A panel of state lawmakers recently compiled a lengthy report on what to do about Ohio’s ludicrously inadequate, antiquated severance tax on oil and natural gas production. The study’s proposals can be reduced to a single, predictable recommendation: Don’t do anything.

That’s hardly surprising; the Republican-controlled General Assembly’s slavish adherence to the dictates of Statehouse fossil-fuel lobbies, and its appreciation of their campaign contributions, are well established. But when GOP Gov. John Kasich — no one’s idea of a red-hot tax-and-spender — calls the legislature’s inaction on the severance tax “disappointing,” Ohioans may want to pay closer attention.

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Ohio’s boom in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in recent years has greatly increased oil and gas exploration in eastern and southern parts of the state. But the severance tax and related fees that Ohio charges producers remain absurdly low relative to those imposed by other states: 20 cents per barrel of oil and 3 cents per 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas.

The legislative report acknowledges that “Ohio’s total tax burden on the oil and gas industry is lower than or as low as every other state with a severance tax.” But while it concedes the need to “update Ohio’s severance tax to make it comparative with other shale-play states across the nation,” it provides no timetable for doing so.

Ohio’s current severance tax does not generate enough revenue to support effective state regulation of the drilling industry, or to enable local communities to make the upgrades in essential services — roads, public safety, environmental protection — needed to cope with the effects of fracking. Nor does it provide taxpayers with a fair return from extraction of the state’s nonrenewable natural resources.

For three years, Governor Kasich has urged lawmakers to enact a reasonable increase in the severance tax. His most recent proposal calls for tax rates of as high as 6.5 percent of market value. These rates, he notes, are lower than those imposed in Texas, Oklahoma, and North Dakota, and would place Ohio “squarely in the middle of the pack of all state rates.”

The governor says his plan, which has the support of several major business groups, would enable Ohio to maintain its “competitive advantage over other oil and gas states.” It would eliminate severance taxes for small gas producers.

Oil and gas producers insist that this is no time for any tax increase, because the decline in global oil prices has made domestic exploration relatively more expensive. Of course, when Ohio’s industry was expanding rapidly, they asserted with equal vehemence that a tax hike was unthinkable because it would have stifled economic growth and job creation.

Neither argument is credible. Drillers who want to continue to profit handsomely from extracting Ohio’s oil and gas deposits can and should pay more to do so. Despite their threats to abandon the state, they continue to invest billions of dollars in production infrastructure here.

But lawmakers who depend on the industry’s continued favor don’t see it that way. The report by the study panel, based on private consultations with industry executives, concludes that “Ohio should not expect to see a new revenue stream materialize overnight until market conditions improve.” It blandly proposes “consideration of a trigger or a slow phase-in of a reformed severance tax.” In other words: Do nothing — and do it slowly.

Governor Kasich has muddied his message by saying he wants to apply the proceeds from a higher severance tax to a further cut in the state income tax. Giving more tax relief to the wealthiest Ohioans is less important than using the severance tax to address the significant public costs of fracking, and to invest in vital state services such as education and job training.

But however the revenue is used, a reasonable increase in Ohio’s severance tax is fair and needed. Lawmakers who continue to reject that notion are making clear whom they represent, and that constituency isn’t the people who voted them into office.

First Published November 22, 2015, 5:00 a.m.