Ponca City Mayor Homer Nicholson presented U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe with the American Public Power Association’s (APPA) Public Service Award during the association’s legislative rally in Washington, D.C., on March 1.
Nicholson serves as the Secretary on the Board of Directors for the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority, which is the wholesale power supplier for the city of Ponca City. In February of 2016, Nicholson also was appointed to the APPA’s Policy Makers Council, which assists in promoting federal legislation important to public power systems.
Ponca City is just one of 63 public power utilities in Oklahoma, which serve more than 200,000 customers. All of OMPA’s 42 member cities are public power utilities.
During his tenure in the Senate — and as leader of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee —Inhofe “has focused on issues affecting public power utilities,” the Association said in a March 1 news release. “He has been particularly vigilant on regulatory overreach by the Environmental Protection Agency and sensitive to the impact on public power utilities. He led efforts to move disapproval resolutions on the EPA’s existing and new plant rules. He advocated for public power interests on the Waters of the United States rule, ozone rule, and coal combustion residuals (CCR) rule.”
“Senator Inhofe has a long and distinguished record of sticking up for community-owned utilities,” said Association President & CEO Sue Kelly. “He understands the impact that overregulation can have on our industry and has reached across the aisle to pursue commonsense solutions. We thank him for his steadfast advocacy for public power.”
