Mike Conaway: “it's good to be with you this afternoon. I want to spend most of the next hour talking about the oil and gas business…”

“it's good to be with you this afternoon. I want to spend most of the next hour talking about the oil and gas business and energy issues in general but specifically about the oil and gas business. In the interest of full and fair disclosure, I grew up in West Texas, home to much of the oil and gas production from the Permian Basin, and I now have the high honor of representing much of that region in Congress. My dad was in the oil business. He had a service company for the last 25 years of his career. I had oil and gas clients in my professional career. And so I hope the fact that I have some background and experience in this area doesn't disqualify me from talking about things that I know and that doesn't discount what I have to say. In looking at our overall energy picture, almost every legitimate projection of energy usage in this country, over the next 20-plus years, shows that crude oil and natural gas will continue to be a vital part, an important part of the energy complement for this country for the next 20-plus years, as I mentioned. There are no breakthrough technologies. There are no scientific advances that anyone can anticipate today that would reduce our dependency, particularly as it relates to driving cars and trucks and airplanes, on crude oil and natural gas.”