A Warning from former Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony
Former Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony issued a warning this week about the winter storm that is moving into the state, raising questions whether ratepayers of utilities will end up being soaked because the utilities were not prepared for the storm that froze Oklahoma 5 years ago.
Five years ago, natural gas prices soared in Oklahoma to reach record U.S. highs of more than $1,200 MMBtu. Already on Tuesday, prices jumped 25% and as of Wednesday afternoon, they had risen 28%.
Remember Winter Storm Uri of 2021? Anthony does and also issued a reminder to ratepayers and to utilities.
“Another winter storm is in the forecast. Will Oklahoma utility customers get hammered, cheated and fleeced again? Less than five years after 2021’s Winter Storm “Uri” was falsely described by regulators as a “100-year storm,” forecasts indicate 2026’s “Fern” might be similar.
Uri resulted in $5 billion of ratepayer-backed bonds payments for OG&E, ONG and PSO customers – that’s a debt of $1,800 to $4,000+ each for over a million Oklahoma households. Will the utilities properly stock up and prepare this time, or will they once again pass through historic natural gas and purchased power prices without telling residential gas and electric customers what staying warm during Fern is really costing them?
In 2021, two Corporation Commissioners insisted they had no authority to investigate price gouging or market manipulation surrounding Oklahoma’s highest-in-the-history-of-the-nation natural gas prices, and that ratepayers just had to pay up. So much for their constitutional duty to “supervise, regulate and control” monopoly public utility companies. The OCC’s 2-1 decisions to allow the utilities to audit themselves after Uri are currently being appealed at the Oklahoma Supreme Court. [See CU-122861, CU-123021 and CU-123348.]
The two OCC Commissioners who voted to declare every dollar of OG&E, ONG and PSO’s $6 billion dollars of 2021 fuel costs “fair, just, reasonable and prudent” – another decision being challenged at the Supreme Court [CU-122991] – are still on the Commission today. And the same Attorney General who failed to cross-examine witnesses about fraud, market manipulation or lawful audits and prudence reviews in 2021 is representing ratepayers again. Will anything be different in 2026?
We can only hope that lessons have been learned, and that those responsible for holding utilities accountable will follow the law and do their duty this time. Otherwise, I forecast higher customer bills and more Supreme Court challenges. Oklahoma ratepayers deserve honesty and transparency – from their utility companies and their elected officials. Will they get it? Time will tell.”