Law enforcement; Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training; qualifications for the Executive Director. Emergency.
SB91 is a measure that substantially rewrites the bill text to address two separate subject areas: law enforcement administration and a watershed study. The law enforcement portion amends the statute creating the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training (CLEET) and changes the qualifications for the CLEET Executive Director, requiring the director to be a professional law enforcement officer with specified education and experience. It also retains and expands CLEET’s authority over officer certification, training standards, disciplinary actions, background checks, canine certification, and related reporting and fee collection provisions.
The bill also includes a new “Spring Creek Watershed Study Act,” directing the Oklahoma Conservation Commission to conduct a comprehensive water quality study of the Spring Creek Watershed in Cherokee, Delaware, and Mayes counties. That study is to be carried out with local, state, federal, tribal, and non-governmental partners, supported by advisory groups, and used to recommend voluntary, incentive-based conservation practices. The bill creates a revolving fund for the study and authorizes the Commission to accept grants and other contributions, with a report due by June 1, 2026.
On the law enforcement side, SB91 amends 70 O.S. Section 3311 and related CLEET provisions, affecting the governance of the state’s police training and certification agency, the qualifications for its executive leadership, and the rules governing peace officer eligibility, discipline, training, and agency reporting. On the environmental side, it creates new law in Title 27A establishing the Spring Creek Watershed Study, advisory groups, and a dedicated revolving fund, thereby adding a new statutory program for watershed assessment and conservation planning in northeast Oklahoma.
The bill appears to have had generally favorable support in both chambers for much of the process, with strong majority votes in the Senate and House on earlier readings and on House third reading. However, the final Senate fourth-reading vote was 20-24, indicating significant opposition or a breakdown in support at the end of the process. Overall, the voting history suggests broad initial approval but a more divided final outcome.
The most notable point of contention appears to be the bill’s final Senate version, which diverged from the original water-quality-focused caption and instead contained a major CLEET law enforcement rewrite alongside the watershed study language. That kind of substantive substitution may have contributed to the split final vote. The law enforcement provisions are also potentially sensitive because they tighten executive qualifications, expand certification and disciplinary authority, and impose detailed reporting and background requirements on agencies and officers, while the watershed provisions rely on voluntary conservation approaches and resource availability rather than mandatory regulation.