Here’s an excerpt from an address Senator Begich gave on Tuesday to the Alaska legislature. Note the section on how little those in D.C. know about oil and natural gas:
Certainly high on my list is Alaska’s oil and gas industry, which has taken its share of lumps recently with the fall in world oil prices.
That’s why I was troubled by proposals from the national administration to scale back incentives designed to increase domestic oil and gas production which make our nation more energy secure. I told President Obama exactly that in the Oval Office a couple of weeks ago and repeated it to his budget director last week.
I am working with senators from states like Louisiana, Nebraska, Montana and Texas to educate the administration and members of Congress on the need for a healthy American oil and gas industry.
Certainly renewable energy and conservation must be an essential part of a national energy policy. But we can’t make the transition overnight as national decision-makers finally come to grips with the consequences of climate change.
In just the few months I’ve been in Washington, I’ve discovered there’s little understanding of how oil and gas production works.
My colleagues are amazed when I explain how Alaska is on the cutting-edge of production technology, using techniques like directional drilling to reach oil miles away with minimal disruption to the environment.
The bill Senator Murkowski and I introduced calling for directional drilling to reach the oil beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may just change the conversation on that controversial issue.
If that happens, it will be Planet Gore readers who are the “amazed” ones.