In a recent interview for the Senate Republican Conference podcast, “The Elephant in the Room,” U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin explained energy independence for the U.S. remains his top priority and a main reason why he entered politics.
“Let’s take the policy out of the hands of Washington, D.C. and put it back in the states. Where it belongs to begin with…,” he declared in the interview.
“Energy is the backbone of every economy. It is where inflation lives and inflation dies…The Democrat party has decided energy is bad. Yet, every single one of them are wearing something with a petroleum-based product in it today.”
The newly-elected Senator, chosen in November to succeed retired Sen. Jim Inhofe, said fracking is the renaissance to the nation’s energy independence and as a result, the U.S. now has bigger reserves than Saudi Arabia. In order to maintain the independence, he contends the power should be in the hands of states.
“Who was permitting that? It was the states. The states figured out how to do it – not federal government… Let the people of that state make the decision for themselves…I’m saying [to the federal government] get out of our way.”
The Republican Senator also explained what led him to enter politics.
““They [the Obama Administration] put me out of business in just a few days…Some faceless bureaucrat made the decision to change the regulation, not legislation, the regulation, and it literally put me out of business…We have a saying in the family, ‘You’ll never change anything you are willing to tolerate.’ I came home and complained about it and my wife said, ‘are you running for office?’ I said heck no…I made my trip up to Washington, D.C. Didn’t own a suit. Didn’t own a tie. Didn’t know how to tie a tie. Within two weeks, I was in the race.”
Click here to listen to the full episode.