Covid is up, tuition is up, TSET effectiveness is in question, Canoo incentives are secret, and we still don't have an Attorney General. Let's talk about it.
- COVID cases are increasing in Oklahoma and around the country. OK has roughly doubled the number of new diagnoses since the beginning of June. Likely due to Delta variant (as there is an outbreak in Missouri), but we can’t know for sure because Oklahoma is dead last for genomic sequencing, with just 0.19% of total cases sequenced. So, they’re working on that.
- Good news is, vaccinated folks are not contracting the virus. OK only at 37% vaccinated, though, so there’s a lot of people out there who are “eligible to get the virus”
- OU increases tuition (NonDoc) (avg of $248 per year for in-state, $671 per year out-of-state)
- Timing is just coincidental, but also not great given last week’s news about NonDoc suing OU to release two reports from Jones Day law firm, one of which has to do with misreporting or fabricating of fundraising data...which impacts the university budget, even if just a little.
- LOFT report questions the effectiveness of TSET and says some of its impact cannot be measured.
- OK is Top 10 for tobacco cessation spending...but despite that, we’re also still Top 10 for number of adults and youth who use tobacco
- But is part of the blame on lawmakers? They could increase the tax on tobacco products and e-cigarettes—in fact, TSET asked them to do it—but they haven’t.
- But remember, last year the legislature sent a state question to the ballot (SQ814) asking voters to give them [the legislature] more access to TSET funds. Voters rejected the measure...and now the legislature is coming after TSET again. If nothing else, this seems suspicious.
- Oklahoma chosen as site for new Canoo electric vehicle production facility
- Incentives still secret, at least for now. Apparently agreements haven’t yet been signed, which means there’s still time for talks to break down?
- Tulsa World reports that former US Senator Don Nickles tipped off Oklahoma to the possibility of the deal
- Governor still mulling candidates for Attorney General. Names supposedly on the short list:
- Ryan Leonard, currently Stitt’s special counsel for Native American affairs,
- Tim Downing, Stitt’s counsel for Sec of State until Trump bumped him up to US Attorney, but he resigned once Biden took office (weird)
- Tricia Everest, formerly Stitt’s Sec of Public Safety, then chair of OK County jail trust
