As a member of the Armed Services Committee, would you talk a little bit about the risks we run by depending so much on imported oil?
You’re absolutely right. We live in a dangerous world, not only with importing so much oil from the Middle East, but we’ve got to be ready for challenges in other parts of the world like in China. By becoming energy independent, we free ourselves up instead of transferring wealth to places that really don’t like us.
The amount of money we are sending overseas – an estimated $700 billion – is a staggering sum, isn’t it?
If anyone has an opportunity to visit Dubai, go visit your money. We’re building skyscrapers and ski slopes in the Middle East. I’d much rather it be spent in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
So tell us about your district and the Pickens Plan.
First of all, as someone who represents Boone’s hometown of Holdenville, I support the Pickens Plan. I think that’s the way our country should be going.
What sort of energy resources can be found in Oklahoma’s 2nd District?
We’ve got a little bit of everything, and I think that’s what the Pickens Plan is all about: diversification. We’ve got a lot of natural gas, especially the Woodford Shale. It’s similar to the Barnett Shale and the Haynesville. The Woodford Shale basically goes through Bryan, Atoka, Coal, Pittsburg, Latimer Counties, all up in that area. And you’re seeing actually a boom there. I’d say in the last two months it’s slowed down because of the national economy, but overall we’ve had some pretty significant wells come in. People spending money. In some areas the unemployment rate was below three percent.
Are there many entrepreneurs or people in your district who are considering other technologies that have been underutilized?
Absolutely. This goes back to what Boone has talked about with wind. In western Oklahoma, we have a lot of wind, and a lot of turbines are being placed there. Well, in eastern Oklahoma we need people to build the turbines. In fact, there are people in our district doing just that. On any given day if you’re going down the highway, you see these blades, these windmill blades, heading west to be put on this grid. It all dovetails. We’ve got the natural gas. We put it on the road. That frees up electric generation for wind, and guess what? At the same time, it helps our environment. For the first time you’re seeing people who are in the oil and gas industry and environmentalists working together to diversify our economy, clean up our environment, and create jobs. It’s a total win-win situation.
Our current energy crisis is bringing together a lot of former foes.
When we saw gasoline go above $4 a gallon, it really came to the forefront. I think with the Pickens Plan, you’re seeing liberals, conservatives, moderates, people from all different political strides saying, “Here’s something we can do. Here’s something we can all agree on.”
One of the things that I’m really going to be pushing for when we come back to Congress after the presidential election is to implement the Pickens Plan. Rahm Emanuel and I have introduced the Nat Gas Act, which basically gets natural gas vehicles on the road, gives incentives for the Phill units, like the one Boone has at his house, and gives incentives for filling stations to put the infrastructure in. That’s the main thing we need: the infrastructure and to give U.S. auto manufacturers an incentive to build natural gas vehicles. We had some of that in the last energy bill, which did not make it, but I’m hoping maybe we can put this in the stimulus bill.
There’s going to be a second economic stimulus, and it would be great for all the people who have signed on to the Pickens Plan online and everything else to lobby that that be put in our Nat Gas Act. Or, if there’s some hybrid of this that includes a majority of the Pickens Plan, if not all the Pickens Plan, it could be inserted in the economic stimulus package. It would create a lot of jobs that we need right now. It’s something that we could do pretty quickly.
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED, AND EDITED BY ERIC O’KEEFE