EDITORIAL: Listen more, talk less
Jul. 30—The reluctance for Norman residents to latch onto a longterm franchise agreement with OG&E should be obvious.
We're still paying for a deep freeze from more than two years ago. It seems everyone down the line got paid, pushing the brunt of the cost of the storm — and the bill for unscrupulous profiteers somewhere along the way — onto the ratepayers.
With so few people willing to scrutinize oil and gas in this state, there was only a handful of people in positions of power really advocating for ratepayers.
Are there safeguards in place to make sure it doesn't happen again?
Not really, in fact the State Legislature doubled down on making sure oil and gas companies can pass the burden back to the ratepayers. After the storm, Attorney General John O'Connor, at first, thought he could sue, until he found a state law that exempted petroleum from the anti-price gouging Emergency Stabilization Act.
In May of this year, Gov. Stitt signed House Bill 2561, which added natural gas to the exemption along with the existing "petroleum" exemption. Natural gas was considered a form of petroleum by lawmakers but they just wanted to make it clear.
We think it's been pretty clear who's making it into the lifeboats during an emergency.
Some want to argue it's a "generational" storm. How do they know? It could happen next winter, or the winter after. Has our power grid improved since then? Are people's homes any more insulated? Did we somehow lessen our energy needs in only two years?
And, Winter Storm Uri isn't the only concern for Norman residents and business owners. They want agreements that they know are mutually beneficial.
OG&E representatives might have thought these franchise talks were so the people can listen to their pitch, but we hope OG&E leadership will treat any future talks like listening sessions, actually hear the frustration in people's voices, and turn Norman residents' constructive criticism into real solutions.
When questioned, OG&E representatives had far too many occasions when they had an opportunity to explain something they should obviously know — like why the terms of the agreement are the terms of the agreement — and either couldn't or said the particular question is a question for someone else.
Then why wouldn't the people who are able to answer questions be at meetings like these?
It may be true that OG&E isn't at fault for so much of the increased energy costs, but it's now in a position where it has an election to win. Voters are going to have to start liking the things they hear.
