Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt says he is ready to stand up in defense of Oklahoma landowners opposed to regional transmission line development by the Southwest Power Pool. He’s ready to take on the SPP and suggested he won’t allow the power grid to control Oklahoma. He might explore “unplugging” from the SPP.
Interviewed by Scott Mitchell as part of News 9’s “Hot Seat” program, Gov. Stitt offered surprising comments when he declared, “I’m also looking at unplugging from the SPP the Southwest Power Pool. I don’t wanta push Oklahoma’s sovereignty over to the federal government for permitting rights or for eminent domain—that should belong to the state.”
Gov. Stitt explained wind developers are currently “hooking up with the feds to try and take over land in Oklahoma. And so those are things I’m trying to protect Oklahomans from to make sure that you know, we’re not gonna allow the federal government to take our resources and then build power transmissions to power stuff on the East Coast.”
SM: I think that’s new on the SPP. Would it become like EROT without SPP?
Gov: “Not really, ERCOT is the only state—ERCOT is Texas as you know. That’s the only state that does not share across state lines. But there’s other states like Mississippi and Alabama and some other states…They can still share power. I’m fine with sharing power with Texas or Kansas or Arkansas—I just don’t want to have to play, you know, ‘Mother May I’ to the Southwest Power Pool which is a group of 17 states before I add energy to my own grid. That’s where I have a problem with the Southwest Power Pool. If I’m looking at unplugging from them.”
SM: You’ve brought up transmission. ROFR type deals? your philosophy?
Gov: “First off, there’s a little bit of…I believe in free markets, number one. And so if there’s a monopoly and somebody’s trying to keep people out of that industry, that’s a problem for prices and a free market system for the consumer. Now, on property rights, the complicated thing is, if there’s a farmer that owns a thousand acres, I’m not gonna let the government tell him what he can do on his thousand acres, right? Where I have a big problem is if the federal government comes in and forces a farmer next to him to do the same thing with his thousand acres, to build some transmission line that’s providing power to the East Coast, right? If we’re gonna do that, if we’re gonna have a farmer here in Oklahoma that wants to build solar or wants to put a wind farm that’s very problematic for the government of the state of Oklahoma to tell him what he can do….we believe in personal property rights. Now—but the problem that really is happening you have the feds coming in demanding eminent domain—those are the reasons that I’m looking at to pull that back from the feds, pull back from the SPP, pull back to say ‘No” Oklahoma’s gonna be in charge of who we’re gonna say eminent domain is.”
In August, the Southwest Power Pool announced $1 billion in expansion of power line projects.
Then in October, the SPP announced nearly $8 billion in expansion projects. The SPP explained it conducted two years of studies and decided to move ahead with $7.7 billion in transmission projects.
Eighty-nine projects representing 2,277 miles of new transmission lines and another 443 miles of rebuilding of existing lines were recently approved by the SPP’s Markets and Operations Policy Committee. Read the full ITP report on SPP.org for a list of all projects.
