Treasurer Josh Mandel was clear in his short speech to the Ohio Oil and Natural Gas Association on Thursday.

I oppose increasing the severance tax here in the state of Ohio.

Mandel says special interest groups on the federal and state level see the boom in oil and gas drilling as a way to bring in money for more government spending – but he says he sees it as an opportunity for small businesses and landowners.

“It is wrong to increase taxes so the government can redistribute wealth,” Mandel said.

“If the state of Ohio is interested in having government share in the wealth, rather than increasing taxes and regulatory burdens lawmakers should look to lease as much state land as possible for oil and gas exploration.”

Last month Mandel asked lawmakers to block Gov. Kasich’s proposed Medicaid expansion, another key provision in his budget. But there’s no indication that Mandel will try to take on Kasich in a primary.

“ The energy companies I told them, we don’t want foreigners working on our well heads, those are people from West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan and Oklahoma, okay? We want Ohioans on the well head, ” Kasich said.

But Kasich said he’s concerned that out of state employees are being brought in to work with the drillers.

“So you could have the situation where we are not getting the jobs, they are taking the resources and all of their profits and they are heading home. That is not acceptable to me. Now we don’t have the conclusive evidence that this is happening yet but I want you to know and I want all of the companies to know that this is an extremely serious matter and we expect them to be responsive to the people of this state.”

Tom Stewart is the executive vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. He says the oil and gas companies have invested over $3 billion in Ohio, and because they’re moving quickly, they need to bring in workers who can handle the jobs right away.

“You’re talking about an industry that is reaching the pinnacle of technological advances in oil and gas. It’s equivalent to drilling oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico. You just don’t hire people who’ve had two weeks of training and put them on this rig. You hire people who are equipped and ready to do this kind of job and you get them from where they can be supplied to.”

And Stewart says Ohioans are building hotels, restaurants and other businesses to serve the workers with the oil and gas drillers – so those companies are stimulating the state’s economy.

“The economic multiplier is creating jobs far, far beyond what we’re registering just today. We need to encourage people. We need to quit talking about investigating that, ” said Stewart.

Kasich has proposed an increase in the severance tax that oil and gas drillers would pay, which the industry has strongly opposed.