Representative Tom Gann

R

District 8

Hi, I'm Tom Gann and I represent the people of Oklahoma's 8th District.


representative

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Mar 19, 2026
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$1.5B ONG, OG&E, PSO Charges Already Collected Challenged at OK Supreme Court

OKLAHOMA CITY – Reps. Tom Gann, R-Inola, Kevin West, R-Moore, and Rick West, R-Heavener, filed their seventh appeal brief at the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Thursday. It asks the court to overturn Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) orders approving some $1.5 billion of 2023 fuel and purchased power costs incurred by monopoly public utilities, including $530 million for ONG, $550 million for PSO, and $763 million for OG&E. This brings the total utility customer payments these state representatives have officially challenged to $475 million in rate increases, $3.2 billion in 2021 winter storm bonds, and $1.5 billion in fuel charges. They say there is more to come. This brief accuses the OCC of violating state laws about audits and prudence reviews, and of violating ratepayers’ due process rights by failing to give customers notice about these cases and by permitting OCC Commissioner Todd Hiett to participate. ONG, OG&E and PSO were represented in these cases by attorneys who hosted a 2023 party where Hiett allegedly sexually harassed two female OCC employees and drove home drunk. ONG also was represented by an attorney whom the brief describes as “an outcry witness” to Hiett’s alleged sexual assault of a ONE Gas employee at a June 2024 conference in Minnesota. The Representatives argue that State Ethics Rules and the Code of Judicial Conduct prohibit Hiett from participating in OCC cases involving victims/witnesses of his alleged criminal conduct. Charges were never filed, and the Ethics Commission dismissed a complaint against Hiett in May 2025. Thursday’s brief asks the Supreme Court to review the Ethics Commission’s legal determinations in that case. A November 2024 Attorney General Opinion (2024 OK AG 17) prevented the Council on Judicial Complaints from investigating Hiett for the alleged Code of Judicial Conduct violations. The state representatives have challenged that too, citing specific “evidence of bias” in the proceedings leading to the appealed orders. “Fuel adjustment clause charges are passed through directly onto customers’ bills, so the utilities have already collected this money from us,” said Gann, who is a customer of ONG, OG&E and PSO. “State law requires audits of the utilities’ fuel charges every year. It also requires the OCC to make sure those costs were fair, just, reasonable and prudent before approving them. These laws exist to protect ratepayers, but the OCC doesn’t seem to care whether the people conducting these audits and prudence reviews are qualified or not.  A December 2025 brief alleged the OCC had allowed a Public Utility Division (PUD) employee, believed to have dropped out of college as a sophomore, to perform required audits of utility companies collectively worth more than a billion dollars. The employee also testified that all the utility charges were “prudently incurred” and should be approved by the OCC. The lawmakers say, sadly, they were.  In an answer brief filed in January, the state attorney general, who represents ratepayers in utility cases at the commission but has instead defended all the challenged OCC orders, also defended the PUD employee. The AG’s brief argued that, “Neither the Commission rules nor Oklahoma statutes [specify] who PUD must employ as part of their Staff.” The attorney general also did not object when the alleged “college dropout” testified again in February 2026 about the prudence of another $600 million of PSO’s 2024 fuel charges he claimed to have audited.   “Not everyone has to graduate from college,” Rick West said. “But state employees being paid with taxpayer dollars have to be qualified for the jobs they’re hired for. This situation is not only an assault on the household budgets of utility customers; it is an insult to thousands of qualified public servants who are legitimately earning their paychecks.” This latest brief asks the Court to overturn the OCC’s approval orders and require new, lawful fuel audits and prudence reviews by outside, independent auditors and experts, instead of the OCC’s Public Utility Division (PUD) staff. “There are serious concerns about how the Corporation Commission is operating,” Kevin West said.  Thursday’s brief also asserts that a Supreme Court opinion cited by the utilities to argue that OCC decisions are entitled to a “presumption of correctness” from the court is actually based on language in the Oklahoma Constitution that was removed by amendment in 1941. The representatives have already accused Hiett’s defenders of relying on old Supreme Court opinions issued before Ethics Rule 4.7 (prohibiting conflicts of interest by state officers) was approved in 2014. “This could be another example of the Court’s need to explicitly recognize that the law upon which previous Court decisions were based has changed,” the brief says. Thursday’s brief is the last in the 2023 fuel cases appeal, meaning a decision by the court could come at any time. The representatives say they also plan to challenge the OCC’s fuel approval orders for 2021 and 2022 in their appeals of the agency’s 2024 fuel approval orders, two of which were filed the first week in December. The next cases are worth another $6.5 billion, they say.  The full Reply Brief for the combined 2023 fuel cases appeal can be read online here: https://www.oscn.net/dockets/GetDocument.aspx?ct=appellate&bc=1064717532&cn=CU-122991&fmt=pdf The progress of all the appeals can be followed on the Oklahoma Supreme Court website. PSO rate case ($250m rate increases; $700m bonds; all briefs filed):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=122861 ONG, PSO & OG&E CY2023 fuel cases ($1.5 billion; all briefs filed):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=122991 OG&E rate case ($127m rate increase; $760m bonds; all briefs filed):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123021 ONG rate case ($98m rate increases; $1.3 billion bonds; first brief filed; last due mid-June):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123348 ONG 2024 fuel case ($390 million + $888m for 2021/2022; briefs this summer):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123588 OG&E 2024 fuel case ($925 million + $1.9 billion for 2021/2022; briefs this summer):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123608

Mar 12, 2026
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$1.77B ONG Storm Bonds, $98M Rate Increases Challenged at OK Supreme Court

OKLAHOMA CITY – Reps. Tom Gann, R-Inola, and Kevin West, R-Moore, on Wednesday filed a brief asking the Oklahoma Supreme Court to overturn $98 million in rate increases for Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONG) well as $1.77 billion of the utility’s ratepayer-backed bonds. All were approved by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) with votes by embattled OCC Commissioner Todd Hiett who was accused of groping an employee of the utility at a conference in Minnesota in June 2024.  Charges were never filed, and the Ethics Commission dismissed a complaint against Hiett in May 2025. Wednesday’s brief asks the Supreme Court to review the Ethics Commission’s legal determinations in that case. Payments for the bonds, issued to cover costs incurred by ONG during February 2021’s Winter Storm “Uri,” have been collected as “Winter Event Cost Recovery” charges on customers’ bills since 2022. The OCC has also approved an additional rate increase for ONG of between $20 million and $41 million every year since the bonds were issued. If not overturned, the rate increases will continue in perpetuity; the monthly bond charges are scheduled to continue for another 22 years.  Gann and West’s brief tells the Court that the OCC failed to perform lawful audits of ONG’s bonds in every rate case since the bonds were issued. They also argue ONG’s original 2021 “Uri” costs that were securitized into the ratepayer-backed bonds were never audited either. The representatives assert the audit failures are fatal in all four cases, making the OCC’s orders void.   Wednesday’s brief was the third such request to the Court. Gann filed a similar brief asking the Court to overturn $250 million in rate increases and some $700 million in ratepayer-backed bonds that the OCC had approved for Public Service Company of Oklahoma ( PSO ). In December, with Rep. Rick West, R-Heavener, Gann and Kevin West also asked the court to overturn a $127 million rate increase and $760 million in winter storm bonds for customers of Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company ( OG&E ). Those cases are already in the Court’s hands. To date, this brings the totals officially challenged to $475 million in rate increases and more than $3.2 billion in bonds. The appeals ask the court to order everything wrongly collected to be refunded to the utilities’ customers. Wednesday’s brief says “$140 million in illegitimate rate increases and $300 million in illegitimate bond charges” have already been collected from ONG’s customers.  Oklahoma utilities PSO, OG&E, ONG and CenterPoint/Summit paid some of the highest natural gas prices in U.S. history during two weeks in February 2021, incurring some $2.8 billion in debt. Interest and other expenses added another $2 billion, bringing the total cost of the bonds being paid by Oklahoma utility customers close to $5 billion. Gann, a former internal auditor for the Tulsa International Airport, said he believes that "When Oklahoma law requires an audit, the Accountancy Act says it has to be done by independent, licensed CPAs following nationally recognized standards, and that did not happen."  “Although all three of us voted against the securitization legislation in April 2021, we do not believe the intent was for the utilities to audit themselves, or for the Corporation Commission to make up its own definition of the word ‘audit.’” Kevin West said. “The apparently fraudulent audits are inexcusable. The law requires real audits, and the Accountancy Act defines auditing standards for a reason.”  In addition to the individual appeals of each utility’s rate case, the representatives filed a similar Supreme Court appeal against the OCC’s approval of $1.5 billion of ONG, OG&E and PSO’s 2023 fuel costs. That brief , filed on December 18, 2025, alleged the OCC had allowed an employee, believed to have dropped out of college as a sophomore, to perform required audits of utility companies collectively worth more than a billion dollars, including in the challenged OG&E and PSO rate cases. [ 12/9/2025 press release .] At the start of this year, the OCC terminated its top two administrators – the director of administration and the chief operating officer who was also the chief of communications – without explanation, but with “confidential” severance packages now revealed to exceed $200,000 and $100,000, respectively. The person believed to have dropped out of college also continues to testify about audits in OCC utility cases.  “Fundamentally, these appeals are about upholding the Constitution and the rule of law,” Rick West said. “We are saying audits must be done by CPAs, and State Ethics Rules say if a reasonable person would question Hiett’s impartiality in these cases, he must not participate. But Hiett continues to cast votes approving billions of dollars of increases for these utility companies without performing the required audits. We expect the Court to overturn these votes and to order Hiett and the OCC to follow the law.” The full Brief in Chief for the ONG rate case appeal can be read online here: https://oscn.net/dockets/GetDocument.aspx?ct=appellate&bc=1064718136&cn=CU-123348&fmt=pdf ONG, the OCC and the Attorney General’s Office have 40 days to respond. The progress of all the appeals can be followed on the Oklahoma Supreme Court website. PSO rate case ($250m rate increases; $700m bonds; all briefs filed):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=122861 ONG, PSO & OG&E CY2023 fuel cases ($1.5 billion; first brief filed; last due mid-March):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=122991 OG&E rate case ($127m rate increase; $760m bonds; all briefs filed):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123021 ONG rate case ($98m rate increases; $1.3 billion bonds; first brief filed; last due mid-June):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123348 ONG 2024 fuel case ($390 million + $888m for 2021/2022; briefs this summer):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123588 OG&E 2024 fuel case ($925 million + $1.9 billion for 2021/2022; briefs this summer):    https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123608

Feb 17, 2026
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Final OG&E, PSO Brief Filed with OK Supreme Court

OKLAHOMA CITY – On the fifth anniversary of February 2021’s Winter Storm “Uri,” appeals challenging more than $1.4 billion in bonds and $377 million in rate increases impacting the customers of electric utility companies OG&E and Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) are now in the hands of the Oklahoma Supreme Court.  Tuesday, Reps. Tom Gann, R-Inola, Kevin West, R-Moore, and Rick West, R-Heavener, filed the final brief in their appeal of a 2025 Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) order approving a $127 million rate increase for OG&E without a CPA-led audit of the utility’s 2021 Winter Storm "Uri" bonds. The lawmakers’ OG&E appeal was made a “companion case” with a similar appeal Rep. Gann filed challenging bonds and $250 million in rate increases for PSO, meaning the Court intends to consider the two appeals together. Now that all the briefs have been filed, a decision could come at any time.  “We have asked the court for a lot,” Kevin West said. “We not only asked the justices to overturn the OCC’s rate increases and orders authorizing OG&E and PSO’s 2021 Winter Storm 'Uri' bonds. We have asked the court to require the OCC to follow state ethics rules and to follow state laws that require audits to be conducted by licensed CPAs.” Another brief the representatives filed on Dec. 18, 2025, in a related appeal alleged the OCC had allowed an employee believed to have dropped out of college as a sophomore to perform required audits of utility companies collectively worth more than a billion dollars, including in the challenged OG&E and PSO rate cases.  “The OCC’s past violations of the law have far-reaching consequences, especially since they are ongoing, impacting current cases,” said Gann, who has seven more OCC utility case appeals pending at the Supreme Court, challenging some $11 billion in utility charges by ONG, OG&E and PSO. All were approved by the OCC with votes by embattled OCC Commissioner Todd Hiett. Gann, West and West’s appeals accuse the OCC of violating ratepayers’ due process rights by permitting Commissioner Hiett to participate. OG&E and PSO were represented in these cases by attorneys who hosted a 2023 party where Hiett allegedly sexually harassed two female OCC employees and drove home drunk. The lawmakers argue that state ethics rules prohibit Hiett from participating in OCC cases involving victims/witnesses of his alleged criminal conduct. Although the Ethics Commission dismissed a complaint against Hiett in May 2025, the representatives’ appeal asks the Supreme Court to review its interpretation of the law. Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who statutorily represents ratepayers in utility cases before the OCC and Supreme Court, defended Hiett’s participation in a brief the AG filed on January 27, 2026. “Parties to legislative rate cases are not entitled to due process,” the attorney general wrote [on page 31]. An earlier motion by the attorney general to dismiss the lawmakers’ OG&E and PSO rate case appeals was denied by the Supreme Court. “The court could choose to address all the OCC’s violations of law in these first two appeals, or just some or none,” Gann said. “The more issues it tackles now, the longer it will probably take to get a decision. But the clearer the court is in its first decision about which laws the OCC is required to follow, the fewer appeals it will ultimately have to decide.” Oklahoma utilities PSO, OG&E, ONG and CenterPoint/Summit paid some of the highest natural gas prices in U.S. history during the two-week “Uri” cold snap in February 2021, incurring some $2.8 billion in debt. Interest and other expenses added another $2 billion, bringing the total cost of the winter storm bonds being paid by Oklahoma utility customers close to $5 billion.  Payments for OG&E and PSO’s bonds have been collected as “Winter Event Securitization” and “Winter Storm Cost Recovery” charges on the monthly bills of their customers since the bonds were issued in 2022. Those bond payments are scheduled to continue for another two decades and are required to be audited as part of the utilities’ rate cases. The representatives say that hasn’t happened. The lawmakers’ “reply” brief filed Tuesday addresses arguments made by OG&E, the OCC and the attorney general in defense of the challenged rate increase order and winter storm bonds. All three defense briefs argue that the OCC’s Public Utility Division audits do not have to be performed by licensed CPAs. “This Court should reject Appellants’ [Gann, West and West’s] contention that all rate-case audits must comply with the Oklahoma Accountancy Act and uphold the [OCC’s] Final Order as proper,” the attorney general wrote in his January 27 brief [page 19]. “Imagine the consequences of that,” said Rick West. “Imagine the financial chaos that would break out across state government if the court says it’s okay for state agencies to make up their own definition of “audit” and allow any staffer to do them, the way the OCC did. The Department of Mental Health would be a drop in the bucket compared to what would happen next.” The lawmakers are optimistic about their appeals, believing both the law and the facts are overwhelmingly on their side. “This matter is urgent,” the representatives’ brief tells the court.  “Having already paid hundreds of millions of dollars of these illegitimate charges, these utilities’ captive customers have suffered enough.” Reps. Gann, West and West’s newest “reply” brief can be read online here: https://oscn.net/dockets/GetDocument.aspx?ct=appellate&bc=1064376140&cn=CU-123021&fmt=pdf The progress of all the appeals can be followed on the Oklahoma Supreme Court website: PSO rate case: https://www.oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=122861 OG&E rate case: https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123021 ONG, PSO & OG&E CY2023 fuel cases: https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=122991 ONG rate case: https://oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123348 ONG CY2024 fuel case: https://www.oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123588 OG&E CY2024 fuel case: https://www.oscn.net/dockets/GetCaseInformation.aspx?db=appellate&number=123608