Legislative Shale Caucus Endorses Resolutions For Keystone, Against Tax Hike

Members of the Fayetteville Shale Caucus, a bipartisan group of 16 Arkansas lawmakers, endorsed two resolutions today (Feb. 2) related to a state and a national political issue.

Also, a political rival of caucus chairman Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) proposed naming another chairman. Rep. Linda Tyler (D-Conway), who faces Rapert for the Senate District 35 seat, recommended currently unopposed Sen. Michael Lamoureux (R-Russellville) to serve as caucus chairman.

“The Fayetteville Shale and the proposed severance tax is too important for us to have any perceived political motivations for making these statements,” Tyler said in an e-mail to caucus members ahead of today’s meeting. “Therefore, I propose that we name a Chair of the Fayetteville Caucus who is unopposed this term. I nominate Senator Michael Lamoureux.”

During the meeting, Rapert said he had no intentions of stepping down as chair and the caucus took no action to replace him, but the two resolutions passed handily.

The first resolution opposed Pres. Obama’s decision to halt the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline project, which was put on hold last month due to environmental concerns.

The caucus outlined a number of reasons for supporting the project, including support of “60 Arkansas workers who lost their jobs due to the initial delay of the Keystone XL pipeline” and 600 Arkansas workers at Welspun Pipes, which is making pipeline product, whose jobs are threatened by the project’s delay.

You can view a copy of the resolution here.

The group also voiced its opposition to the Natural Gas Severance Tax Act of 2012, an effort to raise the state’s severance tax to a flat 7%.  The ballot measure, which is being promoted by former natural gas executive Sheffield Nelson, has not yet qualified for the November ballot. Its proceeds are estimated at $250 million annually and would be used for repairs to state and local roads.

The Fayetteville Shale Caucus resolution that was adopted said passage of the act would take “hundreds of millions of dollars from the local economies of natural gas producing counties and communities.” The resolution also stated that a 7% severance tax would make Arkansas “among the highest in the country and would threaten Arkansas’s ability to compete for natural gas drilling capital and the resulting jobs and economic impact.”

You can read the full resolution at this link.