House Committee OK’s Hickman Measure Protecting Energy Jobs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 10, 2015

House Committee Passes Speaker’s Measure Providing Certainty for Energy Jobs

OKLAHOMA CITY – The House Environmental Law Committee passed a measure authored by Speaker of the House Jeffrey W. Hickman that provides certainty for the energy industry and the tremendous number of Oklahomans employed in the oil and gas industry.

House Bill 2178 allows local governments to set safety standards, traffic restrictions, and ordinances concerning noise, odors, fencing and caution barriers around oil drilling sites, as well as setback requirements for well sites. The authority to approve specific drilling and excavation practices rests with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.

“The energy industry is one of the drivers of our economy in Oklahoma,” said Hickman, R-Fairview. “We are seeing a trend in neighboring states of a handful of activists derailing energy operations using pseudoscience as the basis of their argument. The impact is devastating to local economies and those who rely on energy production to provide for their families.”

Last year, a handful of people were able to ban fracking in Denton, TX, by playing on public emotion and opened the door for patchwork drilling policies across the state. This has resulted in multiple lawsuits and a scramble among the energy industry and Texas state and local governments to find ways to nullify the harmful precedence this incident has created.

HB 2178 will now move to the House floor for consideration.

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