OKLAHOMA CITY - A $581 million tax bill has failed after voting remained open late into Monday evening after lawmakers spent the afternoon debating.

General Oklahoma

An Oklahoma Corporation Commission administrative law judge is recommending against preapproval of Public Service Co. of Oklahoma's request to allow it to charge its ratepayers to help it own part of a wind farm and to use some of that power.

General Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Tax Commission has refuted claims by wind industry representatives that state incentives have expired for the renewable energy source. The state has already paid out more than $63 million in tax credits connected to wind power in the current fiscal year; The state will be refunding credits for at least the next 10 years, Mastin said

General Oklahoma

McBride is proposing a $1 per megawatt hour tax on wind power, as well as eliminating the industry’s manufacturing sales tax exemption. Other lawmakers want to cap incentives already awarded to existing projects. After 20 years, McBride said it’s time to stop subsidizing the wind industry.

Taxes & Subsidies Oklahoma

First the wind came sweeping down the plain, then the dollars, and now the controversy.

General Oklahoma

​As Arkansas' congressional delegation stepped up its war Tuesday on a $2.5 billion wind-power transmission project, Clean Line Energy Partners has confirmed that it has shelved plans to string the controversial power line across Arkansas. Michael Skelly, the company's president, told Arkansas Business that the direct-current project, which would have transmitted 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy from Western Oklahoma to eastern Tennessee, is basically on life support.

Transmission USA Arkansas Oklahoma Tennessee

An Oklahoma lawmaker who found a tracking device attached to his pickup truck last month is suing a private investigation company and an investigator who works for the company over the device.

General Oklahoma

The head of an Oklahoma wind power trade group flatly denied a state lawmaker's suggestion to police that someone connected to the industry put a tracking device on his truck to spy on him.

General Oklahoma

Military leaders will now have more say where wind producers can build turbines under federal legislation designed to protect the air space where pilots conduct training exercises.

General Oklahoma

Nearly every seat was filled Thursday at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission's main courtroom as the agency took public comment on a cause filed by Public Service Co. of Oklahoma. The utility seeks preapproval to recover its costs associated to a large wind power and transmission project that will provide renewable energy to both its customers and those of a sister utility. 

General Oklahoma

The deal was sealed after it became apparent to Clean Line that TVA had little appetite to complete a six-year-old memorandum of understanding to purchase the project’s wind power. Late last year, just weeks after TVA said it was still studying whether to sign the contract, agency President Bill Johnson said the Clean Line project didn’t make economic sense, given TVA’s flat demand and ample generating capacity.

Transmission Arkansas Oklahoma Tennessee

Transmission wires could end at substation in north Tulsa County

General Oklahoma

PSO is asking the commission to grant it preapproval to recover its share of the project costs from customers when Wind Catcher becomes operational in late 2020. Its share of the project is estimated at $1.36 billion, and in testimony filed in the case, PSO estimates the Wind Catcher project would add another $78 million to customer rates in 2021.

General Oklahoma

Wind energy advocates are speaking out as lawmakers confirm one piece of their proposed budget plan includes placing a gross production tax on wind energy. The tax could be 4 percent for 36 months and 7 percent after that.

Taxes & Subsidies Oklahoma

The nation's biggest wind generator, NextEra Energy Resources, has bought the Oklahoma portion of the proposed 700-mile-long Plains and Eastern Line to serve Oklahoma and Midwest customers. But for now, plans to bring wind energy from the windy areas of Oklahoma and Texas into the less-windy Tennessee Valley and Southeastern part of the United States are stalled and unlikely to be resurrected for years.

Energy Policy Transmission Oklahoma Tennessee Texas

WOODWARD, Okla. — A wind turbine caught fire Tuesday morning near Woodward, Oklahoma.

Safety Structural Failure Oklahoma

“We just hate the position that we are in. We hate that this project was commenced. We hate that there wasn’t competitive bidding, which is required by the rule, one or the other,” Hunter said near the end of his argument. “We hate that eight months elapsed from the [inception] of the project until the application was filed, so we’re all being put in a position of being leveraged. If these things aren’t approved in multiple states, this project isn’t going to go forward.”

General Oklahoma

“There is no way any power transmission line coming out of the Panhandle is going to miss important prairie chicken habitat because the best prairie chicken habitat in Oklahoma is in Beaver County. There’s just no way to miss it,” she said. “It is an issue, but right now our main concerns are the bats and destroying their (hibernation area), the erosion it could cause and the idea of building a power line across this area with all these sinkholes.”

Transmission Oklahoma

Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) hosted 11 community open houses across northern and central Oklahoma to collect valuable landowner and community input on preliminary study segments to help determine a power line route for the Wind Catcher Energy Connection.

General Oklahoma

In a unanimous decision issued in mid-September, a three-judge panel reversed and remanded a September 2015 summary judgment from the Northern District Court of Oklahoma that allowed Osage Wind to conduct excavation work in order to set up 84 wind turbines across 8,400 acres without a mining permit from the Bureau of Indian Affairs or approval from the Osage Minerals Council.

Legal Oklahoma