Natural Gas Vehicles
Aubrey McClendon, the chairman and CEO of Chesapeake Energy in Oklahoma City, was at the National Press Club and on Capitol Hill yesterday to promote more useage of natural gas, including in the transportation sector.
McClendon is also founder and chairman of the American Clean Skies Foundation, which is amassing and distributing information related to natural gas.
According to McClendon, there are about 8 million vehicles in the world running on compressed natural gas.
The U.S. ranks eighth in the world, with 146,876 natural gas vehicles.…
Read the rest of Natural Gas Vehicles
Rice Campaign Vets on Board
Now officially in the general election race against U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, Democratic state Sen. Andrew Rice is getting campaign help from the national party.
The Rice campaign announced today that his campaign manager will be Geri Prado, who worked on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign. In the last election cycle, she was a top aide on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Rice also named Phil Singer as a communications consultant. Singer worked for Clinton’s presidential campaign and for New York Sen.…
Read the rest of Rice Campaign Vets on Board
Yes to Dr. NO
A Washington Post reader defends Sen. Tom Coburn’s resistance to new spending and programs today.…
Read the rest of Yes to Dr. NO
Coburn Battling Ethics Committee
The Hill, a newspaper that covers Capitol Hill, reported today that Sen. Tom Coburn has been warned by the Senate Ethics Committee to stop delivering babies for free or face censure, a severe punishment.
The senator, a practicing physician, battled the committee and the full Senate when he first took office in 2005. He was told that he couldn’t accept fees for his work and has been tending to patients for no charge. But the Ethics Committee warned him to stop.…
Read the rest of Coburn Battling Ethics Committee
Lobbyists, legislators and concerts
Lobbyists usually give gifts to legislators in the form of meals so they can discuss with them bills they’d like to see passed or defeated.
Members of the state Ethics Commission, which among other things regulate the conduct of elected officials, say they don’t want to pass rules that would interfere with giving lobbyists access to lawmakers.
But they’ve expressed concern the past couple years over expensive dinners costing $100 or more and tickets to concerts and sporting events, usually football game.…
Read the rest of Lobbyists, legislators and concerts
Reports reflect Cargill’s diminished role
Lance Cargill, no longer in the speaker’s chair this year, received a small percentage of meals and other things of value from lobbyists during the first six months of 2008 compared with the same time period last year, reports show.
During the first six months of 2007 – the only year that Cargill served as House speaker – Cargill received received $2,063 in things of value from lobbyists. The legislative session runs from the first week of February through the last week of May.…
Read the rest of Reports reflect Cargill’s diminished role
Can Boren and Henry Get Obama to OK?
Ivan Holmes, chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party, says Gov. Brad Henry and OU President David Boren are “really serious about helping” Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
Holmes said he had a conversation with Boren recently about what could be done in Oklahoma to help Obama win a state that hasn’t been carried by a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964 (LBJ).
Holmes said he thinks Boren and Henry will try to get Obama to visit Oklahoma shortly after the Democratic National Convention in Denver at the end of August.…
Read the rest of Can Boren and Henry Get Obama to OK?
McCain's Grandpa in Muskogee
The Washington Post has an interesting story this morning about Sen. John McCain’s maternal grandfather’s time in Muskogee around statehood. The story documents some scrapes the “gambler and bootlegger” had with the law and says he left the town “a wealthy wildcatter who owned some of the most valuable property in the region.”…
Read the rest of McCain's Grandpa in Muskogee
Rice Now on TV
State Sen. Andrew Rice, D-Oklahoma City, started his first television ad today in his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Jim Inhofe.
Rice’s ad, a bio spot that talks about his faith and the death of his brother in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, is running on all of the network affiliates in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, according to the campaign.
Rice is expected to win the Democratic primary easily next week and face Inhofe, R-Tulsa, in the general election.…
Read the rest of Rice Now on TV
Democrats Slam Fallin, GOP Trip to Alaska
Democrats are criticizing the trip Rep. Mary Fallin, R-Oklahoma City, is taking this weekend to Alaska with other GOP freshmen and House Republican leader John Boehner, of Ohio, to view the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is closed to oil and gas exploration, and Prudhoe Bay, where production is ongoing.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said today, “This weekend, House Republican leaders will take their allegiance to the President’s failed policies to a new latitude. They will follow him all the way to the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska instead of touring the 68 million acres of land that oil companies have already leased, but have not developed.”
And the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said it was “reckless to spend taxpayers’ dollars on a political stunt that benefits the interests of their Big Oil contributors, while doing nothing for middle class Americans struggling to fill their tanks.”
“Who better to be ambassadors for President Bush’s Big Oil agenda than a group of Republicans who have accepted more than a quarter of a million dollars in campaign contributions from Big Oil?” asked
Doug Thornell, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.…
Read the rest of Democrats Slam Fallin, GOP Trip to Alaska
