Analysis: I’ve learned something over the last few years that I wish every American understood:

A nation that cannot produce the metals necessary to defend itself, power itself, build its airplanes, manufacture its automobiles, maintain its electrical grid, and supply its factories is not really industrially independent.

That is why the controversy surrounding the proposed aluminum smelter at Inola, Oklahoma, deserves more than campaign slogans.

I initially understood Mike Mazzei’s skepticism about the project.

• Then Mike changed his mind.
• So did my understanding of why.

I asked Mike personally about what some people were publicly calling his ‘flip-flop’ on the Inola aluminum plant. His answer impressed me because he did not pretend he had always supported it. He acknowledged that he had originally been concerned about the enormous package of government incentives attached to the project. That concern was real.

At a March 30 gubernatorial forum, Mike criticized what he described as ‘a tax incentive package of a billion dollars’ for a foreign-backed aluminum plant promising roughly 1,000 jobs. His opposition was reported at the time, and nobody should rewrite history and pretend otherwise.

But Mike did something I wish more politicians would do. He kept studying.

He obtained more information. He studied the economics. He examined the national-security implications. He looked more carefully at how the incentives were structured. He investigated the environmental safeguards and regulatory process. And he changed his mind. Mike has publicly said the same thing he explained to me.

Additional information about the project’s finances, national-security significance, and environmental safeguards persuaded him that his original assessment was incomplete.

I do not call that weakness. I call it governing.

What Exactly Is Being Proposed at Inola?

The company building the smelter is called Oklahoma Primary Aluminum.

It is a joint venture between Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) and Century Aluminum. EGA will own 60 percent of the venture, and Century Aluminum, an American publicly traded company headquartered in Chicago and currently the largest U.S. producer of primary aluminum, will own 40 percent.

The plant is proposed for the Tulsa Port of Inola in Rogers County, approximately 25 miles east of Tulsa.

This is not somebody dropping an industrial plant randomly into the Oklahoma countryside.

The Tulsa Port of Inola is a 2,200-acre industrial park specifically developed for large manufacturing and transportation-intensive industries. It has rail access and sits along the Verdigris River on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, which connects Oklahoma ultimately to the Mississippi River system and the Gulf of Mexico. Heavy commodities can move by rail and inland waterway rather than depending entirely on trucks.

The location has an interesting history.

Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSCO) originally planned the massive Black Fox nuclear power plant there in 1973. After years of protests and regulatory battles, Black Fox was canceled in 1982. In 2017, approximately 1,200 acres of the old property were rezoned for heavy industry. Sofidel subsequently built its enormous paper-manufacturing operation there, and in 2019 PSO transferred roughly 2,000 acres to the City of Tulsa-Rogers County Port Authority for industrial development.

In other words, this land has been moving toward large-scale industrial use for decades. The proposed aluminum plant is simply industrial development on a scale Oklahoma has rarely seen.

This Would Be the First New American Primary Aluminum Smelter Since 1980

Aluminum is the first critical mineral listed on the 2025 U.S. Department of the Interior’s list of 60 critical minerals, essential for technology, defense, and industrial advancement in the United States.

The proposed Inola facility is designed to produce 750,000 (or more) metric tons of primary aluminum annually. At that capacity, it would more than double current American primary-aluminum production. It would also become the largest primary aluminum plant in the United States.

The Oklahoma Department of Commerce says the plant is expected to create approximately 1,000 permanent direct jobs and about 4,000 construction jobs. Those are not minimum wage jobs.

A primary smelter requires electricians, engineers, maintenance specialists, operators, metallurgists, technicians, logistics personnel, instrumentation specialists, railroad workers, contractors and an enormous network of suppliers.

And then something else happens.

Manufacturers like locating near reliable supplies of the material they consume.

That means an aluminum smelter has the potential to become the anchor around which downstream manufacturers locate – extrusion plants, casting operations, component manufacturers, automotive suppliers, aerospace suppliers and other metal-working industries.

An economic-impact study commissioned by Oklahoma Primary Aluminum and conducted using the REMI economic model estimates that the smelter project could support:

1. 7,000 Oklahoma jobs annually,
2. Add an average of $1.45 billion per year to Oklahoma GDP,
3. Generate about $911 million annually in Oklahoma household income,
4. Produce roughly $49 billion in cumulative state economic activity through 2060.

Those figures are projections, not guarantees, and because the project commissioned the study, they should be identified as such.

But even if one ignores every economic multiplier and looks only at the physical plant, billions of dollars of capital investment, 1,000 permanent direct jobs, and thousands of construction jobs make this an economic project of extraordinary size for Oklahoma.

Why President Trump Wants This Plant

This is the portion of the story that I believe has been badly underreported in Oklahoma. President Donald J. Trump’s support for the Inola smelter is not merely about bringing another factory to a Republican state.

It is about national security.

When President Trump traveled to the United Arab Emirates in May 2025, the White House announced a series of strategic U.S.-UAE investments. One centerpiece project was EGA’s commitment to develop an approximately $4 billion primary-aluminum smelter in Oklahoma. The White House specifically said the Oklahoma plant would create American jobs, strengthen critical-mineral supply chains and dramatically increase domestic aluminum production. The Trump administration has continued supporting the project.

On February 10, 2026, Energy Secretary Chris Wright met with Century Aluminum executives and described the Oklahoma project as part of President Trump’s effort to rebuild American manufacturing and reduce dependence on foreign suppliers.

The Department of Energy says the project is supported by a federal award and is expected to produce not only ordinary primary aluminum but also approximately 20,000 tons of high-purity aluminum suitable for national-defense applications. That last sentence is crucial.

The Pentagon has specifically invested federal money to increase domestic production of high-purity aluminum because it is needed in the missiles and munitions supply chain. The Department of Defense has warned that low-cost foreign production contributed to declining American high-purity aluminum capacity and that increased domestic production is necessary for industrial mobilization and national-security purposes.

On July 20, 2026, President Trump went even further.

He formally determined under Section 232 that America’s domestic production and supply of primary aluminum remain insufficient for the needs of the U.S. economy and the defense industrial base. He directed the Commerce Department to establish new incentives specifically designed to encourage companies to build, expand or modernize American primary-aluminum smelters.

That is about as explicit as a President can be.

Disclosure: I am an investor in Westwin Elements, an Oklahoma-based company operating America’s first nickel-carbonyl demonstration refinery in Lawton. My investment gives me an obvious interest in rebuilding America’s domestic critical-minerals industry, and readers deserve to know that. My involvement with Westwin Elements has given me a front-row education in the critical mineral availability problem in the United States.

KaLeigh Long, Founder and CEO of Westwin Elements, explains in a News Nation video interview (https://www.westwinelements.com/media-coverage) recorded February 4, 2026 why processing critical minerals in the United States is important, especially the processing of nickel and aluminum.

Westwin operates its demonstration nickel-carbonyl refinery in Lawton, Oklahoma. The facility produces high-purity nickel products for customer qualification, research, development and workforce training. Nickel is essential to stainless steel, aerospace, defense and other advanced manufacturing. Westwin’s experience has also taught me something else

Location/logistics matter enormously in refining strategic metals.

For accuracy, Westwin decided not to proceed with the originally envisioned large commercial expansion in Lawton after logistical issues emerged during feasibility work. A later proposed commercial location near Savannah, Georgia, also encountered local zoning obstacles.

That experience actually reinforces my point. You cannot simply say, ‘America needs nickel,’ or ‘America needs aluminum,’ and expect a refinery or smelter to magically appear. These facilities require industrial land, railroads, enormous electrical capacity, water, transportation infrastructure, environmental permitting, trained workers, access to markets and billions of dollars of patient capital.

Oklahoma possesses many of those advantages. The Port of Inola possesses even more of them.

What About the ‘Billion-Dollar Giveaway’?

The billion-dollar tax incentive from Oklahoma for Oklahoma Primary Aluminum to build the aluminum smelter plant at Inola was Mike Mazzei’s original concern about the smelter, and it was not unreasonable.

Neither conservatives nor taxpayers should blindly applaud government incentives simply because somebody promises jobs.

The original 2025 agreement contemplated a very large collection of state incentives, tax exemptions, offsets and local development mechanisms. Contemporary reporting put more than $275 million in state incentives in the original arrangement, along with potentially hundreds of millions more in exemptions and offsets.

But a “billion-dollar check written to a foreign corporation” as some campaign material asserted, differs from the actual structure that emerged.

The Oklahoma Legislature created the Re-industrialize Oklahoma Act in 2025. To qualify, a project must invest at least $2 billion, create at least 700 jobs during its first year, increase that employment to at least 1,000 jobs, and remain in compliance. The rebate is paid over 15 years and is subject to annual confirmation that the company continues meeting its obligations.

The currently described state component is approximately $255 million in performance-based assistance. Oklahoma Primary Aluminum says those funds would not simply be handed to EGA or Century at groundbreaking. Under the current structure, the funds are placed in an investment mechanism and, once the plant operates and employment obligations are satisfied, payments over 15 years would help offset the project’s enormous electricity costs through PSO.

There is also a local Tax Increment Financing plan estimated at approximately $429 million. A TIF does not take today’s tax collections from existing homes and businesses and hand them to the company. It captures a portion of the new incremental taxes and fees created by the development and uses them for infrastructure, port improvements, schools and related development costs.

That does not mean incentives are free. They aren’t.

Future tax revenue is being committed that otherwise might have gone elsewhere. Conservatives should scrutinize such arrangements closely.

But calling the entire package a billion-dollar cash gift is misleading.

Now, Let’s Talk About Oklahoma’s Environment

This is where we supporters of the new aluminum plant should be especially careful. I will not tell the people of Inola, Rogers County, and Mayes County of northeastern Oklahoma: ‘Trust the Oklahoma Primary Aluminum Corporation.’ That is not how environmental protection ought to work.

I will tell them: Trust enforceable federal law, transparent measurements, independent monitoring, public disclosure and federal regulators who do their jobs.

Primary aluminum smelting produces emissions that must be controlled. The EPA specifically regulates hazardous air pollutants from primary aluminum production, including hydrogen fluoride, polycyclic organic matter, carbonyl sulfide and certain metal pollutants. The concern about fluoride should therefore not be mocked.

Veterinary literature confirms that excessive long-term fluoride exposure can injure cattle, including damage to teeth and bones. Farmers and ranchers around Inola have every right to ask hard questions.

However, recognizing a potential hazard is not the same thing as proving that the proposed plant will expose people or cattle to dangerous concentrations. That is precisely why modern industrial plants are permitted.

As of August 27, 2026, Oklahoma DEQ has not yet issued the air-quality construction permit for the Inola smelter. The permit remains under review. DEQ still has additional technical proceedings to complete concerning Best Available Control Technology, air-dispersion modeling, and the draft air permit. Other permits may also be required for water discharge, stormwater and waste handling.

That is an important fact. It would be inaccurate for supporters – including me – to claim that DEQ has already certified the plant as environmentally harmless. It has not.

But it would be equally inaccurate for opponents to treat the company’s maximum requested permit limits as proof that nearby farms will actually receive dangerous levels of pollution. That determination requires engineering review, control-technology requirements, dispersion modeling, enforceable emission limits and eventually real-world monitoring.

My position is simple: Do the testing. Require the best available technology. Put the limits in writing. Monitor the air, water, soil and forage independently. Publish the results. And enforce the permit.

Mike Mazzei has advocated independent third-party environmental monitoring around the facility. I think he is exactly right about that. If the plant cannot meet Oklahoma and federal environmental standards, it should not receive a permit.

But if it can meet those standards – with modern pollution-control technology and continuous accountability – then Oklahoma should not walk away from one of the largest industrial investments in its history simply because older aluminum plants built under older technologies polluted their surroundings.

Mike Mazzei’s Change of Mind Matters to Me

I have known enough politicians to recognize the usual pattern. When confronted with new information, they first ask: ‘What did I say six months ago?’ Then they search for facts supporting whatever they already said. Mike Mazzei did something different. He began as a fiscal conservative skeptical of an enormous government incentive package. Good. That is precisely where I would want a conservative governor to begin.

But then he learned more about how the incentives were structured. He learned more about the economic effect of one of the largest private industrial investments ever proposed for Oklahoma. He learned more about America’s dangerous shortage of domestic primary aluminum. He learned why President Trump and his national-security team consider the plant strategically important. And he became convinced that modern environmental regulation and independent monitoring could protect Oklahoma families, farms and livestock.

So he changed his conclusion. I asked Mike about his change of mind on the Inola Aluminum Smelter. His explanation made sense to me. And subsequent research has convinced me that much of what he told me is independently verifiable. I don’t want a governor who can never change his mind.

I want a governor whose principles remain fixed while his conclusions remain subject to facts. There is a tremendous difference.

Oklahoma Has an Opportunity Few States Have

For more than a century, Oklahoma has exported raw materials.

• Oil leaves Oklahoma.
• Natural gas leaves Oklahoma.
• Wheat leaves Oklahoma.
• Cattle leave Oklahoma.

Then somebody somewhere else turns raw materials into higher-value products. That is where enormous wealth is created. The Inola project represents something different.

• It is manufacturing.
• It is metallurgy.
• It is transportation.
• It is engineering.
• It is skilled labor.
• It is infrastructure.
• It is national defense.

And potentially, it is the beginning of an entire aluminum-manufacturing ecosystem in northeastern Oklahoma. America spent the last 40 years allowing strategic manufacturing capacity to migrate overseas. We are now discovering the price of that decision.

• Nickel matters.
• Copper matters.
• Rare earths matter.
• Steel matters.
• And aluminum matters.

President Trump understands it. The Pentagon understands it. The Department of Energy understands it. American manufacturers understand it.

Oklahomans should understand this too.

• Protect the farmers.
• Protect the cattle.
• Protect the water.
• Protect the taxpayers.
• Demand enforceable standards.
• Require independent monitoring.

But if Oklahoma Primary Aluminum Corporation meets those requirements, then enable them, by all means, to build the aluminum smelter. A prosperous Oklahoma and a secure America are not competing goals. In this case, they may be the very same thing. And when Mike Mazzei changed his mind after studying the evidence, I did not see a politician flip-flopping.

I saw a potential Oklahoma governor governing.

About the Author: This analysis was originally posted on the author’s Substack here and is specifically posted here with permission. The author believes the issue critical for Oklahoma and invites readers to both read for free and to share. Our editor’s agree.

Tulsa Today has quoted Mr. Burleson before, but this is the first time we have run a story with his byline and we hope to do so again soon. His Substack has embedded video and graphics not included in this edited version. The main page of his Substack is available here with cultural, policy, and writing on faith included and recommended.