Roscoe Bartlett: “today I had a very pleasant visit with a very important person. Matt Simmons came by and we spent about an hour and a…”

“today I had a very pleasant visit with a very important person. Matt Simmons came by and we spent about an hour and a half talking. Now, who is Matt Simmons and why should we be interested in a discussion with Matt Simmons? Matt Simmons is the President's personal energy adviser. He was the primary architect of his energy policy for his first campaign, continued with him through his second campaign. Matt Simmons is the president and CEO of one of the largest energy investment banks in the world, out of Houston, Texas, and he has written a book which I have here, ``Twilight in the Desert.'' I would like to read just a little bit from the dust cover of the book: Saudi Arabia is the most important oil-producing nation in history. The secretive Saudi Government repeatedly assures the world that its oil fields are healthy beyond reproach, and that they can maintain and even increase output at will to meet the skyrocketing global demand. But what if they can't? ``Twilight in the Desert'' looks behind the curtain to reveal a Saudi oil and production industry that could soon approach a serious, irreversible decline. In this exhaustively researched book, veteran oil industry analyst Matthew Simmons draws on his own three-plus decades of insider experience and more than 200 independently produced reports about Saudi petroleum resources and production operations.…”