the oil and gas industry."
Harold Hamm, the founder and CEO of Enid-based Continental Resources, Inc., said his company currently employs 600 people and plans to add another 461 employees in the next seven years. But he said expansion plans at his company and others in the industry might be abandoned if state tax incentives were eliminated.
"It's very important," Hamm said.
Lawmakers are studying the economic impact of state tax incentives to determine if some can be eliminated to help support a state budget that has experienced hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue shortfalls in recent years.
At previous meetings, lawmakers have studied tax credits for building energy-efficient homes and a five-year exemption from local property taxes for qualifying manufacturing facilities.
That's been the course since 2000, when then FHA Commissioner William Apgar, who is now a senior advisor on mortgage finance matters to current HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, lowered the up-front insurance premium but shortened the refund period from

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