Dear Friends,

Thanks to so many of you, the fund raising for my re-election campaign was strong in April and in the first 11 days of May alone, I raised just over $29,000. I really appreciate the great support I continue to receive! Though things on the re-election campaign are going incredibly well for me, May 2010 in Oklahoma already seems unusually difficult with the recent tornadoes impacting Oklahomans across the state and against the backdrop of the challenging budget picture for our state and our agency along with other agencies that continues to dominate the news and my thoughts.

While I know our legislators and the Governor have tough decisions to make regarding where to cut for the FY-2011 budget, I met with more legislators this week and last week to discuss the importance of establishing stable funding for the Commission's oil and gas conservation division and returning funding to this division from the excise tax assessed on oil and natural gas. For over 60 years, the Commission's oil and gas division was funded with a portion of such monies and with the taxes that are paid by the oil and gas industry, it just seems to make sense that a portion of these taxes be used to fund the agency that regulates this industry (this funding was removed about 13 years ago). Activity in the Oklahoma oil and gas sector has picked up over the past several months primarily with additional horizontal drilling. For the last three months of 2009, the active Oklahoma weekly rig count averaged 83 and for the past 5-6 weeks, the count has hovered around 116 rigs per week.

As you might be aware from my Murphy Mails and the news, the OCC is at the halfway mark or 4 of 8 planned furlough days have now been taken by our agency. All three Commissioners discussed participating in the furlough days when they were first announced. Under state law, Commissioners may not reduce their salaries and are not allowed to make gifts to their agency without going through the Governor. Commissioner Anthony and I sent our personal checks to match wage losses experienced by our furloughed employees to the Governor on May 4 and requested that the Governor direct such monies back to the OCC to be used for other costs to the agency. I also plan to make a similar donation for the remaining furlough days. My donation check has been processed by the State and I received a letter yesterday confirming that money will be directed to the agency. The press release on our donations issued can be found at: http://www.occ.state.ok.us/Divisions/NEWS/2010/05-04-10LETTERS.pdf

The most recent town hall meeting on horizontal drilling in El Reno on April 26 brought out our largest crowd, over 200 people in attendance. My thanks goes out to Mitch McAbee with the Oklahoma Mineral Owners' Association and David Sikes with Oklahoma - National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO) for helping organize and publicize the event. My special thanks to Steve Sowers with the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board and to professionals from Continental Resources who did outstanding presentations at the town hall meeting.

Over the past 10 days, I have spoken to 8 different public, industry, professional or Republican groups from El Reno to Oklahoma City to Tulsa to Norman to Perry. Needless to say, the Murphy Mobile (my little blue truck) continues to rack up the miles. On May 7, I spoke to the Oklahoma NARO convention and the group surprised me with a special award recognizing my efforts over the past 10 months to help provide information and assistance to mineral owners through the four town hall meetings on horizontal drilling that I helped organize in McAlester, Clinton, Woodward and El Reno. I appreciated the award, but know that NARO and companies that participated such as Devon, Chesapeake, Noble Energy and Continental Resources really helped make these meetings a success.

Every week, it seems there is a new challenge to be met on the energy front and the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf Coast has caused increased concern and attention to be focused on oil and gas regulations. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who lost their lives in the explosion and to those who are working hard to find solutions and dealing with the ongoing clean-up. In producing states like Oklahoma, we must continue to show we have sufficient field staff, technology and funding at the state regulatory level to locally regulate this industry by promoting proper development, protecting the environment and balancing the divergent interests of those involved.

Winning re-election means having a plan and my plan for re-election continues to be giving my best efforts to do the job as your Corporation Commissioner, traveling the State to speak about the Commission and working hard to raise money for re-election. If you want to contribute, you can do so by printing a contributor slip directly from my website and mailing it with your donation or you can make a donation directly on-line at: http://www.danamurphy.com/donate-supportdana-42.html

Again, thanks for all your efforts in personally and financially supporting my re-election efforts!

God Bless,

Your Commissioner, Dana