The collaborative spirit was alive and well in mid-April when the Tulsa Regional Chamber and the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber hosted part of their annual Washington, D.C. advocacy trips together.
Former Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, vice president of community and government affairs for Saint Francis Health System, said the event reminded him of a past conversation with Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt.
“We got together and we said, our two cities are too small and too close to have some stupid sibling rivalry, and there are no cities in America that can compete with us when we’re working together,” Bynum said. “I’m so grateful that we have leadership in our chambers of commerce that are finding more ways for our cities to work together.”
More than 120 attendees participated in the event, which featured a trip to Embassy of Canada to the United States to learn about international trade relations with Oklahoma; a day of speakers that included U.S. Senators Alan Armstrong and James Lankford and U.S. Representatives Kevin Hern, Frank Lucas and Tom Cole, as well as federal officials from the Export-Import Bank of the United States and Environmental Protection Agency.
Members of both the Tulsa and Oklahoma City delegations had the opportunity to ask about everything from the upcoming midterms to the fate of the Senate filibuster.
Reminding the audience of results of the 2010 midterm election, when Republicans gained many seats in Congress, Lankford spoke in favor of retaining the filibuster.
“We as Americans like to know, even if I lose the vote, I was heard,” he said. “I think that’s why the country got so angry right after Obamacare passed,” Lankford said. “Because Democrats had 60 (votes in the U.S. Senate), they could literally do whatever they wanted... I don’t think the country was upset about some things like the Affordable Care Act, but I think it was the feeling of I’m not being heard.
“So yeah, I’ve been a pretty big advocate for this, saying ‘That needs to stay.’ There’s something important about that in our Republic, to make sure both sides of the argument are heard.”
During the final day of the Fly-In, the two chambers had separate programming. Tulsa’s event featured federal energy, housing, healthcare and mental healthcare policy discussions from the National Petroleum Council, Bipartisan Policy Center and KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation) representatives.
Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was asked by an attendee about expanding quality and affordable childcare, which is a federal priority of the OneVoice Regional Legislative Agenda. He cited the Employer-Provided Childcare Credit as a way employers could help working parents.
“So now, a bunch of employers in the community, in an industrial park or anywhere else, can get together and say, ‘We’re going to contract with, pick your childcare provider,” Bradley said. “They’regoing to agree to provide slots for our employees’ children. We’re going to subsidize that, and we get to take the tax credit against that. None of those employers could have done it individually, but collectively, they can.
“I would encourage any of your businesses for whom this is an issue to look into it. One of the great things it does then, too, is to increase employee retention.”
Christy Gillenwater, president and CEO of the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber, noted that Tulsa and Oklahoma City account for about two-thirds of the state’s population, as well as about two-thirds of the state’s gross domestic product (GDP).
“That really leads into why this strategic alignment and partnership about taking our state and our two great regions to the next level is so important,” she said.
Joking that Oklahoma City’s 600-room Omni Hotel “made us very jealous,” Mike Neal, president and CEO of the Tulsa Regional Chamber, said that Oklahoma City’s success is also good for Tulsa.
“We were working aggressively to work on (Tulsa’s proposed convention center hotel) and kind of raise our game like you guys have,” he said. “Hats off for a wonderful job that you’ve done. I think both of our cities, both of our regional have got amazing momentum.”
Tulsa Regional Chamber's next Government Affairs events are a Legislative Briefing Breakfast featuring aerospace and defense at 8:30 a.m. Friday at Doubletree Warren Place, and the State of the Tribal Nations on May 14 at the Renaissance Tulsa Hotel & Convention Center. LBB's featured panel includes Jim Bridenstine, Managing Partner of The Artemis Group and former NASA Administrator and Congressman; State Senator John Haste; State Representative Nick Archer; and
Grayson Ardies, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics; Chief Executive Officer of the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority. State of the Tribal Nations lead panel will have the three principal chiefs of the Cherokee, Muscogee and Osage Nations.
