1. A. The Oklahoma Conservation Commission is hereby authorized to establish and administer the carbon sequestration certification program. The purpose of the program is to provide a mechanism for creating and preserving carbon reserves in this state produced as by-products of best available resource management activities upon certified lands.
2. B. The Commission, in consultation with the Department of Environmental Quality and with the advice of the Carbon Sequestration Committee, shall develop and promulgate rules including, but not limited to, uniform standards and criteria for the certification of existing or potential carbon sinks located in this state. In promulgating the rules, the Commission shall develop the program to be as consistent as possible with other governmental programs designed to create carbon reserves for the purpose of voluntarily reducing greenhouse gases.
3. C. In order to have land certified as an existing or potential carbon sink, an applicant shall file an application with the Commission. Along with the application, the applicant shall submit a resource management plan detailing activities which will increase or maintain existing trapped carbon including, but not limited to, improved forest management, alteration of or changes in silviculture practices, and growing of designated crops and any other such practices including, but not limited to, the capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide emissions through injection of carbon dioxide in marginal and abandoned oil and/or gas wells which, based on best available information, will increase trapped carbon.
4. D. The Commission shall require applicants to submit such information, forms, and reports as are necessary to properly and efficiently administer the program.
5. E. The Commission shall adopt site certification conditions for each carbon sink for which an application is submitted. In addition the Commission shall determine, based upon compliance with the site certification conditions, the credits or offsets achievable by the specific carbon sink.
6. F. Applications for certification of a carbon sink shall be approved or denied in accordance with criteria promulgated by the Commission.
7. G. For purposes of this section, "carbon sink" means a geographical area that could be developed with reforestation, afforestation, growing agricultural crops or any existing vegetated area or marginally producing and/or abandoned oil and/or gas well area in which carbon is or could be trapped or injected.

Laws 2002, HB 2040, c. 273, § 2, emerg. eff. May 20, 2002; Amended by Laws 2003, HB 1051, c. 221, § 4, emerg. eff. May 20, 2003 (superseded document available).