By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said his office is confident that they can hire the legal specialists necessary to look into potential illegal manipulation of natural gas prices during the February 2021 frigid weather.
"Under Kansas law, in order to retain a firm for this, we have to go through a formal bidding process, a request for proposals," Schmidt said Wednesday. "We issued that early in the fall. There were actually no bidders initially, so we had to extend the proposal. We now have firms that have bid and I think we're very close to being able to retain and announce the firm with the expertise to help us with this."
Some of Schmidt's political opponents see his ownership stake in a natural gas well in southeast Kansas as a potential conflict of interest in the case.
"We have a farm we've had for years," Schmidt said. "It was my grandparents. We have one and only one gas well on it. It's a low production well as many are in southeast Kansas. We're blessed to have it. We're not getting rich off it. In any event, we don't control the price of gas. We're just landowners."
Schmidt said when the initial RFP went out that the intent was to get someone who is an expert in the complicated natural gas marketplace.