American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2016 - 129

$25,000 for the state's habitat and wildlife
projects. Companies also have gotten
more involved in charity drives, donating
food, toys, blood and winter clothing to
help those in need.
These efforts have not gone unnoticed.
According to an opinion poll, North
Dakotans overwhelmingly support the
oil and gas industry and appreciate the
many benefits it provides. In fact, about
three out of four North Dakotans favor
the industry, and two of those four express
strong favor. Even as many states must

combat myths about hydraulic fracturing,
North Dakotans are more apt to express
concerns about federal regulatory overreach than the impacts of fracturing.
We are thankful for this support, especially as the industry faces an onslaught
of anti-energy regulations that poured
from the Environmental Protection Agency
and Bureau of Land Management in the
second half of 2015. Many of these regulations are being challenged in court,
but we anticipate they will continue to
concern us well into 2016, nor will these

Ohio Oil & Gas
Association
DAVID R. HILL
Owner/Operator
David R. Hill Inc.
Byesville, Oh.

FROM THE PRESIDENT
I would like to take a moment to
reflect on past year and all that materialized
within the Ohio Oil & Gas Association
in 2015. As I reflect on what we have
seen over the year, the litany of issues
the industry has faced seemingly has
been insurmountable. I can't think of any
time in the past 40 years where the hill to
climb has seemed so high.
We have seen crude oil prices fall
below $40 a barrel and natural gas prices
languish at record lows, creating a general
sense of gloom and doom among our industry on a global scale.
The price rut, brought to us mainly by
Saudi Arabia as it seeks to control market
share, is wreaking havoc on the United
States' domestic oil and gas industry. Decisions made halfway around the world
are having real-life implications right
here in Ohio. Simultaneously, the collapse
of the natural gas price in Appalachia,
mainly because of a lack of adequate infrastructure to get the gas out of the
basin, is making life practically impossible
for many OOGA members.
While all this was going on, some of
our elected officials in Ohio believed this
would be a good time to increase the
severance tax. After months of interested
party meetings with the Kasich administration, affected agencies and Ohio House
and Senate members on the 2020 Tax
Policy Study Commission, I am pleased
to report that it looks like we won't have
to discuss the severance tax issue for the

next year or so.
The association went through every
aspect of oil and gas taxation from cost
recovery to post-production with the commission. It truly was a thorough process,
and I believe the commission finally realized that the industry was not overexaggerating its dire situation.
War
As if the severance tax issue wasn't
enough, the well haters-mainly funded
by left-leaning individuals and organizations-continue to declare war on the fossil
fuel industry. Make no mistake, at their
core these groups despise capitalism.
OOGA spent a considerable amount
of time dealing with local control initiatives, dubbed community bills of rights,
that popped up in multiple areas from
Medina to Athens. These were led by the
Community Environmental Legal Defense
Fund (CELDF), a radical outfit based in
Pennsylvania. It started attempting to
dupe folks in Youngstown, Oh., several
years ago into placing those control initiatives on the ballot. Thankfully,
Youngstown voters are smarter than what
CELDF had hoped, and in November
voted down the initiative for the fifth
time.
CELDF also caught the attention of
the Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted,
who issued an order to put a stop to this
nonsense and keep such items off November ballots in Athens, Medina and

be the last harmful rules likely to come
out of Washington.
Yes, 2015 was a tumultuous year, but
the industry has proven adaptable and
resilient. While production may have
slowed, the issues and challenges NDPC
continues to address have not. The 2016
elections are sure to exacerbate them,
but NDPC will continue to be vigilant
and proactive to ensure the industry can
continue to be a strong contributor to our
state and nation's economy and our national energy security.
❒

Fulton counties. The way CELDF crafted
its ballot language to ban oil and gas activities did not follow Ohio law, which
states that anyone proposing to change
the system first needs to establish an alternate form of local government. Of
course, the secretary of state's ruling did
not sit well with CELDF and its disciples,
so they took the matter to the Ohio
Supreme Court.
In dealing with these dishonest initiatives, OOGA successfully pushed back
to defeat the majority of them. Columbus,
Oh., sought a similar initiative, but came
up short by not having enough valid signatures on its petition to include the
measure on the November ballot. Additionally, the initiative's supporters in both
Akron and Portage County did not move
forward with any actions, knowing they
didn't have enough signatures.
Supporting Associations
If there was ever a time when OOGA
and this industry needed the full support
of its membership, it is now. In light of
the situation, it may seem difficult to donate your precious time and energy. But,
if you are willing to help in this fight, it
is greatly important to stay involved with
your state associations to help get us
through these challenging times.
Throughout 2015, this association was
actively engaged in stakeholder meetings
on a number of rules packages stemming
from the passage of several legislative
items over the years. Secondary containment, well spacing and incident notification rules were discussed and should be
sent out for comment early in 2016. It is
OOGA's hope that the new well spacing
rules open new opportunities for both
shale and conventional operators.
The association still is pursuing corrections to Ohio's unitization laws that
have caused operators to stall all of their
projects that include state lands. OOGA
remains committed to the passage of HB
8, and hopefully we will see some moveJANUARY 2016 129

American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2016

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