The Oklahoma Corporation Commission is being urged by the Oklahoma Sierra Club and OGE customers to reject the company’s ongoing rate case.
“We need to invest in low, zero-carbon resources for power generation,” said Johnson Bridgwater, director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Sierra Club. “We immediately need to stop investments in coal plants backed by monthly electric bills on families served by OGE, who are the very people being sickened by air pollution.”
Customers of the utility also blamed OGE for some of the flooding.
“What is happening on the Arkansas River today is not normal,” said one customer. But his claim was denied by Rep. Lundy Kiger who is a former vice president of the AES Shady Point coal-fired power plant recently purchased by OGE. He argued the flooding on the Arkansas River was just as significant in 1946 and again in 1986.
A pending settlement has been announced in which OGE would be allowed to receive $66 million a year to cover the costs of adding scrubbers and converting two power trains from coal to natural gas at the Muskogee plant.
The Attorney General supports the settlement along with the Public Utility Division of the Corporation Commission. Under the agreement, OGE customers would not see a rate increase.