OKLAHOMA CITY — Three Republican state Representatives have filed two appellate briefs and a motion to reconsider, all seeking to overturn a ruling by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission that allowed state utility companies to collect more than $9 billion in fuel charges.
State Reps. Tom Gann, R-Inola; Kevin West; R-Moore, and Rick West, R-Heavener; filed two more appeal briefs and a motion to reconsider with the Oklahoma Supreme Court last week.
The lawmaker’s briefs seek to overturn orders by the Corporation Commission approving more than $4 billion and $5 billion in fuel charges, which have been collected by Oklahoma Natural Gas Company and Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company on customers’ monthly bills since 2021.
Along with the briefs, the trio filed a motion to reconsider, which said the court “overlooked important facts, and based thereon, reached erroneous conclusions resulting in a decision that radically departs from past court rulings without explaining its rationale for doing so” in its April 21, decision which denied Gann’s first appeal of a Public Service Company of Oklahoma rate case order.
The motion asks the court to reconsider that decision.
“The court has used a procedural point (making a critical factual error in doing so) to avoid answering two very important questions: whether the law requires audits to be performed by licensed CPAs and whether corporation commissioners are required by state ethics rules to be impartial decision- makers,” Gann said in a media statement about the filings.
“By not deciding those issues, the court has left the door open to future legal challenges, especially because it did affirm an individual ratepayer’s standing under the Oklahoma Constitution to bring such appeals.”
Legal experts say the court’s opinion has not been released for publication and until it is released, it is subject to revision or withdrawal.
To date, the three lawmakers have filed nine appeals of OCC utility rate and fuel orders for ONG, OG&E and PSO. Those fuel orders, worth billions of dollars, were tainted by the OCC’s failure to perform lawful audits and by votes unlawfully cast by embattled OCC Commissioner Todd Hiett, the trio said.
Their briefs argue that OCC audits are required to be performed by independent, licensed Certified Public Accountants under the Oklahoma Accountancy Act. The lawmakers also said Hiett should have recused himself from these cases because of his alleged criminal conduct — including sexual assault, drunk driving, and sexual harassment — about which the utilities’ attorneys are alleged to have direct knowledge.
State ethics rules, they said, require public officials to disqualify themselves from matters in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Charges were never filed and the state Ethics Commission dismissed a complaint against Hiett in May 2025.
However, West, Gann, and West’s latest briefs ask the Oklahoma Supreme Court to review the Ethics Commission’s legal determinations. The trio argues that when Hiett told the Ethics Commission that the common-law Rule of Necessity allows him to continue participating in OCC cases even if he is biased, that statement alone was an admission of Hiett’s bias.
The lawmakers said the Rule of Necessity only applies to biased or conflicted judges.
The first appeal, which challenged $250 million in rate increases and $700 million in 2021 Winter Storm ratepayerbacked bonds for PSO, was filed in February 2025. In its April 21 decision, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that utility customers do have standing to bring such appeals under Article 9, Section 20 of the Oklahoma Constitution.
So, the Supreme Court’s decision to deny the appeal on technical grounds was a “setback in our pursuit of justice on behalf of PSO ratepayers,” Gann said.
In its decision, the court said it was denying the appeal and not deciding most of the issues raised, because those issues “were not presented to and decided by the [Corporation] Commission” first.
In his motion to reconsider, Gann said he was prevented from intervening in the PSO rate case at the OCC by a rule that imposes a 90-day deadline to intervene. Gann said PSO’s customers were not even notified about the case until after that deadline had passed.
“Clairvoyance would have been required for [Gann] to have anticipated the OCC’s errors of law in time to meet the OCC’s 90-day intervention deadline in the appealed case,” the motion says.
Gann’s motion also argues that the issues raised — a biased judge, the OCC’s lack of jurisdiction to issue orders without first performing lawful audits, and the voidness of prior orders — are constitutional issues that are not required to be raised first at the OCC. He said the court made new law and contradicted more than a century of legal precedent by not considering the constitutionality of his issues in its ruling.
“If this court intends to set a new precedent, it should say so explicitly,” Gann’s motion said.
In response, the court could modify or clarify its decision, or leave it as is, or withdraw it altogether. There is no specific deadline by which it must decide, but it must rule on the motion.
The lawmakers said they will continue to push for changes.
“Last week’s decision came in the first of nine appeals we have brought on behalf of PSO, OG&E and ONG customers,” the three lawmakers said. “Some of the circumstances surrounding the others – especially the $12 billion worth of appealed fuel cases — are different. We will see what the Court has to say about the Motion to Reconsider before we decide our next steps. The fact that we filed another brief (appealing OG&E’s 2024 fuel case) less than a week after the ruling shows we have not given up this fight. We will continue to stand up for the law and the Constitution where the OCC and attorney general have failed. It is just a question of where, how and when.”