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In The Know is a daily synopsis of Oklahoma policy-related news and blogs. Inclusion of a story does not necessarily mean endorsement by the Oklahoma Policy Institute. You can sign up here to receive In The Know by e-mail.
Today you should know that energy companies failed to list more than two out of every five fracked wells on FracFocus, a voluntary website that the industry is promoting as an alternative to mandatory disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking. This Land Press reports that Oklahoma is one of the most dangerous states in the country for pedestrians. State general revenue collections in July were up $6.4 million, or 1.7 percent, from a year ago.
The Tulsa County Medical Society Foundation is coordinating volunteer physicians, safety net clinics, medical laboratories, hospitals and prostheses companies to help some of the uninsured Oklahomans who need treatment beyond what a primary care provider can offer. An upcoming conference will address improving healthcare delivery, access, and outcomes for underserved and rural Oklahoma communities. The Tulsa Initiative Blog discussed ways that Oklahoma could better protect families from predatory payday lending. The OK Policy Blog earlier discussed why payday lending is a serious problem.
Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater backed off from claims that the Pardon and Parole Board broke the law by considering commutations for 85 percent offenders, but he said the move violates legislative intent. Tulsa and Tulsa County are working together more to offer economic development incentives to businesses. A Tulsa Planning Commissioner wrote that Tulsa’s latest economic development proposal is poorly conceived and strategically deficient. OK Policy previously discussed how too much Chamber of Commerce influence may be limiting the proposal.
NewsOK writes that Oklahoma policymakers have yet to seriously examine what school reforms will cost. Oklahoma remained in eighth place for wind-generation capacity last year but added more than 500 megawatts from new wind farms. A University of Oklahoma structural biology research team has won a five-year, $9.7 million federal grant. One candidate for state Senate District 17 earned a doctorate from a now defunct “diploma mill” and the other earned an undergraduate degree from an unaccredited Baptist university in Indiana.
In today’s Policy Note, the House Chronicle reports how Texas is granting parole to more offenders and revoking parole less often. The Number of the Day is how many Oklahomans will gain new access to health insurance if the state joins the Medicaid expansion.
In The News
Fracking hazards obscured in failure to report wells
Seeking to quell environmental concerns about the chemicals it shoots underground to extract oil and natural gas, Apache Corp. told shareholders in April that it disclosed information about “all the company’s U.S. hydraulic fracturing jobs” on a website last year. Actually, Apache’s transparency was shot through with cracks. In Texas and Oklahoma, the company reported chemicals it used on only about half its fracked wells via FracFocus.org, a voluntary website that oil and gas companies helped design amid calls for mandatory disclosure. Energy companies failed to list more than two out of every five fracked wells in eight U.S. states from April 11, 2011, when FracFocus began operating, through the end of last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gaps reveal shortcomings in the voluntary approach to transparency on the site, which has received funding from oil and gas trade groups and $1.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Pedestrian fatalities up in Oklahoma
Oklahoma is one of the most dangerous states in the country for pedestrians, according to a tally by 24/7 Wall St. The site used traffic fatality data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Walk Score‘s “walkability rating” to make its determination. Oklahoma was one of six states where the rate of pedestrian fatalities increased by more than 50 percent; here, it doubled. The state also “received poor marks for walkability,” 24/7 Wall St. reported, “with Walk Score giving the state’s 30 cities an average score of 35.78, one of the worst nationwide.” Some experts interviewed by the site attribute the increase in pedestrian fatalities to “consequences of urban sprawl and inadequate public transportation.”
Read more from This Land Press.
Oklahoma begins news fiscal year with increase in tax revenues
Oklahoma began its new fiscal year with positive revenue growth as three of the four major revenue sources showed gains in July, state finance officials said Tuesday. “Weakness in energy prices, plus rebates, led to a reduction in the rate of growth in total collections, but we made up for that in other areas as consumer confidence remained high,” state Finance Secretary Preston Doerflinger said. “That helped total receipts to beat the official estimate by more than 5 percent.” Total collections for the general revenue fund, the main funding source for government, were $389.1 million, up $6.4 million, or 1.7 percent, from a year ago. The amount collected for the month was $20 million and 5.4 percent above the estimate for the 2013 fiscal year, which began July 1.
Program provides specialty care to uninsured
When Haley Conley broke her finger and was told she might need surgery, she had to say no because she couldn’t afford it. The single mother works multiple jobs but doesn’t get insurance through work. She doesn’t qualify for Medicaid. “I’m stuck in the middle,” she said. But through a new program that helps people who don’t have health insurance and couldn’t otherwise afford it to seek treatment from a specialist, she is in physical therapy and using her hand more and more every day. “I know how expensive it (medical care) is,” she said. “It’s just a blessing they’ve helped me so much.” Project TCMS by the Tulsa County Medical Society Foundation is coordinating volunteer physicians, safety net clinics, medical laboratories, hospitals and prostheses companies to help those who need treatment beyond what a primary care provider can offer.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Upcoming Event: Strengthening the Healthcare Safety Net for Rural and Underserved Oklahomans, Sept. 19-21st
The Rural Health Association of Oklahoma (RHAO) and the Oklahoma Primary Care Association (OKPCA) are hosting a joint conference on September 19-21, 2012. The conference, “Getting Better Together: Strengthening the Healthcare Safety Net for Rural and Underserved Oklahomans,” will address improving healthcare delivery, access, and outcomes for underserved and rural communities. Sessions will include: primary care and behavioral health, mobile technologies and IT, community health centers, reviving dying hospitals, disaster preparedness, and the new federal health care law.
Read more from the OK Policy Blog.
Oklahoma and payday loans
Last month, the Pew Charitable Trusts released Who Borrows, Where they Borrow and Why, the first in their Payday Lending in America series. In the report and interactive features, Oklahoma clearly stands out with the highest usage rate in the nation for payday loans, at 13%. Part of the problem for Oklahoma, as pointed out in the Pew report and numerous news articles, are the permissive laws regulating payday lenders. The so-called “hybrid states,” which restrict storefront payday loan operators to lower limits on fees, all have usage rates significantly lower than Oklahoma. However, the best results are from states with the most restrictive laws, and therefore no storefront payday loan operators, some of which come in as low as 1%. Clearly, Oklahoma’s low-income consumers could benefit from more protective legislation regarding payday lending.
Read more from The Tulsa Initiative Blog.
Previously: Quick Cash and Debt Traps: Predatory payday lending in Oklahoma from the OK Policy Blog
DA says commutations legal, but circumvent legislative intent
Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater appeared to alter course Tuesday after leveling scathing accusations last week at the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. Prater attended the board’s regular monthly meeting that began Tuesday in Oklahoma City. Last week he said the board illegally was considering paroling and commuting the sentences of inmates required to serve 85 percent of a term. On Tuesday, Prater said the board could recommend commuting the sentences of those serving 85-percent crimes, but doing so circumvented the legislative intent of the 85-percent law for crimes ranging from murder to rape.
Read more from the Tulsa World.
Tulsa and Tulsa County working together more
If a new business chooses to relocate outside of Tulsa, the city can still benefit, said Mayor Dewey Bartlett. “If we’re able to develop jobs in, let’s say Broken Arrow, eventually that person is going to be in Tulsa buying something. Or it could even be a person who lives in Tulsa, works in Broken Arrow but comes home and buys things,” Bartlett said. His answer came as an explanation for why he supports a countywide fund to support economic development. Bartlett and proponents of such a fund will likely be taking their case to the voters this November through the proposal tabbed Vision2, an extension of the 2003 sales tax hike measure known as Vision 2025. But the fund idea is just one of several examples of new projects involving both the city and county, though County Commissioner Fred Perry emphasized that the fund proposal — dubbed funding for “job creation programs” in draft Vision2 ballot language — has its origins with the Tulsa Metro Chamber.
Read more from Urban Tulsa Weekly.
Planning Commissioner: Vision2 is myopic
As Helen Keller is reported to have once said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” In my view, real vision, true vision is precisely what is lacking in the proposed Vision 2 proposal presently being offered for consideration. With all due respect to those who’s hard work and good intentions have produced this package, it is the most poorly conceived and strategically deficient tax proposal in my lifetime. As one who has supported virtually every previously proposed bond issue, I have real problems with this one. What apparently started out as a hurried attempt to minimize the loss of American Airlines jobs has morphed into a desperately short sighted and reactionary response that offers more questions than answers. On the surface it looks like a vision of the past not a vision for the future.
Read more from Urban Tulsa Weekly.
Previously: It matters who guards the henhouse from OK Policy Blog
NewsOK: Funding is only part of needed education discussion in Oklahoma
School is back in session — or soon will be throughout Oklahoma. Children will be busy in their classrooms and educators will concern themselves with the teaching of reading, writing, math and other important lessons. What happens inside the schoolhouse doors is what matters most to parents. We’ve been urging for some time now — ever since State Question 744 and its blank-check-for-education approach failed miserably — that the state needs a serious conversation about education. Funding has to be part of that conversation, but it’s not the only one. Change typically moves slowly across public education. So it’s no wonder that Oklahoma school officials feel run over by the comparatively rapid pace of reforms hitting schools. But as evidenced in recent months, policymakers have yet to seriously put pencil to paper about what those reforms will cost, and perhaps more important, how to pay for them.
Oklahoma wind power ranks in top 10, federal report says
Oklahoma remained in eighth place in wind-generation capacity last year but added more than 500 megawatts from new wind farms, according to a federal report on wind energy released Tuesday. The state had more than 2,000 megawatts of generating capacity from wind at the end of 2011, up from almost 1,500 megawatts in 2010. Oklahoma generated about 7 percent of its electricity from wind in 2011, putting the state in 10th place in a separate ranking. One megawatt can power about 250 homes. That means Oklahoma had enough wind capacity last year to power 500,000 homes.
OU research group wins $9.7 million federal grant
The National Institutes of Health has awarded a five-year, $9.7 million grant to a University of Oklahoma research team seeking to increase the pace, competitiveness and success rate of structural biology research in Oklahoma. Principal Investigator Ann West, a professor in OU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and project director for the grant, said it is the first such grant awarded to a research group on the Norman campus. “Structural biology lies at the intersection of many different areas of biological sciences and, thus, has the potential of impacting numerous biomedical fields,” West said. The OU research group is seeking better understanding of human diseases and conditions associated with aging, osteoporosis, diabetes and bacterial and parasitic infections.
Candidates for Senate District 17 defend their education
One candidate for state Senate District 17 earned a doctorate from a now defunct “diploma mill” and the other earned an undergraduate degree from an unaccredited Baptist university in Indiana. Both candidates said they stand behind their degrees and the work they put in to obtain the titles. Ron Sharp, a recently retired teacher at Shawnee Public Schools, will face Ed Moore, a former state senator and Baptist pastor, in the Republican primary runoff election Aug. 28. There is no Democrat in the race so the winner takes office representing southern Oklahoma County and parts of Pottawatomie County including Shawnee.
Quote of the Day
I am more interested in competing with an attractive quality of life offer than hopeless bidding wars for companies who will be out the door the first time another community comes along with a better offer. Most of the really attractive deals will likely wind up in cities that can outspend us no matter what we offer.
-Tulsa Metro Area Planning Commission member Bill Leighty, on a proposed $53 million dollar closing fund in Tulsa
Number of the Day
130,000
Number of uninsured Oklahoma adults below the poverty line who will become eligible for health insurance coverage in 2014 if the state opts-in to Medicaid expansion under the new federal health care law
Source: Oklahoma Policy Institute
See previous Numbers of the Day here.
Policy Note
Texas granting parole to more offenders and revoking parole less often
Texas continues a steady march away from its Old West image of being tough on crime to one that state leaders now call “smart on crime” and even fiscally “right on crime.” Nothing makes that more apparent than the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole’s newly released bragging rights: More prisoners were paroled this past fiscal year than any other year in the past decade, and fewer parolees are being sent back. The board’s report this week boasts 24,342 offenders were approved for parole from Sept. 1, 2010, to Aug. 31, 2011. This represents 31 percent of all who applied and an approval rate that is six percentage points higher than 10 years ago. At the same time, the number carted back to prison this past fiscal year after their parole was revoked plummeted by 44 percent from a high of 11,374 in 2004.
Read more from The Houston Chronicle.
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