Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt fired Ken McQueen as his secretary of energy and environment and as director of the Department of Energy today, replacing him with Jeff Starling and criticizing McQueen in a public statement.
“I’m disappointed that Ken McQueen would join AG Drummond, former AG Drew Edmondson and environmentalists in opposition to Oklahoma farmers and landowners by appearing at a court hearing today in his capacity as secretary,” Stitt said on Twitter. “This nearly two-decade-old case is a radical left attempt at backdoor regulation through litigation. I’ve fired him from his position as secretary of energy and environment and director of the Department of Energy effective immediately.”
The “hearing” Stitt cited was an evidentiary review concerning the state of Oklahoma’s Illinois River watershed pollution lawsuit against poultry industry companies in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Abegail Cave, Stitt’s communications director, said the governor’s office was unaware of the hearing or that McQueen would be attending.
As reported by Curtis Killman of the Tulsa World, the hearing is scheduled to last four days after U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell rejected a request last week from poultry industry defendants to postpone it. In January 2023, Frizzell ruled in favor of the state of Oklahoma in a long-running federal lawsuit that alleged poultry industry practices were polluting the Illinois River watershed in eastern Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas.
McQueen, whom Sitt appointed in August 2022 as his Cabinet secretary of energy and environment, previously served as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 administrator in Dallas — the first and only native-born Oklahoman to serve as a regional EPA administrator — and as Cabinet secretary for energy, minerals and natural resources in New Mexico. Before that, he worked for energy companies, including the Williams companies from 2002 to 2012 in Tulsa. In a press release announcing McQueen’s appointment, Stitt said his “40 years of experience in energy and environmental policies make him an invaluable asset to our administration.“
Asked for a response to Stitt’s social media statement that Attorney General Gentner Drummond is “in opposition to Oklahoma farmers and landowners” by appearing at today’s court hearing, Phil Bacharach, Drummond’s communications director, said the case it important to the state’s wellbeing.
“Attorney General Drummond is a rancher and landowner who supports Oklahoma agriculture without fail. The lawsuit was filed by a previous attorney general and maintained by every attorney general since, including Gov. Stitt’s hand-picked attorney general, who was roundly rejected by rural Oklahoma despite the governor’s best efforts,” Bacharach said. “Attorney General Drummond will continue to seek a fair resolution to the case that protects our natural resources and preserves agricultural production throughout the watershed.”
Starling, who served as chairman of a Senate Republican Caucus PAC fined for violations by the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, is an attorney who until September served as chief legal and administrative officer and corporate secretary at Lagoon Water Midstream, which was sold in June to Deep Blue Midland Basin LLC. Before joining Lagoon in 2019, Starling served as assistant general counsel at Devon Energy, where he managed litigation efforts and supported operational business units. Before that, he worked from 2004 to 2012 as a partner at McGuire Woods in Richmond, Virginia, and served as an aide to former U.S. Sen. John Warner (R-VA).
Stitt names new chief of staff
McQueen’s exit from Stitt’s administration was the second in as many days. In an apparently friendlier departure, Stitt’s office announced Monday that Tom Newell, a pastor and former Oklahoma legislator, would be his new chief of staff. He replaces Grayson Walker, whom Stitt appointed just five months ago to the post. Walker will pursue opportunities in the private sector, according to Stitt’s office.
Newell most recently served as vice president for the Center for Culture and Family at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. He served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 2010 to 2016, becoming the first Republican elected to represent House District 28. He resigned soon after his 2016 reelection to become a lobbyist, which triggered a special election and the Seminole-area unrepresented for much of the contentious 2017 session as legislators attempted to end a stalemate over repeated state revenue failures.
Before entering public office, Newell pastored churches in Oklahoma, Missouri and Pennsylvania. Since leaving the Legislature, Newell had served as the government affairs director for the Foundation for Government Accountability, the chief executive officer of Salt and Light Leadership Training and the vice president of government affairs for yes. every. kid.
“I am honored to join Gov. Stitt’s team as chief of staff,” Newell said in the release. “The governor has demonstrated unwavering leadership in making Oklahoma a top 10 state for families, freedom and opportunity. I look forward to working alongside him and our entire staff to deliver on his vision for Oklahoma.”
Edmondson: Stitt statement ‘stupid and wrong’
Former Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the state against the poultry companies in 2005, said Stitt’s statement is “both stupid and wrong.”
“The reasons that he gave, one, he thought the lawsuit was misguided because it attacked farmers, and he is categorically wrong on that,” Edmondson said late Tuesday. “No farmer was sued, only the companies themselves were sued. And our theory — which was proved when Judge Frizzell issued his findings of fact and conclusions of law almost two years ago — (is) that every business in this country is required under federal law to properly dispose of whatever waste it generates. They cannot pollute just because they’re in business, except for poultry. The poultry industry took the position that the farmers were in charge of properly disposing of the waste from the production of chickens. And that is contrary to law. The court ruled that way.”
The trial ended in 2009, with no ruling from Frizzell for more than 13 years.
Edmondson said McQueen apparently attended today’s hearing because, when the lawsuit was filed, the secretary of the environment under then-Gov. Frank Keating was a named plaintiff.
“The AG brought the lawsuit in the name of the appropriate agencies of state government, and that included the environment,” he said. “And the current secretary of energy and environment is simply the successor in that position. And that’s why he would be there. He is the named plaintiff in the lawsuit. (…) He felt a responsibility to be there, and he showed up. For Gov. Stitt, to terminate him and to issue the statement that he issued — that this is part of a liberal agenda, that it was contrary to the best interests of farmers — is just stupid and wrong.”
Stitt: ‘It was just the last straw’
Following a meeting of the Commissioners of the Land Office board on Wednesday, Stitt discussed his decision to fire McQueen, saying he had been “very clear that we’re not going to side on the side of these environmentalists and these trial attorneys.”
“These guys are trying to get their hooks in the state for us to pay hundreds of millions of dollars, and so I was very clear with McQueen on our position as a state,” Stitt said.
Stitt’s characterization of the lawsuit’s financial impact, however, was backwards. As case’s plaintiff, the state of Oklahoma would be awarded damages to remediate the water quality issues that the judge ruled have been caused by the application of poultry-producer waste on watershed farmland. River and lake levels of nitrogen and phosphorous have been central to the damages alleged by the state since the lawsuit was filed in 2005.
“If we think there’s an issue with water quality, we need to work with the EPA. We need to work with the secretary of agriculture. We need to work with DEQ. And we can fix that, and we can say, ‘Hey, we want to reduce how much parts per million on fertilizer gets spread’ — 100 percent that’s fine. We can do that,” Stitt said. “This lawsuit is suing an industry that had a permit from 15 years ago and saying, ‘Well, we know you had a permit, but you really should have done something different.’ That’s just anti-American.”
Stitt said McQueen was not subpoenaed for Tuesday’s hearing implied that tension had already existed between them.
“For him to show up on the plaintiff’s bench with all those trial attorneys and Drew Edmondson, it was just the last straw,” Stitt said.
Edmondson, whom Stitt defeated for governor in 2018, said Tuesday that he was in North Carolina and not at the hearing.
(Update: This article was updated at 4:50 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 3 — five minutes after its publication — to clarify information related to a court hearing. It was updated again at 6:30 p.m. to include comments from Edmondson. It was updated a final time at 12:35 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4, to include additional comments from Stitt.)
