The stalemate between House and Senate Republican leaders is being injected with more urgency after a veto threat from Gov. Kevin Stitt. Stitt says unless the Senate passes his education plan, he’s holding his veto pen ready.
Stitt vetoed 20 bills Wednesday, including measures that passed unanimously through both chambers.
In his explanation, Stitt says, “until the people of Oklahoma have a tax cut, until every teacher in the state gets the pay raise they deserve, until parents get a tax credit to send their child to the school of their choice,” he will veto any measures authored by Senators against his plan.
This comes a day after House Speaker Charles McCall used a rare procedural move to advance a new Stitt-endorsed education funding package, which includes teacher raises, a voucher-like tax credit program and $300 million in new school funding that shorts larger schools.
Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat told online nonprofit outlet NonDoc yesterday the new package wouldn’t pass through the Senate, and the House move equated to, “playing games and giving false hope.”
Soon, there could be no legal concerns about giving out fentanyl strips. A bill making its way to the governor protects the tests people can use to protect themselves from accidental opioid overdoses.
The Senate gave final passage to House Bill 1987 on Thursday. It ensures that fentanyl test strips aren’t considered drug paraphernalia.
Without the measure, there’s some ambiguity. Drugs such as cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine can be clandestinely laced with lethal doses of fentanyl. The strips are a protection device. T
The author, Rep. Mickey Dollens faced some opposition during the bill’s House floor hearing.
"Representative, why would you carry these strips, except to test drugs?, said Crosswhite Hader. "That’s the entire purpose," said Dollens. "You know, we do not condone drug use, but we want to help people get rehabilitated. And in order to do that, they must be alive.
Twenty-two House members voted against it, but it passed out of the Senate unanimously.
Public Service Company Oklahoma is one step closer to raising energy bills to pay for solar and wind projects. The company has reached a settlement with Attorney General Gentner Drummond and customer advocacy groups to protect customers weary of rate hikes.
If the Corporation Commission approves this agreement, PSO could build three new solar farms and three wind farms in Kansas and Texas. They’re expected to produce enough electricity to power more than 16,000 homes.
PSO would raise customers’ rates for a few months to cover costs. But after that, Attorney General Gentner Drummond says clean energy tax credits and lower fuel costs are expected to shrink the average monthly bill by a few dollars.
The new agreement caps the projects’ combined budget at nearly $2.5 billion. If they end up costing more, PSO can’t charge customers to make up the difference.
If PSO fails to deliver on its side of the agreement, the company will have to pay customers back. PSO says these projects will “help provide long-term stability in energy costs.” The company has hiked rates twice since December 2021
The Department of Justice has new guidelines as part of their strategy to combat missing and murdered Indigenous people.
The new guidelines include standards on data collection, coordinating law enforcement agencies responsible for updating databases and improving law enforcement agency response rates. Another big piece is increasing follow-up responses to missing persons cases.
The guidelines shore up blind spots that Oklahomans brought up at a federal commission meeting in Tulsa earlier this month.
At that meeting, one person said local law enforcement were often dismissive when cases of missing Indigenous people hit their desks. Another said it took them 20 minutes to locate a missing individual whom law enforcement couldn’t find for 20 days.
The new guidelines are some of the earliest tangible work from the listening sessions set up by the Not Invisible Act and Savanna's Act-both passed in 2020 to combat the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous People.
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