Wind Energy Isn’t Benefiting Oklahoma

Wednesday, November 20th, Michael and I were happy to interview Chad McDougall, Chairman of the Petroleum Alliance Of Oklahoma. Check out the full video on our YouTube and Rumble channels.

What he had to say about wind energy and solar energy in Oklahoma was FASCINATING, but FRUSTRATING.

In the clip below, Chad talks about how Oklahoma produces WAY more energy than it uses. In fact, here is an interesting factoid from the US Energy Information Administration: Overall, the state produces almost three times more energy than it consumes, and much of the energy produced in Oklahoma—particularly natural gas, petroleum, and electricity—is sent to other states.

WHAT? How many of us actually knew that?

In the clip below, Chad mentions that, wind energy companies doing business in Oklahoma are just USING OKLAHOMA. We don’t need the energy, but they blight our landscapes with those ridiculous, horrendous wind turbines so that they can turn around and send the energy OUT OF STATE!

In this clip, I asked Chad about the National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) and the answer is – OKLAHOMA DOESN’T NEED THIS! Our legislators need to know this information so they can STOP it from coming through Oklahoma.

Also in the clip, Chad refers to the Inflation Reduction Act as the ‘Green New Deal’ because of its incentives and taxpayer giveaways to ‘green’ companies totaling a probable 1.2 TRILLION DOLLARS! And, by the way, if you’ve had OG&E call you lately to tell you that they’ll help you install solar panels, you’ve got the IRA to thank for their largess with YOUR money.

In the clip below, Chad gets to the bottom of the issue – oil and gas producers pay tons of taxes – wind energy companies are subsidized by the state and federal government.

According to the Institute For Energy Research, Oklahoma stopped its wind subsidies in July of 2017 because of the BURGEONING cost to tax payers, yet wind producers that had completed projects prior to that date were still eligible for TEN FULL YEARS of subsidies from the time of project completion.

I guess because Oklahoma likes giving away taxpayer dollars, after the subsidies stopped, a tax credit was made available in 2003 to include wind producers. Here’s what the IER says:

Beginning January 1, 2003, Oklahoma instituted a state income tax credit to producers of electric power using renewable energy resources from a zero-emission facility with a production capacity of 1 megawatt or greater. Besides wind, eligible renewable energy resources include moving water, sun, and geothermal energy. Credits are available for electricity generated on or after January 1, 2003, during a 10-year period following the date that the facility is placed in operation. The credit ranges from $0.0025 per kilowatt hour to $0.0050 per kilowatt hour depending on when the facility is placed in operation and when electricity is generated.

The crazy thing is, we’ve let Oklahoma’s Governor Stitt and our legislature GIVE OUR TAX DOLLARS TO GREEN COMPANIES AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR POCKETBOOKS AND THE BEAUTY OF OUR LANDSCAPE! Why?

Probably because Governor Stitt has an “all of the above” prescription for energy here in Oklahoma – as we’ve so often heard him say, but look at this.

In February of this year, the Italian ‘green’ energy company Enel, was ordered to remove 84 wind turbines from Osage land in northeastern Oklahoma at a cost of $300 MILLION dollars because they acted unethically with the Osage, including conducting unauthorized mining on Osage land.

Last year, Governor Stitt TOUTED this very same company – Enel – for bringing a solar panel factory to Oklahoma.

This year, he and several other Republican governors condemned the Biden Administration for its stance on fossil fuels, claiming that the federal government was blocking permits and creating business-stifling regulations, yet Governor Stitt has not shown any interest in lifting the taxes on oil and gas producers in this state while pimping every green energy business that comes by (see our story on the nation’s biggest carbon capture plant no one knew about located in Shidler, OK). But then, Oklahoma actually has a whole part of its website devoted to all the taxpayer dollars it’s giving away to businesses here and it starts with these words: “Oklahoma has some of the lowest tax rates and some of the best tax incentives in the nation. The state offers companies a low cost of doing business, a low cost of living for employees, and tax rebates that reduce tax burdens even further.“

Meanwhile, though the oil and gas industry is trying to push back on the general unfairness of federal and state energy policy, regular every day Oklahomans should too. While tax incentivized green energy companies are producing energy in Oklahoma and sending it out of the state, Oklahomans continue to pay higher prices on energy than we should if we were using our own natural gas to power our homes. Ask your legislator to make sense of THAT.

BELOW ARE THE SLIDES CHAD PREPARED FOR OUR INTERVIEW THAT WE BARELY USED – check them out for more information.