Thursday, May 2, 2024
A QUICK CHAT: August Pfluger, U.S. House of Representative for the 11th Congressional District of Texas, takes time to chat with attendees after speaking at the Granbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Friday.
The Lake Granbury Conference Center had 88 community members Friday who were on hand to hear August Pfluger, U.S. House of Representative for the 11th District of Texas, as he explained the surprising reality of how quickly the near $1 trillion bill (H.R. 5376), signed into law last week by President Biden, was approved.
“It is so chaotic and dysfunctional,” he said, during that Granbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon. “Any guesses as to how much debate time we actually had on it? 90 minutes ... and that's not what the American public demands, deserves, wants or needs. There have been times that I will ask the Democrats, ‘What are we voting on today?’ and they have no idea. They literally have no idea until it comes to the House floor, and that's no way to do business.”
Preston Howey, Pfluger’s legislative director, said none of the $6 trillion raised in the last year and a half actually went through the committee process.
"This is not one of those topics that you're gonna see on mainstream media,” Pfluger said. “But if the American public knew what I just told you, there is no way that the current speaker of the House would be entrusted to lead that organization because that's really shameful. We deserve better.”
Granbury Chamber of Commerce President Brian Bondy introduced Pfluger during the luncheon, and also posed some questions to lead him through a 45-minute program.
Pfluger — who was a decorated fighter pilot in the Air Force later served in the Pentagon and with NATO — is serving his first term in the House of Representatives. He represents 29 counties in the 11th congressional district, including the cities of Granbury, San Angelo, Llano, Brownwood, Midland, Odessa and much of the Permian Basin — the top oil and gas producing region in the nation, according to pfluger.house.gov.
In Congress, Representative Pfluger is a strong advocate for national security, promoting farmers and ranchers, protecting the unborn, energy prosperity and securing our borders — the latter of which was the first question Bondy asked Pfluger during the Q&A. Pfluger responded by indicating that the situation is “tragic.”
“It was a concern last year; it's even more concerning now,” Pfluger said. “I think the law-and-order upholding American dream that people want, and to be a part of this country, it starts at our border. We've had, since Joe Biden has been president, 4.3 million people, approximately, that we know about that have come to this country illegally — and that's really sad.”
He added that he believes help is on the way, saying, “I believe that we will have the House switch parties in November, which will be a good thing for our southern border. Texas is bearing the brunt of this.”
Pfluger noted that he was able to speak earlier that morning with Joey Reed, the father of Granbury’s own Trevor Reed, who was recently released after spending almost three years in a Russian prison.
“Paula and Joey, they were the driving force to bring awareness to their son's plight to the unjust situation that was going on,” he said. “Joey Reid is a force of nature and he brought awareness to this. There are many Americans right now today that are still in places like Russia, Iran, Syria, that are being held unjustly and illegally.
“When I was elected and sworn in — and Mike Conaway, my predecessor had worked on this with Michael McCaul, and John Cornyn and several others that had been advocating with my office's help — we made it our goal that every single member of Congress would know Trevor Reed by name, and by face. That was my goal. I wanted everybody in Congress to know his story and that wasn't my original doing — this was his parents’ push to get the message out.”
Bondy asked Pfluger — who is from the oil-rich Permian Basin region of Texas — for his thoughts on the energy situation. Pfluger expressed his opinion by saying “… this Green New Deal that the administration has now passed and was signed into law this week is unrealistic.”
“I got a chance to go to Comanche Peak (Nuclear Plant, near Glen Rose), and I know several people here that have worked at that facility,” Pfluger said. “They estimate Comanche Peak is responsible for about four to five percent of the total electrical supply here in Texas on a daily basis, which is pretty incredible. I start with that story for this reason. Yes, I represent Midland and Odessa and you may have seen, we have a slogan that I started saying last summer called ‘Let's put Midland over Moscow,’ and this was before the invasion. Then Putin invades (Ukraine) and our president, you know, can't figure out where energy comes from.
“We actually introduced a piece of legislation called the noble lifestyle, and it's pretty simple — let's use the resources we have right here in America. Those resources that are fueled by the innovation from people who have done the work, rain or shine, to produce low-cost, secure, reliable energy, and that's what we do in the Permian Basin. That shale revolution that we had started in about (2010, 2011, and 2012), it changed the world. It literally changed the world. All of your businesses that are on the square that are on Main Street and your homes benefited from low-cost energy. In fact, the entire world benefited from it and a billion people were (brought) out of poverty. Energy poverty is very real. It is very real.”
As for rising energy costs for consumers, Pfluger added, “Next Congress, I hope to get on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which is really the committee that has jurisdiction over, among other things, energy, and what it means for everybody in America to have low-cost energy to get back to where we were. It will help every single one of your 984 member businesses right here in this area.”
On the topic of the recent bill signed into law, referred to as the Inflation Reduction Act by Democrats, Pfluger said, “We're actually calling it the Inflation Expansion Act. The Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan groups, and different business schools are weighing in and saying that there will be no measurable decrease in inflation anytime soon as a result of this. In fact, what's going to happen is, this is a 750-billion-dollar bill, and 350, approximately, is going to be added into the Green New Deal, but there's another piece of it that's going to hurt mainstream businesses, and that is, the new taxes that we're going to see, and some of those come in the form of a gas tax, and LNG gas tax will affect that fuel surcharge; that's only going to go up.”
As Pfluger was starting to wrap up his presentation, he hit home with many major points that are often at the heart of conservative voters — starting by describing the ideas as “Very simple, overarching principles that say we want a nation that is free.”
He continued, “We want a government that is accountable. We want a prosperous economy. I have been appointed to the Energy Task Force. I'm leading the charge when it comes to making sure we have energy independence that we can unleash and build infrastructure that we need right here so that the electric cooperatives and other providers have the sources that they need to make sure we don't have energy poverty, and that we don't weaken our national security.
“That's my role and there are many other things that are in line with this, but this commitment to America will be basically unveiled in the next coming months. It will include how we're going to get our economy back to work, to stop paying people to stay at home. We need to tackle immigration. It's a very difficult subject to talk about when we have such a lapse in security at our southern border, and that is step one. I think in 2016 to 2020, we were on the right path; those policies were working. Accountability allowed all of you to do the things you needed to do for your businesses, and we need to get back to that.”
