- published: 21 Jul 2010
- views: 451
Severance taxes are incurred when non-renewable natural resources are separated (or severed) from a taxing jurisdiction. Industries that typically incur such taxes are oil and gas, coal, mining, and timber industries.
Some states use other terms like Gross Production Tax.
Sheffield E. Nelson (born 1940) is a lawyer, businessman, and politician from Little Rock, Arkansas. Originally a Democrat, Nelson in 1990 ran for governor of Arkansas as a Republican against then governor and future U.S. President Bill Clinton and in 1994 against the Democratic Governor Jim Guy Tucker.
Nelson was born in Keevil near Brinkley in Monroe County in eastern Arkansas. He graduated from Brinkley High School and thereafter received his undergraduate degree in mathematics education from the University of Central Arkansas at Conway, where he was the student body president. He obtained a law degree in 1969 from the William H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Prior to his foray into politics, he was from 1972 to 1988 the CEO of a natural gas company, Arkansas Louisiana Gas Company, since known as CenterPoint Energy. Nelson has served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. From 1997 to 2007 under Governor Mike Huckabee, he was the chairman of the Game and Fish Commission. From 1990 to 1992, he was chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party. He is the Arkansas Republican National Committeeman, a position formerly held by the late Winthrop Rockefeller, the father of the GOP resurgence in Arkansas who was elected governor in 1966 and 1968.