Claims of ‘misleading’ leveled against attorney in ONG ratepayer bond case

A day after an Oklahoma Supreme Court referee heard arguments in the $1.4 billion ONG ratepayer-backed bond request by the Oklahoma Development Finance Authority, former legislator Mike Reynolds filed another protest saying the ODFA attorney continued to make false, misleading and contradictory statements to the Court about the case.

In a Thursday filing with the Supreme Court, Reynolds made the accusations against Jered T. Davidson, the ODFA attorney who formally presented the Oklahoma Natural Gas request before referee Kyle Rogers.

Reynolds, a former state representative for south Oklahoma City laid out a list of errors and misleading claims he said were made by Davidson during the Wednesday morning hearing.

Reynolds said Davidson was incorrect in again claiming that the 2021 winter storm costs experienced by ONG were evaluated by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission before it approved a financing order on a 2-1 vote.

“This is false,” he stated in the filing, adding that the Commission “clearly did not follow its established procedures to investigate such costs” and to make such a claim “is to intentionally mislead this Court.”

Reynolds also said Davidson answered with “falsehoods” when asked by the Court referee what would happen if the Court did not validate the bonds. Davidson’s statement that the winter storm costs would be passed through to the ratepayers on their next utility bill prompted Reynolds to respond, “His answer is 100% false and demonstrates a lack of understanding about how public utilities are regulated in Oklahoma.”

Another claim by the ODFA attorney—that the utilities seeking securitization for their costs have released all the details of the winter storm costs brought another rebuke from Reynolds who called it “misleading.”

He pointed out that the Corporation Commission had only released grand total cost information from the utilities but not the prices paid to each of the suppliers.

“The idea that a one-page release from the OCC PUD somehow constitutes full disclosure of all relevant information is laughable,” wrote Reynolds in his latest filing.

He also refuted Davidson’s claim that a Texas Public Utility Regulatory Act case was persuasive in the ONG case. Reynolds also claimed that the ODFA attorney was contradictory in answering a question about who owned the “Securitization Property.”

Reynolds also said the attorney “misrepresented” a claim that the Corporation Commission granted a “Tariff Waiver” to ONG, explaining such a claim was “false.”

“His conduct should give this Court pause.”

The former legislator reminded the Court in the filing that the ODFA had not responded to arguments that the OCC Financing Order was “tainted” by OCC Chair Dana Murphy’s “Willful violation” of the Open Meeting Act.

In summing up his latest protest, Reynolds wrote, “And the ODFA’s unconstitutional arguments should give this Court nausea. These Ratepayer-Backed Bonds are indefensible.”

The ONG case heard by the referee was one of three bond securitization requests to be made Wednesday by the ODFA. Two others were for Public Service Company of Oklahoma and Summit Utilities Oklahoma.

The only opposition was to the ONG request and came from Reynolds who also argued against the first such bond case to be heard by the Court. He filed a constitutional challenge to the new Act that was passed by the Oklahoma legislature in 2021 following the February winter storm.

Click below to view the latest filing.

file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/1051913588-20220414-102313-%20(1).pdf