To find revenue, lawmakers schedule rare weekend session
Lawmakers will meet at the Oklahoma Capitol in a rare weekend session to advance revenue bills.
Senate Floor Leader Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, said the Senate would meet Saturday at 9:30 a.m. and then again on Sunday. There was no official announcement from the House available by Friday evening, but leadership told members to stay in Oklahoma City instead of returning home.
The weekend meetings are procedurally necessary because revenue-raising bills cannot be adopted in the last five days of session.
The Legislature is constitutionally mandated to adjourn by May 26 this year, which is one week away. Because of the nearly $1 billion budget shortfall, Gov. Mary Fallin has vowed to veto any budget that doesn’t fund core services.
Friday was remarkably quiet at the Capitol as Democrats sat in negotiations with Republican leadership all day and well into the night. It was a week marred by dueling news conferences and allegations of lying by both sides of the aisle, but the principal negotiators sat back down together on Thursday.
If a deal on revenue is reached, meeting over the weekend could help lawmakers avoid a special session that costs more than $30,000 per day to run.
Lawmakers faced more pressure on Friday from a coalition of business, energy, health care and child advocacy interests. The most significant statement came from two oil and gas groups that encouraged lawmakers to raise their taxes and eliminate some incentives.
The groups said lawmakers should settle on a gross production tax rate of 3 percent on all newly drilled wells, instead of the current 2 percent. After 36 months, the rate automatically jumps to 7 percent.
Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association President Chad Warmington said his industry has made compromises in the past.
“This isn’t the first time, and it’s getting to be a regular occurrence that the oil and gas industry steps up,” Warmington said.
He cited figures from the past seven years of where lawmakers delayed incentives, raised the gross production tax rate from 1 percent to 2 percent and shut down some incentives for marginal wells.
“In 2017, we’re back here at the table again and happy to do so because of all the groups that are up here, our employees benefit from all these activities as well,” he said. “We’re happy to do our part.”
The group also encouraged legislators to increase the cigarette tax by $1.50. Democrats have withheld their support of that proposal to gain leverage on a gross production tax increase.
The third prong of the coalition’s revenue package would raise gasoline and diesel prices by 6 cents per gallon.
None of the ideas are new, however. The Save our State Coalition, which has advocated for a 7 percent gross production tax rate, issued a release noting the other group’s plan would still be $600 million or so short of filling the budget gap.