We have some good news for kids – and grown-ups – who like to play on abandoned oil field sites!
Don’t expect the good times to end anytime soon!
Last week, a report came out detailing how some of Oklahoma’s most wealthy and powerful Oil Overlords, along with their corporate syndicates, are getting refunds on a .01% voluntary tax they pay to remove and clean abandoned oil field wells.
You know, the type of stuff that OERB – the propaganda wing of the local oil industry – has been touting in commercial after commercial after commercial for the past 30 years or so.
The investigative piece was filed jointly by Propublica and Capital & Main. For some reason, the esteemed Oklahoma journalism non-profits that accept large donations from many of the Oil Overlords mentioned in the report didn't touch it.
Here’s a snippet:
Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry touts its altruism and environmental stewardship by pointing to a voluntary levy that companies pay on their production, which is then used to clean up orphan wells that have been left to the state.
But some of Oklahoma’s biggest oil companies have opted out of the fund, forcing the state to return millions of dollars that would have otherwise gone to restoring land scarred by discarded drilling infrastructure and contaminated by leaks and spills, according to a ProPublica and Capital & Main analysis.
The list of companies that received such refunds includes some of the Oklahoma oil industry’s household names, such as Ovintiv and Chesapeake Energy Corp. It also includes the two richest people in the state: Harold Hamm, a pioneer in fracking technology and the founder of the multibillion-dollar Continental Resources, and George Kaiser, whose success as head of his family’s oil company helped him buy the Bank of Oklahoma.
Well, that’s outrageous.
I can see your run-of-the-mill 1-percenter trying to get some money back to cover their first-class plane tickets and the rising tuition rates at Heritage Hall, but Harold Hamm and George Kaiser are collectively worth over $30-billion! They have enough money to send Mike Rowe to Mars and hopefully leave him there forever!
So, exactly how much money are these greed machines getting back that should be put into cleaning old wells and, uhm, providing school supplies:
All told, dozens of oil companies received refunds worth about $11 million over the past seven years, ProPublica and Capital & Main found. Put another way, for every $100 the state brought in via this funding mechanism, it sent $8.58 back to oil companies.
That’s it?!! $11,000,000?! That’s the cost of one slide at George Kaiser’s Gathering Place! I’m pretty sure Harold Hamm has that much loose cash sandwiched in his squatty seat cushions. How in the world do they justify this cheapness that’s on par with returning a suit to Burlington after you had the job interview?
ProPublica and Capital & Main reached out to all 76 companies that requested refunds in the past seven years as well as to the main in-state trade groups, the Oklahoma Energy Producers Alliance and the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma. The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma, Hamm’s Continental Resources, Kaiser’s Kaiser-Francis Oil Co., Chesapeake Energy and Ovintiv did not respond to requests for comment.
Only two oil producers answered questions: one said she requested refunds to cut down on contact with regulators, while the other dismissed concerns about the refunds, stating that “it’s not that much money.”
First of all, now that they've been made aware they can get refunds, expect way more than 76 companies to ask for their money back this year.
Second, I know Oil Overlords are greedy nihilists and care about money way more than they do the environment, but I’m still a tad surprised Hamm, Kaiser and others asked for the money back.
Although they may not care about the environmental damage caused by abandoned wells that pollute our state, they do love propaganda, and OERB delivers on that more than anything else!
Hell, if they spent as much money cleaning up abandoned wells as they do producing fancy commercials and sending Mike Rowe to the best onion burger stand in Chickasha, they probably wouldn't even need to voluntarily tax themselves anymore:
Who knows. Maybe the Oil Overlords are going to simply move those industry PR efforts in-house where they have control over messaging. Continental has taken noble stabs at it over the years...
If you’re bored and have nothing better to do, you can read the full report over at Capital & Main. Or just go play in an abandoned oil site. There are plenty in the state to choose from, and they don’t appear to be going anywhere soon.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
