THE CRUDE TRUTH Ep.29 The Honorable Martin Frost of Texas

Are we repeating history when it comes to #oilandgas? How fragile is the #israel / #usa relationship right now. On this episode of THE CRUDE TRUTH I visit with Retired Congressman Robert Frost and we discuss these topics and much more. Can we Maximize our Energy during this #energytransition? We also catch up on all the important work the Council for a Secure America is up too. Thank you Martin for coming on the show.

Please reach out to Martin Frost on his LinkedIn HERE  

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THE CRUDE TRUTH Ep.29 The Honorable Martin Frost of Texas

Rey Trevino [00:00:03] There’s no doubt about it that oil and gas have seen many changes even just from the late 1970s to today. And yet sometimes it’s almost like we’re repeating history when we should learn from history. I’ll talk with a very, very well-known oil and gas expert in this on this episode of The Crude Truth.

Rey Trevino [00:00:42] Okay. Well, I am so excited. Thank you so much for tuning in, for downloading, for watching this episode of The Crude Truth. My guest today is a man that basically knows the Fort Worth area almost like the back of his hand. Born and raised. But also he has been fighting the good fight for the oil and gas industry since the late 1970s. My guest today is retired, Congressman Martin Frost. Martin, how are you.

Congressman Frost [00:01:13] Doing? Fine. Doing fine.

Rey Trevino [00:01:14] Good. Good. You have been just you have been back on the circuit these last few weeks talking to people again. Let people know. Do you feel like it’s deja vu all over again?

Congressman Frost [00:01:25] Well, I did. I did a lot of interviews when I was in Congress, but I’ve been out of Congress for about 20 years. I served from 1979 to 2005. However, I’ve done a lot of things since then in the public arena. But it was interesting. As you mentioned, I grew up in Fort Worth, and my dad worked at General Dynamics.

Congressman Frost [00:01:44] He was an aerospace engineer, and I went to Pasco High School in Fort Worth, and that was when I was first elected. I had Mansfield and some other areas in Tarrant County, and then my district moved over to Dallas and then moved back toward Fort Worth. You know, the legislature and the courts moved these districts around all the time.

Rey Trevino [00:02:03] And well, you know, you mentioned Fort Worth. And I think I told you the pre-meeting that, you know, if you ask me where I’m from, hey, I’m born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. But if you ask my wife, who grew up there in West Fort Worth, originally went to Southwest Christian High School and then went to TCU. Me, I was born and raised in Fort Worth, but I’m actually from North Richmond Hill. She would say I am not going forward and.

Congressman Frost [00:02:34] Oh well, I love beloved Fort Worth living there and growing up there and I’m very proud of it. I grew up about five blocks from the TCU campus. And I’ll tell you a little story When when I was growing up in Fort Worth, if you were under the age of 18, you could go to TCU home football games for $0.50 and sit in the end zone. So was from the time I was ten years old until I went away to college, I saw every TCU home game.

Rey Trevino [00:03:02] Wow. I can’t imagine. But I’ve got a one-year-old and we took him to his first game this year and we definitely did not have in-field see, you know, on the field passes. We barely got the to e of the gate took a picture and that’s as far as they let us go. So I can’t imagine being able to sit all on the field during a football game. That sounds like a good time.

Congressman Frost [00:03:26] It was fun. And my grandparents who were from San Antonio, who weren’t from Fort Worth, were original investors in the Cotton Bowl, which was built in like in 1930. They were bondholders and so they had an option on tickets. And so I got to go to the Cotton Bowl games with my grandmother. So TCU, bye at the end of the 55 season, at the end of the 56 seasons, and the Cotton Bowl. That was fun.

Rey Trevino [00:03:51] Oh, my gosh. That is a did you know? I mean, shoot, how old are you? I mean.

Congressman Frost [00:03:59] Ive got a few years on it

Rey Trevino [00:04:00] I would say so. I don’t mean to be rude anything like watching TCU in the Cotton Bowl that was.

Congressman Frost [00:04:08] That was a kid then but that is funny

Rey Trevino [00:04:10] Of course. And you mentioned, you know, that’s where my parents are from is from San Antonio. They moved here to Fort Worth, well, actually moved to Dallas first in the late 1970s, and then they moved to North Richland Hills in 1982.

Congressman Frost [00:04:28] And my dad was from San Antonio and he went to Alamo Heights High School there, and my grandfather was in the clothing business. He had a store called Frost Brothers, which was a very nice store, and it’s not in business anymore.

Congressman Frost [00:04:41] And my mother was from East Texas, from Henderson. And I remember going out to Henderson and seeing all these pumping wells, you know, everywhere you went, you know, they were on the schoolyard, they were in the courthouse. It was interesting and exciting introduction to the oil-gas business. As a kid.

Rey Trevino [00:04:56] You talk about Henderson I had on a gentleman named Brad Little on my show called The Crude Truth or all the Crude Truth, excuse me. And his father was a coach in East Texas, and he has a book that talks about his time growing up with his father. And he mentions, I think, that well, that there’s a well on the football field there. And yeah, and it’s literally in the back of the back of the endzone pumping.

Congressman Frost [00:05:27] My grandfather on my mother’s side was mayor of Henderson in the thirties for two terms wholly my great great uncle was a state senator from that part of the state from 1903 to 1911. So the family on one side was in politics.

Rey Trevino [00:05:43] And you just kept that tradition. Mission gone.

Congressman Frost [00:05:45] That’s right. But I don’t think anybody else will run for office in the same breath.

Rey Trevino [00:05:51] Well, you mentioned your father had a clothing store. Was that also an agreement.

Congressman Frost [00:05:55] Thats my Grandfather.

Rey Trevino [00:05:56]  Grandfather and that was in Alamo Heights?

Congressman Frost [00:05:59] Well, that was in downtown. He lived in it. They lived in Alamo, but his store was downtown on Houston Street. That was a clothing store called Frost Brothers.

Rey Trevino [00:06:08] That is very.

Congressman Frost [00:06:09] Very Welcom store at the time it’s out of business now.

Rey Trevino [00:06:11] Well, you know what? It is a small world. My grandfather owned several golf stations and one of them was on Palmer Street.

Congressman Frost [00:06:18] So I know commerce traders.

Rey Trevino [00:06:20] Yes and he used to have the old attorney is a Jay Saman or something like that. He used to hang out with that gentleman a lot. I think he was one of the prominent lawyers probably around the same time.

Congressman Frost [00:06:34] Well, my great uncle from Henderson was the leading lawyer in Ross County, and therefore he was in the legislature. He was in law practice. And so he was on retainer to all the major law firms that had business in Ross County.

Congressman Frost [00:06:48] And while he was not in the business, he took let’s just say he took some royalty interest as things. And so those kind of got passed down. And I get smaller royalty checks these days. It’s passed down through several generations and I don’t throw them away, let me put it that way.

Rey Trevino [00:07:02] Yeah, I wouldn’t throw them away either. And I don’t think you know, I don’t think anybody throws them away more. You know, this day and age, people may sell the surface rights to a developer, but everybody’s holding onto it, which rightfully so.

Rey Trevino [00:07:16] I know as an operator and an MP company here, you know, Pickles country operating, we would love to get our hands on some real minerals. It’d be like some of the older families that, you know, drill and on their own land they’ve got 100%. And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Congressman Frost [00:07:32] Well, my great-grandfather died in 1941, and he was in it. He it was he was a small-town merchant and was later an investor. And so he had some worldly interests that kind of passed down. But those passed through so many members of the family. It’s a very small percentage again. So some of these realty interests that that I had dated back many, many years.

Rey Trevino [00:07:54] No. You mentioned a very small royalty interest via my father started out a career in the oil and gas industry by writing software, accounting software. And so some of these places that some of these individuals have leases were like up in maybe some Indian territory. And, you know, each family got a piece of that.

Rey Trevino [00:08:16] So they might be cutting 100 checks. They might only do it twice a year. But yeah, they’d be cutting 100 checks every time. So my father, that’s how he got his understanding of the oil and gas industry was basically by understanding the accounting of it going, This is a pretty good deal.

Congressman Frost [00:08:33] Yeah. When I was elected to Congress, of course there were. Every Texas congressman is concerned about issues that affect their state. There may be some other thing to worry about, but I certainly was concerned about national defense because we had a lot of defense contractors in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Congressman Frost [00:08:49] And I was concerned about the oil industry because it was so important to the economy of our state. So you can’t serve in office as a politician and officeholder from Texas and not be concerned about the gas industry. And that’s true of both Democrats and Republicans.

Rey Trevino [00:09:03] Yes. You know, you mentioned there, you mentioned General Dynamics. And obviously that is a way that we do stay secure in America. But also, like you mentioned, oil and gas helps us stay strong and secure.

Congressman Frost [00:09:16] No question about that. No question about that. And I can tell you a little bit about the background. The way I got involved in the oil and gas industry was that I had a lot of friends who were in the business, and they supported me when I was a congressman. And when I left Congress, they set up several organizations to promote oil and gas interests in the Southwest.

Congressman Frost [00:09:40] And one of those is the Council for a Secure America. A very leading oilman from Oklahoma. Harold Hamm, was the primary mover in that, as well as a lot of other people. And I had known them over the years. And they wanted I was no longer a congressman, but I was I stayed in Washington.

Congressman Frost [00:09:57] And so they wanted somebody to represent them. So I did some lobbying for people in the oil and gas industry a number of years before I retired. And one of the major things I was involved in some years ago, Congress repealed the 40 year limit or restriction against importation exporting of crude oil that was passed during the 1970s.

Congressman Frost [00:10:22] And people in the industry wanted to get that repealed, but they couldn’t get it off the books. So they retained me and they also retained J.C. Watts, a Republican, former congressman from Oklahoma.

Congressman Frost [00:10:35] And on a bipartisan basis, we got that repeal. That was a very interesting fight and it worked out. And I think it’s benefited some people in the industry in our state, because people do want to export crude oil in addition to using it here in our country.

Rey Trevino [00:10:52] You know, you mentioned that 40-year ban with. Do you recall exactly was that during the Carter administration or during the Nixon slash Ford administration?

Congressman Frost [00:11:03] This was the Nixon this was passed during the Nixon administration, this particular ban. But the first two years I was in Congress was during the last two years of the Carter presidency. Then I served I don’t say under I served with five presidents.

Congressman Frost [00:11:17] And it was interesting. That was Carter and then Reagan and Bush and then Clinton and Bush and I served with five Secret Service jobs and they don’t last too long. You can you can work in this business for a while, but it’s hard to have a long career. So I had the opportunity to work with five speakers and five back.

Rey Trevino [00:11:39] Wow. You know, in my teaser and opening up today for the Crude Truth, you know, I mentioned that we may be in a parallel with what was going on in the late 1970s. And, you know, Mr. Frost, you know, are you seeing some of those same parallels happening right now from late 1970s? Well, to what’s going on right now?

Congressman Frost [00:12:01] Well, over a period of time, of course, we became dependent on imported oil from Saudi Arabia and some other places. And we had always we’d been it’s been a major part of our economy, but we weren’t able to produce as much as we needed here in the United States.

Congressman Frost [00:12:20] And so there have been changes and fortunately changes to the good Harold him that I mentioned. The man oil business in Oklahoma pioneered the use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling to produce oil from shale, which was people didn’t think you could do it economically.

Congressman Frost [00:12:37] And he figured out a way to do that. And so we were dependent on foreign imports as well as domestic production. And the organization, the Council for a Secure America that I was I’ve been very actively involved in, was set up to promote more domestic export. So that it would not be so dependent on oil from some unfriendly countries.

Congressman Frost [00:12:59] And we were successful over the last ten years or so. We become much more energy independent. It’s now really North America independent because we do import some oil from Canada. But it was was it was to protect our own domestic economy.

Congressman Frost [00:13:16] And also it’s become an issue of foreign policy in recent years because the Russians are using energy as a weapon against some of our friends in Western Europe that we’ve been able to rally to help Ukraine. And the Russians, particularly the natural gas, have made it.

Congressman Frost [00:13:33] They’ve tried to scare those people, blackmailed them into not supporting democracy along with the United States. And so it’s been very important that we produce enough for our own use and that we also have the capacity to work with our friends when they need help. And that’s very important.

Congressman Frost [00:13:50] We’re a great power and I hope we will be a great power forever. But the Russians are pretty nasty, as we all know, and they they’ve done everything they can to blackmail the countries of Western Europe, not to be supportive of our efforts in Ukraine. Unfortunately, they’ve been unsuccessful so far.

Rey Trevino [00:14:07] They have been unsuccessful. You know, I’m pretty sure everybody out there, for those of you all that do not know, for all my listeners and viewers out there, Harold Hamm is has a retired Continental resources, one of the largest. And I think he just took it back independent here recently.

Congressman Frost [00:14:22] I think that’s right. I think that’s right.

Rey Trevino [00:14:24] And so so yeah. So Harold Hamm is definitely one of he’s right up there with Boone Pickens. And as far as I’m concerned, the Rockefellers. And I mean, this is not.

Congressman Frost [00:14:35] Quite that high, but he’s been very creative and a pioneer. I mean, he did things that people didn’t think was possible and that helped us increase our own domestic production. And again, this organization that I’m involved in tries to promote more domestic production and also tries to support our friends.

Congressman Frost [00:14:55] There are some people from the Northeast in the Jewish community who also have joined with us on the Security Council at risk for America because they’re concerned about Israel and concerned about Israel being in a very tough neighborhood and having to deal with the Saudis and having to deal with Iran.

Congressman Frost [00:15:10] And so it’s been an effort to do to increase our own domestic production and also to be in a position where we can help our allies when they need the help. I had an interesting thing that happened to me my first year in Congress, actually, the first month I was in Congress was when the now the accords between Israel and Egypt were signed.

Congressman Frost [00:15:34] And as a new congressman, I had a chance to meet with Prime Minister Reagan right before he went to the White House to sign the final document. And he told us at the time that the final point that had to be resolved was that Israel needed to be able to have a guaranteed supply of oil and gas, and that they were concerned that if they had to go to war again, they might not have the energy they needed because they weren’t producing very much of their own.

Congressman Frost [00:16:02] Now they’re producing. So and the final issue that that end of the deal and make sure it worked was the United States agreed to make energy available, particularly oil at world market prices to Israel if they ever got in a bind and needed to import something.

Congressman Frost [00:16:18] So this has been a very interesting combination. It’s good for our country and it’s also good for our foreign policy. We want to continue to be a player in the Middle East. We also, because of NATO, we’ve been a major player in Europe and we hope that Ukraine will survive as a democratic country. And we’ve now been able to help our allies in Western Europe deal with what the Russians have been trying to do to force them out.

Rey Trevino [00:16:46] You know, you let’s stick to that because you are an expert in the geopolitics world. And I’ve been.

Congressman Frost [00:16:52] Around the block. I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert, but I have been exposed to a lot of and been part of some of.

Rey Trevino [00:16:58] Well, you know, within Israel. Look, I believe firmly that we need to you know, I’m a Christian. I believe I believe in God. I believe that Jesus said or that God sent his son Jesus to Earth. The saved us all from ourselves in a nutshell.

Rey Trevino [00:17:14] And so I say that because I do believe that Israel is that is part of God’s literally part of God’s country, just like that. And so we need to back Israel. There’s some strife going on right now. You know, Benjamin Netanyahu is now prime minister again.

Rey Trevino [00:17:33] And people have rushed out to the streets to protest because he has removed his defense secretary due to a bill that he was hoping to pass that basically says Congress that there be that their statesmen, Congress, Senate can overturn something that their Supreme Court puts in place. What are your thoughts on all this? Well.

Congressman Frost [00:17:57] First of all, it’s not in our interest to always be trying to tell our friends how to run their own country. But we certainly have a right to express our opinions. And this would if Netanyahu were successful, this would make Israel less of a democracy. And that’s the concern they’ve been They’ve been our friend and the only democracy in the Middle East.

Congressman Frost [00:18:19] So we hope that this can be worked out. Apparently, he’s backed off temporarily. They’re going to negotiate this. There were two pieces to this. I mean, one, he wanted to change the way members of the Supreme Court were selected, giving the executive branch a lot more power to do that.

Congressman Frost [00:18:35] And also the Knesset, the legislature, to be able to overrule decisions they didn’t like, which was highly controversial in Israel. A lot of people took to the streets. These were peaceful protests, but they were massive protests. And so we hope they’ll be able to work that out. And but again, we don’t tell our friends how to run their own government, but we do express our support for democracy.

Congressman Frost [00:19:02] And this is a serious problem because they will be. But a lot of people see that they will be much less democratic if they were to change the court system. So we hope that gets resolved, but we’ll continue to work with them. We’ll continue to support them. Israel has great support in the United States, both among Democrats and Republicans.

Congressman Frost [00:19:20] And then also it’s always been a bipartisan partisan issue. So it’s an interesting combination of people who are supportive of Israel and also people who are supportive of making sure we have enough oil and gas produced in our country so that we can meet our own, our own needs and be able to help our friends.

Congressman Frost [00:19:38] You know, this is there are some folks in the United States who want to stop producing oil gas. I personally think that’s crazy. You need to have it as a certainly as a bridge fuel. And for the foreseeable future, you can have all kinds of alternative energy when there are all kinds of things. But that doesn’t happen overnight.

Congressman Frost [00:19:58] And so you need to continue to produce all of this as we try to move more. We’re not going to move exclusively to alternatives to be able to move more to all kinds of sources. But there are people who want to say they want to keep it in the ground. That’s nuts.

Congressman Frost [00:20:13] I mean, why would we keep this great natural resource of the United States in the ground and not develop it? So. So we want to see as much oil and gas produced as possible. And then we want to see us use it in an effective way so that we are able to promote democracy around the world and help our friends.

Rey Trevino [00:20:34] Yeah. And it’s going to move up to the surface at some point. It may take a thousand years, a million years for it, but there will be puddles of oil on the ground at some point because it does that.

Rey Trevino [00:20:45] That’s what we’ve got to now continuously drill deeper because we’ve gotten the shallow and continue. But real quick on Israel. I love how old they are. I saw last night that they have to have protesting, very peaceful protest. It says no civil war. You know, they’re coming together as a country and that is awesome.

Rey Trevino [00:21:05] And I want to bring that back to America and talk about all the oil and gas, because we are divided, unfortunately, as a nation when it comes to almost everything today from mass to from closures to how we get from point A to point B, I mean, shoot, even bicycles made petroleum products for the rubber on the tires.

Rey Trevino [00:21:29] And so with you and your team at the Council for Secure America, how are you guys, you know, feeling what are the feelers out there from our from the Democratic Party of, hey, guys, we need to have our own oil and gas being produced. Refined here in America. How are you? You know, what are you feeling from that side?

Congressman Frost [00:21:50] Well, you know, Democrats, particularly from our part of the country, but all over, have been supportive of oil and gas production. This is a it’s not that the Republicans, of course, have been supportive also. There are some people in my party who are very strong environmentalists and who feel that this is a threat to the environment and continue to use oil and gas.

Congressman Frost [00:22:11] And we’ve taken the position that, look, you can you can do both. It’s not an either or proposition. We can develop all kinds of alternative sources. And when the legislation was passed that I mentioned a while ago about permitting the export of crude oil from the United States, we combine that with extending tax credits for wind and solar and that gave it bipartisan support.

Congressman Frost [00:22:36] You had the support of the Democratic leadership. You had the support of the Republican leadership. So there was a buy in for Democrats to say, yes, we do want to have alternative sources, we want to explore all these other things. But in the meantime, we have to do everything we can to maximize our ability to produce more gas.

Congressman Frost [00:22:53] So a lot of people in my party have historically been for the oil and gas industry. And there are some folks in my party who who are who are environmentalists and who don’t share those sentiments. But that’s not the majority sentiment in the Democratic Party, where we want our country to be as independent as we can to make sure that we maximize our own resources and energy.

Congressman Frost [00:23:16] And, you know, there was a difference of opinion on how you do that. But so far, we’ve been successful in being able to promote policies that maximize the production, exploration and production of oil and gas.

Congressman Frost [00:23:29] Just recently, the administration and the Democratic administration announced that they were going to approve some development in Alaska, some major field development by one of the big, major companies.

Congressman Frost [00:23:42] And there have been opposition from environmental some that now they didn’t say you could go everywhere in Alaska, but there was a particular field that is going to be developed, the Willow Field, and that will help us as a country because we will be able to produce estimates are 180,000 barrels a day from that field once the exploration occurs.

Congressman Frost [00:24:02] And again, that was this being done by a Democratic administration. Now, the Republicans have done a lot to try and criticize the Republicans. And you’re saying there are a lot of people on my side of the aisle who understand this issue and want it to understand the importance of this issue for making us a powerful and independent country.

Rey Trevino [00:24:22] You know, and if I may, I want to just point out to Tom, you know, that I did not lead with you on this show mentioning that you are a Democrat. You know, that’s what you were in office from 1995 here in Fort Worth area. Okay. I wanted people to listen to you because, again, I do feel that your knowledge on U.S. energy policy, policy and geopolitics, Martin Frost, are very important and very valid. And, you know, you do have a lot to say. So I did want to say that.

Congressman Frost [00:24:54] Thats Okay.

Rey Trevino [00:24:56] Hey, I just wanted people to listen to what you had last night

Congressman Frost [00:24:59] Appreciate that. But there are a lot of my Democratic colleagues, particularly from this part of the country, from the Southwest, who have historically been active supporters of the oil and gas industry and continue to be so.

Rey Trevino [00:25:12] Well, where is it? I’m going to ask you this question and give me the crude truth answer, if you can. What is it about the Northeast and California that these individuals seem to think? You know, Senator Ted Cruz said it best, that they could just flip the switch and kill the oil and gas because like you said, we need a good bridge, alternative fuel. And right now that looks like natural gas. But we can talk about all that. But what is it that they’re thinking, you know?

Congressman Frost [00:25:41] Oh, I think that one of the problems is that the offshore accidents you had, the fact that they’re concerned about their beaches, they’re concerned about their tourist business. They don’t want their beaches fouled.

Congressman Frost [00:25:54] And we have to do everything we can to make sure the drilling is safe. I mean, no suggesting anything to the contrary, but I think some of that is driven by a concern that we’ve had some of these big oil spills.

Congressman Frost [00:26:05] The other big one out in California went on for years and you had some other accidents around the country. So I think it’s part of it is that, quite frankly, also some of the folks, you know, are anti-nuclear, and that’s there are countries that use nuclear.

Congressman Frost [00:26:21] Of course, France used nuclear power for some time, but that’s not the big issue in United States. The big issue in the United States now, as we move is we look for bridge fuels for the future is wind and solar. And, you know, there are a lot of Texas got a lot of wind that we could produce a lot of wind in the streets.

Congressman Frost [00:26:42] It’s not easy to do and it is expensive and so there is also we have a lot of sunshine here in some other parts of the country don’t have. So let’s do both. Let’s do it all. But let’s not take this. Don’t stick our head in the sand and say, yeah, you can convert tomorrow to alternative fuels.

Congressman Frost [00:27:00] Let’s develop everything we can. We are. We’re a rich, resourceful country, and we can do both. And at the meantime, let’s make sure that we’re doing everything we can to maximize oil and gas production.

Congressman Frost [00:27:10] You know, there’s the administration the Biden administration approved some new facilities to be able to export crude oil to be constructed and on the Gulf Coast. And, you know, they they’re doing their part. They’re not going to go 100% and say this new oil and gas don’t do anything else. But they’ve tried to be helpful.

Congressman Frost [00:27:32] And I talk to them from time to time. And I’ve known a lot of the people in the administration. And, you know, let’s just let’s as I said, let’s be smart here. Let’s particularly now natural gas, because their production of natural gas in the Mediterranean and Israel is a part of that.

Congressman Frost [00:27:51] And being able to be able to have some pipelines to send that gas over to Western Europe, because that’s where the Russians are really trying to squeeze people is to cut off the supply of natural gas during the winter. So this is a complicated question. But there are people on both sides of the aisle who understand this issue, and we try and rally them to make the case.

Rey Trevino [00:28:15] Which, if you don’t mind real quick, you mention that the President Biden administration approved some things down on the Gulf Coast. What did they approve?

Congressman Frost [00:28:24] The construction of facilities to be able to measure facilities, to be able to actually export crude oil?

Rey Trevino [00:28:31] That’s right, yes.

Congressman Frost [00:28:33] And they also have they’ve said they’re going to permit the drilling to go forward in parts of Alaska with it’s going to produce a lot of oil. So, you know, both sides understand this issue. The Republicans have some extreme folks on their side that, of course, I don’t agree with.

Congressman Frost [00:28:50] And we have some extreme folks on my side that agree with what? There’s enough room in the middle where you can get both Democrats and Republicans to stand up and say, yes, the energy industry is a very important part of our economy.

Rey Trevino [00:29:02] You know, we’ll see. That’s right. He did approve that. We’ll see We get the permitting for it. That’s right.

Congressman Frost [00:29:08] That’s a big issue. It is. And there’s some legislation pending right now that the Republicans have offered to speed up the permitting process. And my organization, the Council for Secure America, again, we’re nonpartisan. We’re both Democrats and Republicans, but we have advocated speeding up permitting for major projects. And I hope that will happen.

Rey Trevino [00:29:28] Well, Margaret Barton, we’re working we’re running a little short on time. I’ve got to ask you this. Give me your crude truth. Give me the crude truth. Have you ever seen a time in Congress where there were so many people far to the right and so many people far to the left?

Congressman Frost [00:29:45] The answer is No. And I was a reporter before I was a congressman. I covered Congress for a magazine, Congressional Quarterly. And then I went to law school at Georgetown. And because I decided I really wanted to pursue politics and then came back to Texas, where I’d grown up, clerked for a federal judge in Dallas, and was getting elected eight years after I came back.

Congressman Frost [00:30:05] But no, I’ve never seen anything like this. You have you have some nutty people on both sides of the aisle. And it’s unfortunate for our country, but so far there are enough of us in the middle that we can get things done.

Rey Trevino [00:30:16] Yeah, that’s true. And that’s the crude truth. We got to we got to cut. We got to come together. And God willing, we can continue that to stay the super power that we are. Well, Martin, for for all my listeners and viewers out there that may want to send you any questions or invite you to be on their show, how can they get a hold of you?

Congressman Frost [00:30:37] Well, we have their organization, the Council for a Secure America does set up interviews. And and the best thing is to contact them. They’re the ones who arrange all of this and, you know, occasionally get down to Texas. I still am to give a speech once in a while, which I do.

Congressman Frost [00:30:51] But I’m I am retired and retirement is nice. I’ll say that much. Although I’ve done some interesting things. I was a speaker on cruise ships for five years about American politics that a free cruise for myself and my wife. And then COVID hit and my wife said no more cruise ships for the industry.

Congressman Frost [00:31:09] So really,.

Rey Trevino [00:31:10] I don’t blame you.

Congressman Frost [00:31:12] And I taught for five years at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management and so I’ve done some interesting things. But to contact the Council of Foursquare America, we have a website and we have some people who handle all the inquiries for speaking and search for articles, and we try and do those as much as we can.

Congressman Frost [00:31:31] There are plenty of us who do it. I’m not the only one. I’m one of the directors. I’m secretary of the organization. But we have a fellow, Fred Zeidman from Houston, who’s a Republican and who’s one of the co-chairs. He and I worked very closely on coordinating these type things well.

Rey Trevino [00:31:49] And I also put that in the show notes show you’ve been seen on C-SPAN, You’ve got your opinion that you’ve written in Newsweek magazine titled Your Proves a Rush to Green Energy Demands Too High. And again, everything that you guys are doing with the Council for Secure America is A-okay. And so I do. Thank you very much.

Congressman Frost [00:32:10] Appreciate it. Thanks for the time.

Rey Trevino [00:32:12] No problem. Thank you and all of my viewers and listeners out there and we’ll see you next time on The Crude Truth.

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