One of the significant challenges of two state legislators in their lawsuit against the continued 2021 Winter storm fuel costs borne by customers of Oklahoma Natural Gas Company has been the lack of what they contend were legitimate audits of the expenses.
Reps. Tom Gann and Kevin West have used the argument in the case before the Oklahoma Supreme Court, contending the one-page audit of the large amount of securitization bonds used by ONG did not follow state law.
Longtime CPA David Greenwell and former Oklahoma Corporation Commission Public Utilities Division Director James Proctor are trying again to intervene in the case and support the claims of the two legislators. Both claim the one-page audits don’t hold water.
Greenwell, a former chairman of the Oklahoma Accountancy Board was responsible for the July 8, 2024 report entitled “Public Confusion over Audits is Unnecessary and Problematic” that was raised when then-Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony tried to overturn the one-page audit used in confirming fuel and bond costs.
“Fundamentally, my brief seeks to help avoid additional ill-advised violations of the Accountancy Act and the need for additional appeals before this Court,” he explained in his recent filing.
James M. Proctor, who now lives in Kansas, filed an Amicus Curiae Brief wanting to offer his input in the lawsuit filed by state Reps. Gann and West.
“Specifically, I hope to correct any false notions that allowing non-CPA PUD employees to conduct audits or to testify about audits they conducted without CPA supervision is somehow “the way it’s always been done “at the OCC PUD. It is not,” he stated in the filing with the Supreme Court.
Proctor served as PUD director from 1990 to 1993 and later as an administrative aide to former Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony until 1998. He informed the court he has more than 40 years of experience in utility regulation matters including as a regulatory consultant to state regulatory agencies and as a consultant to regulated utilities, and utility subsidiaries, affiliates, partnerships and law firms.
” As such, I have an interest in upholding the rule of law and certain baseline standards of state utility regulation. My brief seeks to inform the Court about facts regarding the staffing and activities of the OCC Public Utility Division during my tenure at the OCC.”
He asked permission to include two exhibits including pages from the “85th Annual Report of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission-Fiscal year 1991” and pages from an October 1996 OCC Interoffice phone directory listing PUD employees, including many “expressly identified as CPAs.”
“Fundamentally, my brief seeks to show that audits and other financial analyses by the Public Utility Division of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission used to be performed by licensed CPAs
or under the close supervision of licensed CPAs. Knowledge of these facts should help the Court in its assessment of the facts at issue in current utility case appeals.”
Proctor’s support of the legal challenges made by Reps. Gann and West, echoes the original challenge made by Anthony when he was a commissioner. In 2024, Anthony challenged OCC Chairwoman Kim David when she 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.
“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, 2024 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.
However, the Corporation Commission opposed both last year when they attempted to intervene in the original lawsuit, claiming Greenwell is not a licensed attorney and “not qualified” to inform the court about any legal analysis and interpretation of the state’s Accountancy Act.
“Nor is Greenwell qualified to inform this Court concerning the analysis of whether the Court’s interpretation of a statute should be applied prospectively only,” argued the Commission in its filing. The commission attorneys also stated that Proctor “seeks to impermissibly introduce new facts not of record in this appeal.” The state argued that allowing the two to file more briefs in the case would only “unnecessarily” expand the volume of briefing in the matter.
The commission’s legal staff further claimed that allowing Greenwell and Proctor to file the briefs would have been an “unfair burden on opposing parties.”
“This would be a wasteful expenditure of resources and time for opposing parties and this Court, especially given Applicants do not propose presentation of information of probative value for the Court’s consideration.”