LEAD (Large-scale Economic Activity and Development) Act

The LEAD (Large-scale Economic Activity and Development ) Act is legislation passed by the Oklahoma Legislature in April 2022 in an effort to incentivize a major manufacturer to build a massive electric vehicle battery factory in the MidAmerica Industrial Park outside of Tulsa in Pryor. The manufacturer was not officially identified at the time due to a non-disclosure agreement signed by the state, but was widely known to be Panasonic.

The LEAD Act, enacted as HB 4455, provided for a 10-year investment rebate program for the cost of qualified capital expenditures based on creation of new direct jobs. A company was required to submit a a capital expenditure plan totaling no less than $3.6 billion to be eligible for the rebates.The Panasonic project was anticipated to lead to 4,000 new jobs within five years.

The Legislature appropriated $698 million to the LEAD Fund in 2022 as part of the FY 2023 budget. In July 2022, Panasonic announced that it had selected Kansas instead of Oklahoma as the location for its battery factory. A new deal with Panasonic for a $5 billion battery manufacturing plant with 3,500 new jobs in northeast Oklahoma was signed in 2023, with the company receiving the $698 million allocated to the LEAD Fund in 2022 and an additional $145 million appropriated to the Department of Commerce from the General  Revenue Fund.