Correspondence filed Tuesday at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission reveals Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has declined to represent utility ratepayer complaints against Commissioner Todd Hiett.
By statute in Oklahoma, the Attorney General has a duty “to represent and protect the collective interests of all utility consumers of this state in rate-related proceedings before the Corporation Commission or in any other state or federal judicial or administrative proceeding.” [74 O.S. § 18b(A)(21)]
https://public.occ.ok.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=17126506
But according to an October 7 email from Deputy Attorney General Chase Snodgrass to State Representative Tom Gann, “we cannot represent you in your individual capacity as a presumptive customer of ONG, PSO, and OGE, as our statutory duty is to represent the ‘collective interest’ of ratepayers.”
The letter filed Tuesday by State Representative Tom Gann is addressed to two OCC administrative law judges handling the pending half-billion-dollar fuel adjustment clause cases for ONG, OG&E and PSO. Those cases are also at issue in the lawsuit Gann and two fellow lawmakers, Kevin West and Rick West, filed against Hiett at the Oklahoma Supreme Court in September.
In conjunction with that lawsuit seeking to disqualify Hiett from OCC cases involving victims and/or witnesses of Hiett’s alleged criminal conduct, on September 12, Gann also filed formal complaints in the pending fuel cases for ONG, OG&E and PSO at the commission. In them, he argues the fuel cases (in which the OCC is supposed to assess whether the utilities’ fuel costs for the prior year were “fair, just, reasonable and prudently incurred”) are tainted by Hiett’s ongoing participation.
All three utilities are represented in their fuel cases by the law firm that hosted the June 2023 reception at Broadway 10 in Oklahoma City where Hiett allegedly sexually harassed two female OCC employees and drove home drunk, according to an August 7 Oklahoman article. However, Hiett has continued to cast votes in cases for all three utilities, including the current fuel cases, since the story went public. Hiett has also been accused of sexually assaulting a male attorney for a utility associated with some of these cases at a conference in Minnesota in June 2024.
As in the Supreme Court lawsuit, the complaints filed at the OCC argue Hiett’s ongoing participation in the utilities’ cases is “unlawful, unethical and unacceptable,” violating both State Ethics Rules and the Code of Judicial Conduct. The complaints seek a separate hearing at the OCC to determine whether or not the utilities’ fuel adjustment clauses should be allowed to continue, given the alleged taint on the cases. But according to correspondence the three state representatives shared with the Oklahoma Supreme Court on September 23, the OCC general counsel has decided to treat the formal complaints merely as public comment.
The October 14 letter to the two OCC administrative law judges asks for a ruling about whether the OCC’s decision to reduce formal fuel case complaints to the status of public comment is “lawful and proper.” If not, Rep. Gann requests an immediate hearing at the OCC to address the taint on the utility cases outlined in his complaints. “Since Hiett refuses to disqualify himself from these cases, further proceedings might be a waste of taxpayer dollars,” Gann writes.
He also asks for guidance as to “how the arguments in my complaint can be properly represented” since “the Attorney General refuses to argue them on my behalf.”
According to the state representatives’ September 23 filing at the Supreme Court, the Attorney General also declined to give an Official Attorney General Opinion regarding the applicability of Ethics Rule 4.7 and Code of Judicial Conduct Rule 2.11 to the circumstances at the OCC involving Hiett – rules the state representatives argue require Hiett to disqualify himself from cases involving the victims and/or witnesses of his alleged criminal conduct.
In that September 18 correspondence, the Attorney General’s Office told Gann, “the office believes it necessary to defer to the [Oklahoma Supreme] Court’s determination of your questions.”
“Consequently,” the state representatives told the Court on September 23, “not only will the Attorney General’s Office not be issuing an official opinion in this regard, it appears the A.G. also will not take any position against Hiett’s ongoing participation in the utility cases pending at the OCC.”
“In short, although both the A.G. and OCC recognize the significance of Petitioners’ Petition to the Court for a Writ of Prohibition to protect ratepayers’ due process rights in these utility cases, neither have given any indication they intend to do anything to protect those rights in the meantime,” they concluded.