Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma President Brook A. Simmons issued the following statement in response to Gov. Kevin Stitt’s signing of House Bill 2034. The legislation creates the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act which prohibits the state from contracting with or investing in companies that divest from oil and natural gas companies:

Oil and natural gas powers Oklahoma. Not just our cars and our homes, but the entirety of the state’s economy. Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas industry is responsible for more than half of the state’s real annual GDP growth in both good years and bad. We are the state’s largest private sector employer and its largest taxpayer in support of schools, roads, bridges and other public priorities.

There is wisdom in Oklahoma and other energy states pushing back against extremist funds and companies whose mission would harm it by pressing divestment from oil and gas. Such short-sighted virtue signaling only reduces American energy supplies, make us more dependent on foreign energy sources and drives up costs for American consumers.

We thank Gov. Kevin Stitt for signing this legislation and for the work of bill authors Rep. Mark McBride, Rep. Terry O’Donnell, Rep. Kevin West, Rep. Steve Bashore, Rep. Sean Roberts, Sen. Mark Allen, Sen. Kim David, Sen David Bullard and Sen. Michael Bergstrom in advancing the bill through the legislative process.

ABOUT THE PETROLEUM ALLIANCE – The Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma is the only trade association in Oklahoma that represents every segment of the oil and natural gas industry, representing more than 1,300 individual and member companies engaged in the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors of the state’s defining industry.