On Tuesday, April 7, 2026, the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down the Energy Discrimination Elimination Act of 2022, ruling the law unconstitutional and blocking the state from forcing public retirement systems to dump investment managers placed on the state treasurer’s blacklist. The decision keeps control of pension investments in the hands of trustees, who are legally bound to look out for retirees’ bottom line instead of a political agenda.
High Court Sides With Retirees
The majority opinion, written by Justice James Edmondson, kept in place an earlier district court injunction and turned it into a permanent order that stops State Treasurer Todd Russ from enforcing the act against the Oklahoma Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS). The justices concluded that the law’s structure and real-world effect clashed with state constitutional provisions that govern public pensions, according to Oklahoma Voice.
What The Law Would Have Required
The 2022 statute ordered the treasurer’s office to compile and publish a list of financial firms accused of “boycotting” energy companies. State agencies and retirement systems were then instructed to avoid or divest from those firms, a requirement that pension trustees warned could collide head-on with their fiduciary duties.
Legal analyses and court filings summarized by Ropes & Gray via JDSupra note that the law’s divestment mandate and its carveouts raised direct questions about whether political goals could be put ahead of beneficiaries’ financial interests. Investigative reporting and filings have also shown that a large share of OPERS assets were managed by firms on the treasurer’s list, a concentration that trustees warned would make replacements costly and disruptive. The Frontier documented those concerns.
How This Case Reached The High Court
The legal challenge began when retiree Don Keenan filed suit in late 2023, arguing that the law violated a constitutional requirement that retirement systems be run for the “exclusive benefit” of participants. Oklahoma Voice reported that Keenan died after filing the initial complaint, but the case moved forward.
A district judge blocked enforcement of the act in 2024, finding multiple constitutional problems with the statute. The state’s Attorney General later asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to review that decision and take up the broader fight over the law, according to coverage at KOSU.
Why Trustees Pushed Back
Trustees for OPERS and other state plans argued that firing low-cost index managers or shifting large pools of assets to new firms would trigger taxes, fees and trading costs that would ultimately show up in retirees’ returns. Leaning on the law’s own fiduciary-exemption language, the OPERS board voted to keep its existing contracts rather than carry out a forced divestment, a practical move that became central to the legal fight over how far the statute could reach.
Ropes & Gray via JDSupra explains how those fiduciary obligations framed the courts’ review of the case and shaped the ultimate outcome.
What’s Next
With the high court’s ruling, the immediate legal obstacle to OPERS and similar systems keeping their current managers is gone. Lawmakers or the treasurer could still try to rewrite the statute and send a new version back into the courtroom, but for now pension boards retain the final say over where the money goes.
Officials in other states that have adopted anti-ESG or “boycott” laws will be watching closely. The Oklahoma decision follows a series of court challenges around the country that have flagged vagueness problems and potential conflicts with fiduciary duties.
For Oklahoma retirees, the practical effect is straightforward: investment managers such as BlackRock and others that appeared on the treasurer’s list are expected to stay on the job unless trustees decide otherwise. Reporting and filings about those holdings are summarized by The Frontier.
