Fact-checked: What Gentner Drummond told the Stillwater Frontier Rotary Club
Republican gubernatorial candidate fields questions on data centers, the smelter lawsuit, a grand jury petition and Medicaid cuts
Republican gubernatorial candidate Gentner Drummond told the Stillwater Frontier Rotary Club on Thursday that data center operators like Google — now building a $3 billion campus in Stillwater — should pay for their own power under a large-load tariff.
Speaking July 16 at the Best Western Plus Cimarron Hotel & Suites in Stillwater, Drummond also defended his office's move that blocked a Payne County grand jury petition and criticized runoff opponent Mike Mazzei's plans to eliminate the state income tax and govern by executive order.
Drummond, Oklahoma's attorney general since 2023, faces Mazzei, a Tulsa financial planner and former state senator, in the Aug. 25 Republican runoff. The winner will face Democrat Cyndi Munson, the minority leader of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, in the Nov. 3 general election.
Drummond, who was born in Stillwater and graduated from Oklahoma State University, is the second of three gubernatorial candidates addressing the club on consecutive weeks. Mazzei spoke July 9, and Munson is scheduled for July 23, with appearances livestreamed on the club's YouTube channel.
Drummond framed his pitch to the club around a pledge he said he has kept as attorney general and would keep as governor.
"You will not agree with me 100 percent of the time. But you will be able to trust me 100 percent of the time," Drummond said. "My yes is yes. My no is no."
Drummond on data centers and the Inola smelter
Asked by club members about data centers and the proposed aluminum smelter at Inola, Drummond drew a sharp line between the two: data centers are welcome if they carry their own costs; the smelter, he said, is a losing deal he has sued to block.
Drummond, who as attorney general represents ratepayers before the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, said he noticed the state's utilities repeatedly applying for more generating capacity driven by data center and cryptocurrency demand — and that ratepayers should not underwrite that construction.
"We're going to apply a large load tariff, and Google is going to pay for its power, and we'll welcome it with open arms," Drummond said.
The comments land close to home. Google is building a data center campus on 202 acres off Richmond Road in Stillwater, a project city leaders have valued at $3 billion with potential for six facilities.
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Drummond pointed to Indiana as the model.
"Indiana has been doing this for the last five years, and so this year is the first year that utility rates for consumers went down," he said.
Drummond said data center operators must also conserve water and pay property taxes, criticizing local governments that waive them, and pointed to a data center going into Adair County near Stilwell that he said will double the county's property tax intake.
On the Century Aluminum smelter proposed at Inola, Drummond said the company's air permit application seeks a rating for 425 tons of particulate emissions a year — a figure he contrasted with what he described as a 10-ton EPA hazard threshold — and said the facility would sit within three miles of Inola and its public school, and within five miles of 240 Inola residents.
Drummond then drew a comparison to how the United Arab Emirates, home to the smelter's foreign co-owner, treats its own aluminum plants.
"They prohibit any human to live within 10 miles of their plant, and no consumable animal can live within 10 miles of the plant," Drummond said. "It releases a fluoride that will poison the bovine, the pig, anything that you would consume."
He said the plant would use 55,000 gallons of water every two hours, generate 750,000 tons of waste annually, and receive roughly $1 billion in combined state and local incentives — a $255 million legislative appropriation, a property tax waiver and a tax increment financing district.
He acknowledged President Donald Trump has criticized him over the lawsuit.
"I'm respectful of President Trump. But don't injure us," Drummond said.
Fact check: data center and smelter claims
Drummond on his record as attorney general
Drummond said Oklahoma had 12,000 marijuana grow facilities when he took his oath of office and that the organized crime task force he formed has since shut down more than 10,600 illegal grow operations. He said federal immigration agents are now embedded with the task force and that Oklahoma ranks fifth among states in deportations.
Drummond also pointed to his lawsuits against out-of-state insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, saying the latter has produced more than $53 million in recoveries this year.
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Drummond on his priorities
Drummond identified five priorities: education, health care, mental health, workforce development and the state's relationship with tribal nations.
On education, he called for expanded child care eligibility, pointing to New Mexico, where he said eligibility extends to four times the federal poverty level. He also called for reading assistance in classrooms and greater emphasis on career techs, saying the state is 50,000 workers short in the trades.
"Not every child needs to wear orange," Drummond said. "Not every child needs to go to Oklahoma State. We need a bunch of the trades, and we don't have them."
Turning to health care and mental health, Drummond cited the state's national standing. "We're 50th in education, 48th in health care, and 46th in mental health," he said.
On tribal relations, Drummond said the Chickasaw, Choctaw and Cherokee nations would each rank among Fortune 500 companies if publicly traded, each earning more than $4 billion in net income annually. He also said he has worked out an intergovernmental agreement with the tribes that he would implement as governor: the state would cross-deputize judges, prosecutors and corrections officials to handle tribal-member prosecutions following the U.S. Supreme Court's McGirt decision, and in exchange, the tribes would open rural health and mental health facilities to all Oklahomans.
Fact check: rankings and tribal agreement
Drummond criticized Mazzei's plan to eliminate the state income tax, arguing the state cannot absorb the revenue loss. "We can't cut income taxes to zero and hope to have hospitals, mental health clinics, or schools," he said.
Drummond on hard calls and St. Isidore
Describing decisions he said cost him politically, Drummond pointed to his office's challenge of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, the state-approved religious charter school.
"What happens if it's Wiccan or Satanic or Sharia law, and the women are not permitted to be in the classroom?" Drummond said. "I took on that case. It was called St. Isidore. I took it all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, and I won."
Drummond said the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee, spent $5 million against him in the Republican primary after that fight.
Drummond on the Payne County grand jury petition
A club member asked why Drummond's office intervened after District Judge Richard Ogden certified a Payne County petition — with more than 3,000 signatures gathered this spring — calling for a grand jury.
The petition, filed by Parents for Payne County, alleges former District Attorney Laura Thomas abused her authority, suppressed evidence and failed to investigate crimes against children. It is the group's second attempt to empanel a grand jury. Jeremiah Gregory, the incoming Judicial District 9 district attorney, told News 9 he welcomes the effort: "I welcome a grand jury to come forth and just provide that independent set of eyes."
"The judge got it wrong," Drummond said, saying Ogden applied the wrong data set in calculating the signature threshold and later acknowledged the error. "He redid the math, and it disqualified. So you just didn't get enough signatures."
"I think many Payne County residents wanted a grand jury, and I wished you would get the grand jury," Drummond said. "But I also have to stand for the rule of law."
Drummond on the poultry litigation settlement
A club member praised Drummond for taking on the poultry industry over pollution in eastern Oklahoma's waterways. Drummond said he inherited the 21-year lawsuit against out-of-state poultry integrators on the day he took office, then spent three and a half years negotiating a resolution that drew sustained opposition in the region.
"There are 40 billboards in the counties of eastern Oklahoma that say, 'Drummond is the Antichrist,'" Drummond said. "I mean, they hate me."
Drummond said the state reached an agreement last week redirecting poultry waste out of nutrient-sensitive eastern Oklahoma waters. "They're going to go from 100% poultry application in the East to 20% poultry application in the East," Drummond said. He said the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association endorsed him before rescinding its endorsement after the underlying court judgment came down.
Fact check: poultry settlement
Drummond on health care
Responding to Joe Akin of the Stillwater Medical Foundation — who cited a projected $110 million 10-year hit to Stillwater Medical under the federal reconciliation law and OHCA's proposed $218 million hospital payment cut — Drummond said the state cannot continue defunding health care.
Drummond said 40 Oklahoma counties are maternity deserts and that the state stands to lose 30 of its 90 rural hospitals within five years. He said OHCA executive director Clay Bullard called him before resigning this week, telling him the agency would be $150 million short.
Drummond called for canceling the state's Medicaid managed care contracts, saying out-of-state companies take 15 percent of every federal dollar and sit on reimbursements for 45 days or more before paying providers, drawing on his experience as a bank owner.
"You give me $50 million overnight, I make a ton of money. You let me sit on it for 45 to 60 days, that's stupid rich," Drummond said. "That's what they're doing to us... and they're killing our providers."
He also said the federal reconciliation law will cost the state $9 billion over 10 years.
Fact check: health care claims
Drummond on campaign donations and AI ads
Asked about a donation to Joe Biden that has been raised against him during the campaign, Drummond said the $1,000 donation was made by his wife, Wendy, through a payment account linked to their joint credit card, and was immediately canceled. Drummond said he has donated to about a dozen Democrats, roughly half a million dollars to Republicans and $75,000 to Donald Trump.
On AI-generated attack ads, Drummond said a group supporting him that he does not control has run ads mocking Mazzei, and that he supports regulation prohibiting altered images of people.
Drummond on executive orders
Asked about the day-one executive orders Mazzei pledged at last week's meeting, Drummond said governors lack the legal authority for many of them.
"All this executive order stuff is BS. It's not permissible," Drummond said. He said about 100,000 acres of illegally owned land in Oklahoma is held by Chinese interests through layered LLCs.
Fact check: land ownership claims
Drummond on endorsements
Closing his remarks, Drummond acknowledged Mazzei's biggest backers while touting the breadth of his own support.
"Mr. Mazzei has the endorsement of the president and the governor," Drummond said. "I have the endorsement of FOP, all fire organizations, teachers' organizations, hospitals, doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists and Barry Switzer."
"It works at Norman," Drummond joked of the Switzer endorsement — a nod to the Sooners' rivalry with Oklahoma State in the Cowboys' hometown.
Drummond said about 40 state representatives and senators — perhaps 50 by the runoff — will appear in videos supporting his campaign.
Fact check: endorsement claims
What's next
The Republican runoff between Drummond and Mazzei is Aug. 25. The winner will face Munson in the Nov. 3 general election. Munson speaks to the club July 23, with the appearance livestreamed on the club's YouTube channel.
📺 Watch Gentner Drummond's full presentation to the Stillwater Frontier Rotary Club
CANDIDATE FACT CHECKS
About this fact check: The Stillwegian checked claims against primary sources wherever possible — state agency records, certified county documents, official audits, congressional testimony and published state data — and against original reporting by other newsrooms, linked where used. Claims we couldn't verify are attributed or omitted. Corrections to chris@thestillwegian.news.
Gentner on data centers and the smelter fact checks:
1. "We're going to apply a large load tariff, and Google is going to pay for its power." Already state law and already in motion, not a new gubernatorial power.
House Bill 2992 requires utilities to maintain separate large-load tariffs. OG&E's April contract with Google — covering three new data centers in Muskogee and Stillwater, with Google paying 100 percent of connection costs — "forms the basis for a new large-load tariff," per the company; OG&E filed that tariff with the Corporation Commission June 18, and StateImpact Oklahoma reported an OG&E executive saying the Stillwater contract will template future tariffs generally. The governor doesn't set tariffs — the Corporation Commission does.
On Indiana: its marquee large-load tariff was approved in February 2025, about 17 months ago, not five years, and no published data shows Indiana rates fell this year as a result.
2. Smelter incentives (~$1 billion), 750,000 tons annually, three miles from Inola's school, five miles from 240 residents. Capacity and distances check out; incentives run higher than stated.
Drummond's June 2 petition and Century Aluminum's investor materials confirm the 750,000-metric-ton capacity and the site's proximity to homes, farms and schools. Oklahoma Voice's reporting tallies $255 million in state incentives, a $500 million federal DOE grant and $735 million in tax exemptions — pushing the documented total past $1.4 billion, not "roughly $1 billion." Emirates Global Aluminium holds 60 percent; Century Aluminum holds 40 percent.
3. Air permit seeks 425 tons of particulate against a "10-ton EPA hazard threshold." The 425-ton figure and three-mile distance track Drummond's own petition, which separately cites the facility's hydrogen fluoride emissions at over 365 tons a year. The "10-ton" figure is the Clean Air Act's major-source permitting trigger for a single hazardous air pollutant — a regulatory threshold, not a general hazard line.
4. The UAE bars anyone from living within 10 miles of an aluminum plant, and bars raising consumable animals there. An exaggeration of a real pattern, not a fabrication.
No such rule exists in public UAE records. EGA's own Al Taweelah smelter sits inside the Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi, bordering residential towns Al Samhah and Al Rahbah — a Stillwegian measurement using Google Earth puts the distance to Al Samhah at roughly 6 miles.
Al Samhah has under 1,000 residents but its own schools, clinics and mosques, indicating families, not a work camp. Google Maps imagery of Al Rahba Farms, in that same radius, shows working farms raising turkeys, chickens and goats — consumable livestock within the very zone Drummond described as prohibited.
His comparative point still holds: 6 miles is more than double Inola's 3-mile buffer, so the UAE genuinely keeps more distance between this industry and people. But there's no absolute 10-mile ban, and both people and food animals live inside it.
Drummond on his priorities fact checks:
5. "50th in education, 48th in health care, 46th in mental health." Directionally right, education figure overstated. 2024 NAEP data puts Oklahoma 47th-48th in reading — bottom five, not 50th. The Commonwealth Fund's 2025 scorecard ranks Oklahoma 49th in health care overall and 46th in suicide deaths, the closest match to his mental health figure.
6. Chickasaw, Choctaw and Cherokee each earn "$4 billion-plus in net income," would be Fortune 500 companies. Not supported. Tribes don't publish audited financials; available estimates put Choctaw revenue near $3.9 billion and Cherokee near $2.2 billion — revenue, not net income, and below the Fortune 500's $7 billion revenue floor.
On the cross-deputization agreement: Drummond's language was prospective ("would implement," "in exchange") — no executed agreement or published framework was found.
Drummond on hard calls and St. Isidore fact checks:
7. St. Isidore: "I took it all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, and I won." A win in effect, with an asterisk.
The Court deadlocked 4-4 in May 2025 after Justice Barrett's recusal, leaving in place the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling Drummond sought, which found the taxpayer-funded religious charter school unconstitutional. A tie sets no national precedent — the underlying question of public funding for religious charter schools remains legally open.
8. Poultry settlement "landed last week"; litter application drops from 100% to 20% in the East. Confirmed, with a nuance.
Drummond announced a ~$44 million settlement July 13 with all six companies in the 21-year Illinois River Watershed case, including $41.7 million into an environmental relief fund. It still needs Judge Gregory Frizzell's sign-off — he rejected a narrower four-company deal this spring. Drummond describes the 100-to-20 shift as a settlement term; that specific figure isn't yet confirmable since the filed agreement isn't public.
Drummond on health care fact checks:
9. OHCA director Clay Bullard resigned; agency "$150 million short." Resignation confirmed; shortfall figure runs high.
Stitt announced July 15 that Bullard is leaving; Oklahoma Watch reported an estimated $66 million shortfall, covered by carryover funds. Drummond's $150 million comes from a private call and runs roughly double the public figure. His "15 percent of every federal dollar" claim on managed care matches SoonerSelect's 85 percent minimum medical-loss-ratio floor.
10. Forty counties are maternity deserts; state will lose "30 of our 90 rural hospitals" in five years. First figure accurate, second overstated.
March of Dimes confirms 40 of 77 counties (51.9%) are maternity deserts. The most recent CHQPR analysis counts 48 Oklahoma rural hospitals (65%) at risk, implying a total near 74, not 90. His $9 billion reconciliation-law estimate tracks Healthy Minds Policy Initiative's $8.7 billion hospital-loss figure, though that's a revenue estimate, not a state-budget one.
Drummond on campaign donations and AI ads fact checks:
11. The $1,000 Biden donation, made by Wendy Drummond, was "immediately canceled." Refunded is more accurate than canceled.
The Frontier's fact check found the donation was processed, then refunded four days later — not stopped before completion. Wendy Drummond separately gave $1,000 to the Lincoln Project that year. Drummond's broader giving ($38,400 to the RNC, $50,000 to the Trump 47 PAC) is in the range of, though not an exact match for, his stated $75,000 to Trump.
Drummond on executive orders fact checks:
12. "About 100,000 acres" of illegally owned Oklahoma land held by Chinese interests. An FBI estimate, not an independently verified count.
Investigate Midwest reported Oklahoma has about 2 million acres of disclosed foreign-held land, mostly Canadian and European renewable-energy leases — not Chinese owners. The only disclosed Chinese-owned Oklahoma farmland is Smithfield Foods' roughly 2,575 acres. The 100,000-acre figure describes alleged concealed ownership, which by nature can't be confirmed in public records.
Drummond on endorsements fact checks:
13. Endorsements: FOP, firefighters, teachers, Switzer; ~40-50 legislators. FOP and firefighters confirmed directly; the Switzer claim conflicts with the public record.
NonDoc reported the Oklahoma Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Drummond the day he launched his campaign, with FOP president Mark Nelson speaking at the event — independently confirmed by KGOU/StateImpact Oklahoma. On firefighters, KTUL reported the Tulsa FirePAC's endorsement independently.
On Switzer: Barry Switzer publicly endorsed Chip Keating on June 9, one week before the primary, alongside coaches Bob Stoops and Mike Gundy — reported by News9 and NonDoc. Keating was eliminated in the primary, and it's plausible Switzer moved to Drummond afterward, but no public reporting of that switch was found.
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