House members of the Appropriations and Budget Transportation Subcommittee will meet in the coming week and start the work of focusing on budgets and transportation. In their Thursday morning meeting, the Representatives will hear presentations by officials of the Oklahoma Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics and the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority. When: Thursday, January …
Legislator files bill to allow Bitcoin payments
Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, has filed SB325, the Bitcoin Freedom Act, a bill that would allow Oklahoma employees to opt to receive payment in Bitcoin and enable vendors to accept Bitcoin payments. “In a time when inflation is eroding the purchasing power of hard-working Oklahomans, Bitcoin provides a unique opportunity to protect earnings and …
Texas tops in wind and solar farm production
While some Oklahomans are fighting the growth of renewable energy projects in the state, Texas ranks as the state with the most development of wind and solar projects in the U.S. Information from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed Texas not only has 42,000 megawatts of wind power, 22,000 megawatts of solar farms and …
Canoo’s furloughs also involved “reverse stock split” by company
When the 87 workers at the Canoo electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Oklahoma City got the word they were furloughed for 12 weeks in late December, it came a day after Canoo took a financial step to increase the value of shares in the struggling company. After weeks of declining stock value, Canoo made …
Audit shows Energy Secretary’s EV road trip wasn’t as bad as Congressional critics claimed
Republicans in Congress blasted a 2023 EV road trip taken by Energy Secretary Granholm to push Biden’s green energy programs, saying it was “ripe with waste, fraud and abuse.” But, there’s always a but, and in this case it is a report from the Energy Department’s Office of Inspector General, better known as …
Energy briefs
** The number of faults on the power grid near three of the major Los Angeles County fires skyrocketed in the hours before the blazes began, according to a company that monitors electrical activity. Bob Marshall, the chief executive of Whisker Labs, said in an interview with The Times that the areas near the Eaton, Palisades and Hurst …
Legislative and transportation leader Neal McCaleb dies at 90
Neal McCaleb, Oklahoma first Secretary of Transportation under the administration of Gov. Henry Bellmon died Thursday. He was 90 and was also Transportation Secretary in the Frank Keating administration. McCaleb, who served eight years in the Oklahoma House of Representatives and four of them as the GOP House minority leader, later went on to …
Cold weather behind Thursday’s gain in crude oil prices
The cold weather in the U.S. and Europe sent crude oil prices climbing by more than 1% on Thursday. Demands for winter fuel were behind the increase. Gains came one day after both benchmarks fell 1% on Wednesday. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 84 cents or 1.15% to settle at $74.16 a barrel on …
Dubai billionaire pledges to build data centers in Oklahoma and other states
“I’ve traveled to Dubai and throughout Asia to bring investment like this to Oklahoma. This is phenomenal news.” It’s what Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt stated this week after President-elect Donald Trump announced this week a $20 billion foreign investment to build new data centers in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. The man behind the …
How one national energy group reported on Oklahoma’s Stop the Green rally
This week’s “Stop the Green Energy Scam” rally at the Oklahoma State capitol caught the attention of at least one national environmental organization. HeatMap News, an organization focused on climate news and what it calls the “inside story of the race to fix the planet” highlighted the rally with the headline, “The Growing Push …