The Oklahoma Development Finance Authority won’t meet Wednesday after all to consider the request of three more utilities for $2.2 billion in bond requests stemming from the 2021 winter storm in Oklahoma.
The ODFA meeting originally scheduled for Wednesday has been cancelled and the next regular meeting of the agency board will be held March 30 according to a posting with the Secretary of State. The notice only stated that the meeting had been cancelled and gave no explanation.
The requests of Oklahoma Natural Gas, Public Service Company of Oklahoma and Summit Utilities Oklahoma were slated to be reviewed for bond securitization, a move to extend cost recovery payments over several years.
The request by ONG totaled $1.45 billion while PSO sought $725 million in bonds. Summit Utilities Oklahoma sought $95 million. If approved by the board of the ODFA, each of the requests will have to be filed separately for final approval from the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
The first such bond securitization was for Oklahoma Gas & Electric and is pending with the Supreme Court where several challenges were filed by protesters. The Court is waiting on a response from Attorney General John O’Connor who chose not to sign a settlement agreement when OGE’s securitization received support from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
As OK Energy Today reported last week, the court sent a communication to the AG asking if he wanted to “intervene” in the OGE case. It gave him until March 1 to respond.