Documents show that many of the natural gas and electric purchase price increases in early and mid-February sent several utilities that serve Oklahoma scrambling to find funds and open new lines of credit to pay for the increased fuel and electrical costs, most of which begin coming due by the end of March.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Mike Hunter said his office was looking into the natural gas market price increases this week.
Tens of thousands of Oklahomans temporarily lost power this week as snow and sub-zero temperatures rolled in. Those power outages might continue in the days ahead.
“We were watching it unfold on Facebook, people crying out for a need,” Hutt-Greenman said. “We watched it for about half an hour and saw no one step up and said forget that … We’re going to show what compassion and love look like.”
In her current campaign for the U.S. House, Neese has pivoted to the cultural issues that have become the focus of a Republican Party led by a president quick to tweet his brand of identity politics.
Thousands of Oklahoma companies that received federal assistance to retain workers during the COVID-19 pandemic reported retaining no jobs and others reported laying workers off even after receiving the assistance.
Oklahoma recipients include businesses owned by congressmen, churches, chain restaurants and oil and gas operations, the data released by the U.S. Small Business Administration shows.
The new unemployment data comes at a time when several Oklahoma mayors, faced with increasingly high numbers of COVID-19 cases in their cities, have started to re-implement some restrictions on businesses and social gatherings, aimed at stopping the spread of the disease.
