An appeal brief filed Thursday by Rep. Tom Gann, R-Inola, asks the Oklahoma Supreme Court to invalidate some $700 million in ratepayer-backed bonds issued to cover costs incurred by Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) during February 2021’s Winter Storm Uri. Payments for those bonds have been collected on the monthly bills of PSO’s customers since the bonds were issued in September 2022. They are scheduled to continue for another 17 years.

Gann’s brief tells the court that the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) failed to provide a required audit of the bonds in PSO’s most recent rate case. He also argues PSO’s original 2021 Uri costs that were securitized into the bonds were never audited either.  Gann asserts the audit failures are fatal in both cases, making the OCC’s orders void.

Oklahoma saw a 20.2% decline in its manufacturing employment between 2000 and 2024. This translates to a loss of 35,569 jobs during that period. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis new data released August 1 shows U.S. manufacturing employment continued to fall in July 2025—reaching its lowest level since April 2022—even as billions of dollars pour into new plants and reshoring initiatives nationwide.

While policymakers often cite job creation as a central goal of bringing manufacturing back home, today’s highly automated factories mean employment is unlikely to return to past levels. U.S. manufacturing jobs have declined sharply over the past two decades, even as output has grown and Oklahoma’s manufacturing GDP increased by 10.6% over the same span.