A Citizen’s Guide

Rep. Mike Doogan believes the House Oil and Gas Committee didn’t get the straight scoop on the bill it passed this weekend.

The version it passed tries to pull in more state revenue by increasing a tax surcharge tied to the price of oil: when the price goes up, the state gets a larger percentage of oil producer profits. But it doesn’t increase the tax rate, as Gov. Sarah Palin requested.

Doogan told reporters this morning the bill is based on misleading information.

Here’s what Doogan wrote in his e-mail newsletter yesterday:

“Well, the powerful House Special Committee on Oil & Gas, of which I am a powerful member, passed out its version of the oil production tax bill about 6 p.m. on Sunday after 10 days of often mind-numbing testimony. I’ll be spending the next couple of days making sure I understand just what we did.

“Yeah, I know. The civics textbooks say I shouldn’t have let a bill I didn’t fully understand leave the committee without kicking up a fuss. But Oil & Gas is just the first of three committees that will hear the bill in the House (another three are scheduled to do the same in the Senate) and we used up a third of the 30 days a special session can last. So we had to turn it loose.

“As a result, I can’t even tell you if we improved the bill. Fortunately, a bunch of people are looking at what we did, so we’ll know soon enough whether we got anywhere during our 10-day death march.”

There is a chance the Senate committees will get done with the bill first, in which case, the Senate bill would be the vehicle for the Legislature to vote on and any changes from the House would have to added in.