OKLAHOMA CITY (April 7, 2026)—After a quarter-century and billions of dollars with virtually no elected accountability, the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust (TSET), and the special interests that created it and agitate for it, have not produced any meaningful impact on smoking or health outcomes in Oklahoma, which is no surprise given the extraordinary lack of legislative oversight and unique autonomy gifted to TSET. 

As a result, voters should be given the chance to redirect some of the funds voters formally made available to TSET to other potentially more beneficial uses, Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) President Jonathan Small said today. 

“Despite cries from special interests, the simple fact is that TSET has failed to produce the results promised when it was first approved in 2000, while enjoying an extraordinary lack of legislative oversight and unique autonomy,” Small said. “States that have spent virtually no money on smoking cessation have achieved much lower smoking rates than Oklahoma, despite TSET spending millions and millions over the last 25-plus years. Additionally, TSET has been at the center of incentivizing liberal values, unsustainable wasteful spending, and massive rewards for special interests. At some point, you must concede that a program is simply not working. It’s time to give voters the option to put TSET funds to potentially better use and to subject TSET to real, elected legislative oversight and accountability.”

Lawmakers have advanced several measures to reform TSET this year, including House Joint Resolutions 1076 and 1077, which would allow voters to designate a portion of TSET’s earnings to fund college scholarships for Oklahomans from low-income and middle-class families. 

“The proposed reforms to TSET spending will provide a greater opportunity for voters' elected representatives to deploy the funds to educational spending, which is better correlated to increasing educational, health, and other outcomes that lead to thriving,” Small said. “The reforms will also give students, parents, working families, taxpayers, and elected representatives greater influence and control over higher education.”