Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony is taking issue again for the corporation commission’s one-page so-called “audit” of ONG’s $1.4 billion of 2021 Winter Storm bonds.
In a release and filing this week, the Commissioner, whose term will end in mid-January 2025, noted that on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, OCC’s chair Kim David, sent yet another one-page so-called “audit” of ONG’s $1.4 billion of 2021 Winter Storm bonds to Governor Kevin Stitt, Senate Pro Tempore Designee Lonnie Paxton and Speaker-Elect Kyle Hilbert. It was the OCC’s third such communication in the last fourteen months. However, this time, David also included some 40 pages of “attachments.”
“I regret to inform you that, in my opinion as a Corporation Commissioner, the OCC’s “PUD Audit pursuant to 74 O.S. § 9078” for Oklahoma Natural Gas provided to you on November 26, 20241 is nothing more than an admission of guilt by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. By changing, not what it has been doing, but the way it presents what it has been doing, the OCC has seemingly-inadvertently offered up new evidence that the so-called “audits” it has been providing do not actually comply with state law,” wrote Anthony in a letter to Gov. Stitt and the legislative leaders.
David’s communication was sent in response to audit requirements specified in the 2021 Securitization Act that she helped author as a state senator after Oklahoma utility companies OG&E, ONG, PSO and Summit spent almost $3 billion on natural gas and purchased power during two weeks of February 2021’s Winter Storm “Uri.” The Act allowed the utilities to issue ratepayer-backed bonds and recoup those storm costs (plus $2 billion more in bond interest and expenses) from their customers over decades, charged Anthony.
Here’s what he takes issue with. The following is in essence the audit, as cited by Commissioner David:
money that has been remitted to the trustee. In addition, PUD receives Oklahoma Natural’s WESCR true-up and supporting work papers from Oklahoma Natural on a semi-annual basis. The
following figures are as of May 1, 2024:
1. Total amount of the original securitization bond $1,354,200,000
2. Annual interest rate on the securitization bond 4.523%
3. Total annual interest expense paid $ 28,740,355
4. Total interest expense paid to date $ 98,248,802
5. Total annual revenue collected per the utility tariff $ 32,465,459
6. Total revenue collected to date per the utility tariff $ 165,866,909
7. Remaining repayment term
8. Outstanding principal balance
23 Years
$1,276,203,446″
This was the third time Commissioner Anthony sent a follow-up letter to the governor and legislative leaders denouncing what the OCC has claimed is a required audit of a utility company’s 2021 Winter Storm bonds. He has never received a response from the Governor nor the Senate President or House Speaker.
“In an attempt to dress up another bogus one-page ‘audit’ of multi-billion-dollar 2021 Winter Storm bonds, this time the OCC’s new chairman, Kim David, attached 38 additional pages she clearly did not expect anyone to read,” Anthony wrote.
Anthony’s letter says that, thanks to a 41-page report by former Oklahoma Accountancy Board President David Greenwell filed in July 2024, “everyone now knows that PUD’s so-called ‘audit’ does not comply with state law.”
“So,” according to Anthony, “in an appalling case of bait-and-switch, OCC Chairman David has attached a different audit report by some actual licensed CPAs, apparently trying to fool people into thinking PricewaterhouseCoopers had something to do with the PUD’s noncompliant ‘Audit pursuant to 74 O.S. § 9078.’” But, Anthony says, it is not a Section 9078 audit. “Section 9078 is not even mentioned,” Anthony writes.
His letter concludes with an appeal to lawmakers for the upcoming session:
“If the governor and legislative leaders are as tired of these fake audits as I am, I suggest they enact legislation clarifying that the word ‘audit’ in the Securitization Act necessarily means an audit pursuant to the Oklahoma Accountancy Act, and put an end to this multi-billion-dollar farce once and for all.”
“After three years of fake audits, Oklahoma’s utility ratepayers deserve the whole truth for a change,” Anthony writes.
Read Anthony’s full December 3 letter/opinion filing here:
https://public.occ.ok.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=17258004
Read David’s November 26 correspondence here:
https://public.occ.ok.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=17247720