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. Which country ranks 1st?
Argentina … with 1.65 million.
Second is Pakistan, with 1.55 million, followed by Brazil, with 1.4 million and Italy, with 432,900. Rounding out the top five is India, with 334,820.
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. Charles Schumer, who is now chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Rice got about 60 percent of the vote on Tuesday in the Democratic primary against an opponent who didn’t campaign or spend money, showing that he still has a lot of work to do getting his name out as he tries to unseat the well-known Republican incumbent.
Bringing in experienced campaign vets from out of state isn’t unusual. Many political operatives, from both parties, have nomadic careers, following the races from state to state.
But they certainly don’t guarantee success for a candidate. Former Rep. Brad Carson, the Democrat who ran against now U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn in 2004, had plenty of outside help and money.
That campaign left a painful amount of debt for the state Democratic party and some resentment toward the out-of-state operatives who came in to run the campaign in a state they didn’t know.
Yes to Dr. NO
A Washington Post reader defends Sen. Tom Coburn’s resistance to new spending and programs today.
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.
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.
He said he thinks Boren is envisioning an Obama rally at OU that would bring out a lot of young people who could register to vote on site.
Boren and Henry both endorsed Obama, of Illinois, in the midst of his his heated primary with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, of New York. Boren, a former U.S. senator who once headed the Senate Intelligence Committee, is now serving as one of Obama’s foreign policy advisors.
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.”
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.
The new ad is also available at www.andrewforoklahoma.com
Inhofe has already run two ads, one about the Okahoma-related issues he has worked on in the Senate and another on his efforts in Africa.
The ads are no longer running but are available at www.jiminhofe.com.
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
Fallin, whose district includes several oil and gas companies, has accepted nearly $79,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry since 2007, according to opensecrets.org.
The trip, which also included a stop at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado today, is being paid for by the White House. The all-Republican delegation is getting use of a military plane for the weekend.
Last week, Fallin’s press secretary, Alex Weintz, said Fallin “feels it is important to get a firsthand look at American energy facilities and this trip offers her exactly that. Whatever the cost of the trip is, it is dwarfed by the continued cost of inaction when it comes to creating and implementing a real energy policy.”
Fallin supports drilling in ANWR; most Democrats are opposed.
Disaster Aid for Oklahoma Cattlemen
The USDA has approved a disaster declaration this morning for counties in northwest Oklahoma that are suffering from severe drought.
Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, announced the move and said it would provide immediate relief for livestock producers in the stricken area.
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Coburn to Travel for McCain
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, came by the Washington Bureau this morning to talk about issues (housing/banking woes, energy, Medicare, global AIDS funding) as well as the presidential race.
Coburn, an early and key supporter of Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said he will hit the road for McCain for a week in August, when Congress is in recess. He said he has pitched former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts to McCain as a possible running mate.
Videos of the interview should be on newsok.com soon.
