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SUBCOMMITTEE FIELD HEARING ON 

THE IMPACT OF ENERGY POLICY ON 

SMALL BUSINESSES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

UNITED STATES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

AUGUST 25, 2009 

Small Business Committee Document Number 111-043 

Available via the GPO Website: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house 


Congress.#13
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York, Chairwoman 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

KATHY DAHLKEMPER, Pennsylvania 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

MICHAEL MICHAUD, Maine 

MELISSA BEAN, Illinois 

DAN LIPINSKI, Illinois 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

YVETTE CLARKE, New York 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama 

PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama 

DEBORAH HALVORSON, Illinois 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri, Ranking Member 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri 

AARON SCHOCK, Illinois 

GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

MICHAEL DAY, Majority Staff Director 

ADAM MINEHARDT, Deputy Staff Director 

TIM SLATTERY, Chief Counsel 

KAREN HAAS, Minority Staff Director 

(II) 

STANDING SUBCOMMITTEE 

Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama 

MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma, Ranking 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

Altmire, Hon. Jason ................................................................................................. 1 

Fallin, Hon. Mary .................................................................................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Bergey, Mr. Mike, President, Bergey Windpower Company, Norman, OK ........ 6 

Sullivan, Jr., Mr. Robert J., President, Sullivan and Company, Tulsa, OK ....... 8 

House, Mr. David, President, Jireh Resources, LLC, Tulsa, OK ......................... 10 

Terry, Mr. Michael E., President, Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, Oklahoma City, OK ..................................................................................... 12 

Mocha, Mr. William, President and CEO, Air Power Systems Co., Inc., Tulsa, 

OK ......................................................................................................................... 15 

Robson, Mr. Joe, Chairman of the Board, National Association of Homebuilders, Broken Arrow, OK ................................................................................ 17 

APPENDIX 

Prepared Statements: 

Bergey, Mr. Mike, President, Bergey Windpower Company, Norman, OK ........ 29 

Sullivan, Jr., Mr. Robert J., President, Sullivan and Company, Tulsa, OK ....... 33 

House, Mr. David, President, Jireh Resources, LLC, Tulsa, OK ......................... 36 

Terry, Mr. Michael E., President, Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, Oklahoma City, OK ..................................................................................... 44 

Mocha, Mr. William, President and CEO, Air Power Systems Co., Inc., Tulsa, 

OK ......................................................................................................................... 47 

Robson, Mr. Joe, Chairman of the Board, National Association of Homebuilders, Broken Arrow, OK ................................................................................ 64 

Statements for the Record: 

Mational Association Of Royalty Owners .............................................................. 71 

(V) 

(1) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS AND 

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE IMPACT 

OF ENERGY POLICY ON SMALL BUSINESSES 

HELD IN TULSA, OKLAHOMA 

Tuesday, August 25, 20099 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in the B.S. 

Roberts Room, North Building, OSU-Tulsa Campus, 700 N. Greenwood, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Hon. Jason Altmire [chairman of the Subcommittee] Presiding. 

Present: Representatives Altmire and Fallin. 

Also present: Representative Sullivan. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Now call this hearing to order. 

Energy plays a critical role in every sector of our economy. From 

manufacturing products to growing the food we eat to transporting 

and delivering goods, every aspect of American commerce depends 

on abundant and affordable sources of energy. This isn’t about to 

change anytime soon. Our use of oil increases two percent annually 

and is expected to reach 21 million barrels per day by the year 

2030. 

America’s 26 million small businesses consume approximately 

half of all energy use for commercial and industrial purposes. 

It’s also important to remember that small businesses are key 

players, not just in energy consumption, but also energy production. Nationally, independent oil and natural gas producers represent more than 5,000 of Americans—America’s small businesses. 

The average number of full-time employees at these companies is 

12. That is a small business by anyone’s standard. While these 

companies are small, together they produce the majority of our oil 

and natural gas. Small producers drill 90 percent of the oil and 

natural gas wells in the United States. More than 80 percent of 

American natural gas comes from these businesses. 

Entrepreneurs are also leaders in developing new sources of energy. For example, small firms comprise 90 percent of the renewable and efficiency industries. So as our nation looks to our energy 

future, we must be sure that we factor in small business needs 

from both angles as consumers, but also as producers. A number 

of energy matters are being debated in Washington right now. 

My hope is that today’s hearing will provide important outsidethe-beltway perspectives on these critical issues. 

2 

I thank Ranking Member Fallin for hosting this hearing so that 

we can gather this valuable insight and I thank Congressman Sullivan for being here as well and inviting me to the district. 

As I see it, the issues before us break into three broad categories. 

First, lessening our dependence on foreign energy sources is not 

just an economic challenge, but a question of national security. Our 

national energy dialogue must examine how to expand energy production in this country so that less of our oil comes from unstable 

and dangerous parts of the world. Second, our discussion today 

should touch on expanding new forms of energy. And finally, reducing consumption will have to be part of the equation. 

We are making strides in this area by encouraging the adoption 

of more fuel-efficient cars and trucks and we are also giving consumers greater incentives to maximize energy efficiencies in their 

own homes. Entrepreneurs are pioneering the technologies that 

will help us meet our energy goals. The policies we develop in Congress should harness and support the good work entrepreneurs are 

already doing. 

And on that note, let me thank each of our witnesses for being 

here today. I thank them for their testimony and I think it will provide us valuable insight. 

[The information is included in the appendix.] 

Chairman ALTMIRE. With that, I will turn to the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee for her opening statement. Congresswoman Fallin. 

Ms. FALLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me just say welcome to Oklahoma. It is Congressman Altmire’s first time to ever 

visit our state, and as we were visiting in Committee over the last 

couple of years, I asked him to come to Oklahoma and he made a 

commitment to do that, so we appreciate you taking time to come 

to our great state and to have this important field hearing on a 

topic that is very near and dear to our heart, and that of course 

is small business and the energy sector and how federal policy 

could affect Oklahoma and of course our nation. And I appreciate 

your great comments about our national security and our economic 

security and as it relates to small business and energy, so thank 

you so much for being here today. We welcome you. 

And before I begin, I want to thank Oklahoma State and the 

Tulsa campus for hosting this hearing today. It takes a lot of time 

and effort to put these events together. I appreciate President Gary 

Trennepohl for hosting us here. Thank you so much and your staff 

has been wonderful. I want to recognize Dr. Mary Bea Drummond 

who has helped us, and Travis McBride who have been helping to 

coordinate this event and your vice president Ron Bussert—I see 

him here, who I went to college with at Oklahoma State. Good to 

see you here, Ron. 

And also want to recognize our secretary of energy, J.D. Strong. 

I think I heard that he walked in the room—there you are. Welcome. Good to have you here—from Oklahoma and also Corporation Commissioner Dana Murphy. We appreciate your attendance 

today, along with all of our guests that have joined us. Thank you 

so much for coming, and we’re very appreciative of Congressman 

John Sullivan for opening up his district to have this hearing. I 

3 

know that as a colleague, John is very interested in energy policy 

so we appreciate you hosting us. 

Well, let me just begin by first of all saying thank you all for taking time to join us here, and especially our witnesses, as we examine the impact of our nation’s changing energy policy and how that 

affects our small businesses. So once again, we know that our 

chairman has many demands upon his time and places that he 

could be, but he recognizes the importance of energy in small business, especially as it relates to Oklahoma, so thank you once again 

for being here and taking the time to be with us. Jason has been 

a great friend to me and I appreciate that. Jason and I were actually both elected to Congress in 2006 and served on the Small Business Committee now for three years and he has been very conscientious, hardworking, and easy to get along with and works with 

both sides of the aisle. 

And Congressman Sullivan, I want to mention a couple of things 

about him. We are in his hometown. John and I have served together for many years, both when he was in the legislature at the 

Oklahoma Capitol, and I have sought after his advice and considered him to be a good friend. He, of course, has been elected to 

Congress. He serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee and 

is now serving a second term as a member on this Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Climate Change, and 

he is one of only six Republicans on that Committee, and he is the 

only Oklahoman who is appointed to that Committee and he has 

been a great leader in the area of energy and climate change issues 

and knows very well how those issues affect our small businesses 

in our state. So John, thank you once again for coming today to testify in front of this important Committee and this conference. 

Well, energy is the lifeblood of our economy along with small 

businesses, and many in this room have worked together to help 

build our small businesses in our state and of course to build our 

energy sector. America’s economic prosperity is closely tied to the 

availability of reliable and affordable supplies of energy. This is not 

a new issue. 

However, with technology improving, the energy independence 

discussion has changed greatly over the past couple of years. The 

stark reality is that our nation imports about 60 percent of the petroleum that we currently need, and to make our petroleum supply 

even worse, we have not built a new refinery in the United States 

in over 25 years. And this is stretching our refining capacity to the 

limit, and in fact, the volatility of energy prices. 

Over the past couple of years, we have debated traditional renewable alternative energy policies and I do not believe that the 

search for energy should be limited to any one particular form of 

energy, but we should look for all forms of energy and encourage 

especially our small businesses to pursue those forms of energy. It 

is important for our nation, for our national security, and our economic security to pursue all the above forms of energy to help provide for further energy independence in our nation, to create goodpaying jobs, especially as it relates to small business, to promote 

a cleaner environment, and I also believe without imposing any 

new national energy taxes or some type of urban emission trade 

4 

systems, which I believe would affect our production of energy and 

even affect our economy. 

Another way to explore expanding our energy is through other 

forms of energy such as nuclear energy, and the Department of Energy has recently stated that the best way to reduce our emissions 

is to look for cleaner forms of energy production and nuclear energy 

is one of those areas. Our economy is driven by energy, but we 

must also have a balanced approach to exploring ways to meet our 

energy needs. And that means looking for new ways to increase 

production of energy, including all forms of energy, whether it’s oil, 

coal, nuclear, wind, solar, biofuels, all the different forms of alternative energy that are available to our nation. 

And while we’re looking at the future of energy independence, we 

also have to make sure the federal government is doing all that it 

can to provide the fuel that our economy needs to operate at a reasonable price. Leading the way in domestic energy production, reducing the United States’ dependence on foreign oil, Oklahoma 

stands at the forefront as we struggle for the energy independence. 

Oklahoma has long had the tradition of producing much of our 

nation’s traditional sources of energy. Our state ranks third in our 

nation in natural gas production, fifth in crude oil production, and 

eighth in crude oil distillation, and one in seven jobs in Oklahoma 

is directly or indirectly supported by the oil and natural gas industry in Oklahoma. And we are very fortunate to have over 80,000 

active oil wells that produce 61 million barrels of oil in Oklahoma. 

Eight percent of America’s natural gas reserves are located in 

Oklahoma and many of our greatest energy fields in America are 

located in our state, and yet we still have fields that could be produced or need to encourage better production of. 

As the United States seeks out alternative forms of energy 

sources, Oklahoma has enormous potential as a source of wind 

power, solar power, and even ethanol production. 

The development of wind power is an exciting source of energy 

in our nation. The state of Oklahoma should look at ways to 

produce and promote wind energy in our state. In fact, I think 

Oklahoma is sixth in the nation in development of wind energy. 

The panhandle alone has the capacity to produce more than 8400 

megawatts of wind generation and western Oklahoma has been 

very good in developing more wind energy, and so far, we have an 

investment of over $10 billion in wind production in our state. So 

we’re very excited about the potential that Oklahoma has to be one 

of the leaders in alternative forms of energy and especially wind 

energy. 

It’s also very important that we take a measured and calculated 

approach towards addressing our energy and climate needs, and 

dramatic new requirements for energy can have devastating effects 

upon our economy as we look at some of the rules and regulations 

that we’re discussing in Washington, D.C. 

We are very fortunate today to have on our panel representatives 

from many different industries who will testify. We even have 

someone who’s going to visit with us about some of the proposed 

changes in Congress in our homebuilding industry and how some 

of the new mandates can affect energy and our homes in creating 

energy efficiency in our homes. We’re excited to have the national 

5 

president of the American Home Builder Association to testify, 

along with some of our other producers, some of our other alternative forms of energy sources here, some of our suppliers, who I 

think can very easily, Mr. Chairman, address how small business 

will be affected by some of the policies that we’re discussing in 

Washington, D.C. And how our policy discussions will either hopefully reduce our dependence on foreign energy, create other forms 

of energy that will be more efficient, cleaner, and cost-effective 

versus how some of our policies could cost us jobs and also further 

increase our dependence on foreign energy. 

So we are very fortunate to have an expert panel today to testify 

and may I just conclude by saying welcome to all of you. We appreciate your time to be here. 

[The information is included in the appendix.] 

Ms. FALLIN. Now, I’d like to introduce Congressman John Sullivan, who has joined us here today and he’s going to make some 

opening comments. 

Mr. SULLIVAN OF OKLAHOMA. Thank you, Congresswoman Fallin 

and Congressman Altmire. Thank you for being here. You guys are 

doing a great job in addressing a really—something that’s very concerning is how energy policy in Washington, D.C., affects people 

and small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy as 

we all know. 

You know, I think to address our energy policy in this country, 

we could do it in a better fashion by, you know, making sure it 

doesn’t affect small businesses, but not taxing people and having 

a carbon trading system scheme, we need to do it differently. Like 

Congresswoman Fallin said, we need to look at all of the above energy strategy. 

We need to look at wind, solar, nuclear, gas, oil—all those things 

are very important. But, you know, a lot of those things aren’t 

going to happen immediately. They’re just not. You know, we need 

to—you know, we want to get on a different horse, but until we can 

get on a different horse, let’s not shoot the one we’re on. And one 

of the things we need to look at is how do we—what do we do, how 

do we get through this? 

One of the ways we lessen our dependence on foreign oil is focusing on natural gas. That is the way to do it. It burns clean and we 

have an abundance of natural gas here in the United States of 

America. Because of drilling techniques and hydraulic fracking, 

every field that’s found supersedes—you know, they’re always better. They’re bigger. You know, we don’t—we can lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It burns cleaner. We use about 21 million barrels of oil a day in the United States of America. And about 69 percent of that is refined into transportation fuel and used. 

One of the things we can do, as I presented a bill in Congress 

that focuses on natural gas vehicles, getting them on the road, 

looking at research and development so the tanks can run—have 

longer range. Can we get diesel engines in trucks to run on natural 

gas. That’s how we’re going to do it, not jeopardizing jobs and sending them overseas like this cap and trade scheme does. 

If someone—every emitter is going to be, you know, taxed by 

their trading—or trading these schemes and what is small business 

going to do, a small manufacturer? They’re going to send their jobs 

6 

to Mexico. We’re going to lose those jobs. There’s no environmental 

regulations there. It’s going to hurt our economy. And we can do 

it in a different way. I think we need to look at this and look at 

long-term natural gas strategy as a way to bridge the gap until we 

get these technologies. 

We were talking about wind power in the back. I think wind 

power is great, but you know, let’s be realistic about wind power. 

We got to get transmission, we got to get the right-of-way acquisition, the easements bought. It’s going to take years before that’s 

viable. I’d like to see it, you know, a large percent of our electric 

generation, but it’s not going to be for a long, long time. So in the 

meantime, I think it’s very important that we focus on natural gas 

strategy and interenergy policy. Thank you. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Thank you, Congressman Sullivan. 

[The information is included in the appendix.] 

Chairman ALTMIRE. And just a word on process to the witnesses: 

We’re going to hear from each of you, starting with Mr. Bergey, one 

at a time. Each of you will have five minutes for your remarks and 

at the conclusion of all the testimony we will then move on to questions. 

So I will turn it over to Ranking Member Fallin to introduce the 

first witness. 

Ms. FALLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We are very pleased to have our first witness Mr. Mike Bergey, 

president of Bergey Windpower of Norman, Oklahoma. He’s the cofounder of BWC and president since 1987. Mr. Bergey is a mechanical engineer and internationally recognized expert in the field of 

small wind turbines, distributed generation, and rural electrification. 

He has authored more than 70 technical papers and articles in 

the field and serves as a consultant to numerous government and 

international agencies. He holds one patent in the wind energy 

field. He has twice served as president of the American Wind Energy Association and served on the board of directors from 1981 to 

2007. He’s the past chairman of the U.S. Expert Council of—for Renewable Energy, a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce 

Environmental Technology Trade Advisory Committee, and president of the Oklahoma Renewable Energy Council. 

He is currently the president of the Norman Chamber of Commerce and board of the Oklahoma Sustainabilty Network. 

Do you have anything else you could do in your spare time? Mr. 

Bergey, we welcome you. Thank you for coming today. 

STATEMENT OF MIKE BERGEY 

Mr. BERGEY. My home is full of deferred maintenance. 

Mr. Chairman, Representative Fallin, and Representative Sullivan, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. 

Mr. Chairman, you—by odd coincidence, I was actually a constituent of the fourth district in 1967, a little before your time, 

when my parents moved there before taking—my father took a job 

out here. So we actually lived in Sewickley, Pennsylvania for a 

while. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. That’s in the district I represent right now. 

7 

Mr. BERGEY. Bergey Windpower is the third-leading manufacturer of small wind turbines in the world. Our products are not 

these large wind turbines used in wind farms, but they’re small 

turbines used by homes, farms, small businesses, and for rural 

electrification and set—remote cell sites, things like that. We have 

projects in all 50 states and more than a hundred countries. We 

have 65 employees and we have a subsidiary in China. 

Over the last 30 years, it has often been difficult because of low 

energy prices and shall we say a minimal federal energy policy. We 

have gained significantly and with little bits of federal assistance 

with trade missions, foreign assistance programs, R&D support. It’s 

helped us to improve our competitiveness and get a foothold in foreign markets. We’ve also used the SBA—an SBA-backed loan back 

in the 1980s to develop some of our products, so we have used— 

piggybacked on government programs. We have just gained a federal tax credit for small wind turbines after 23 years out in the wilderness, and we expect significant job growth in the coming five 

years. 

Mr. Chairman, we support the increased administration and 

Congressional support for clean energy technologies. We believe 

that green-collar jobs is a real economic development opportunity 

for the U.S. and as an internationally competitive company, we 

face competitors in Asia and Europe. We know that we’re somewhat behind the ball in our government support for these clean 

technologies. Our competitors have received more support, so we 

think it’s a good move. 

We do support also the emerging national renewable energy 

standard and the actions that are being proposed to address climate change. We think these actions are past due and they follow 

what the public would like to see and they will help our international competitiveness we believe. We have no concerns over losing competitiveness domestically or internationally if energy prices 

rise a few percent as a result. We are a manufacturer. But energy 

costs are a very, very small part of our total cost of production. 

For example, our energy costs last year were under one percent, 

while our health care costs were 4.4 percent, almost five times as 

much. We think we can handle any future increases in energy costs 

from cleaner energy sources by better product design, better manufacturing productivity, and other things. 

There are a couple of things that we would like to see the federal 

government do to help end some barriers that we’re facing in our 

technology. First one drives me a little nuts is as a—as an engineer, and that is the fact that because of the lack of reciprocity for 

professional engineering stamped approval of state by state, the 

towers for our turbines have to be engineered by us and then reviewed by people who often don’t have much knowledge in the field 

to gain a professional engineering stamp in those states. It costs 

consumers thousands of dollars to get this stamp, it adds no value, 

and I really firmly believe that the laws of physics and rules of engineering do not vary state by state, so we’d really like to see some 

help getting rid of that extortion. 

We’d also like to see the federal government tighten some loopholes that a few utilities—not most but just a few—are using to 

discourage customer-owned wind and solar systems. These arbiVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:47 Dec 09, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\CLERKS~1\HEARINGS\TRANSC~1\51519.TXT DARIEN
8 

trary requirements for unnecessary insurance, new insurance, and 

unneeded special equipment raise the cost, limit competition for 

these utilities, and they thwart the intent—clear intent of federal 

law. So we think that closing these loopholes would be very helpful 

and it’s a—looks like a relatively easy job. 

In closing, we like where energy policy is headed. We believe it 

will benefit both our company as a clean energy technology company, but also the national economy. We think that it will create 

a lot of new jobs. 

We have 350 vendors nationwide, over 200 here in Oklahoma, 

and we are a growing part of their sales, and so we know that 

we’re helping the economy. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to be here. Thank you, Representative Fallin, for putting this together. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Thank you, Mr. Bergey. 

[The statement of Mr. Bergey is included in the appendix.] 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Next we have Mr. Bob Sullivan, owner and 

president of Sullivan and Company, a 47-year-old family-owned 

independent oil and gas exploration and production company operating in several midcontinent states. 

Mr. Sullivan has also founded two other successful natural gas 

gathering and service companies in the past 30 years. A graduate 

of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Michigan, 

Mr. Sullivan was appointed to Governor Keating’s cabinet as secretary of energy in March of 2002 and continued his service under 

Governor Brad Henry through October 2003. Additionally, he 

served as chairman of the board for the Oklahoma Energy Resource Board from 2003 to 2005. He was instrumental in the original organization of the OERB in 1994 and its growth in public education and environmental cleanup, which is modeled around the 

country, by the way. 

Thank you for being with us today, Mr. Sullivan. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT J. SULLIVAN, JR. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you very much, Congressman Sullivan and 

Congresswoman Fallin and Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you being 

here in Oklahoma. 

Just for perspective, I have a—it’s very personal, the company 

that I have. I pay for the wells that I drill out of the same pocketbook that I pay for my groceries. I learned the business from my 

father and I have a son working for me, so it’s very much a family 

operation. 

Independent oil and gas operators get the money for exploration 

and production activities from two sources: Internally-generated 

cash from production and outside capital raised from non-operator 

investors. In our company we annually plow back 100 percent of 

the cash generated from production and employ several times that 

amount from outside investors. 

Capital tends to flow into the business for new exploration when 

there is a reasonable expectation of a strong financial return in relation to risk, and flows to other industries when oil and gas is 

viewed as too risky for expected rewards. In my 35 years in this 

volatile business, approximately 22 of those years have been sideVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:47 Dec 09, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\CLERKS~1\HEARINGS\TRANSC~1\51519.TXT DARIEN
9 

ways or down economic experiences for our company and for our 

family. 

The other 13 have been rewarding economic experiences. Obviously the good years have to pay for the bad. 

Federal government actions directly impact my company. There 

are three topics important to my operation that are on your plate 

today in Washington, any one of which can severely cripple my 

business: Number one, elimination of intangible drilling cost as a 

tax deduction. IDCs are expenses we incur every time we drill a 

well. They are a normal business expense, just like any business 

incurs: Paying people, buying supplies, buying services. In the 

name of punishing oil and gas companies, Congress wants to repeal 

these items as tax deductions. 

Number two: Repeal the percentage of depletion as a tax deduction. Percentage of depletion has been recognized for over 50 years 

by the accounting profession as a normal and logical recognition of 

a depleting asset, much like the depreciation of a piece of incomeproducing real estate. 

Like drilling cost deductions, eliminating percentage depletion 

has become a politically popular vehicle for nailing oil companies. 

Perhaps the most misunderstood fact among elected officials is that 

if the objective is to bash big oil, major oil companies don’t even 

take percentage depletion as a tax deduction. They use cost depletion. So a repeal of percentage depletion hurts only little guys like 

me. 

In a look back on my operation for 2008, had these two business 

expense deductions been repealed, as is now proposed in Congress, 

my family and the investors we have attracted to our activities 

would have paid $975,000 more in federal income taxes. The consequences of that burden would be as follows: First, my investors 

would direct their money to another industry or not invest at all; 

secondly, our family would very likely not continue in this business—too much risk for the perceived reward; third, 26 employees 

of Sullivan and Company be out of work; fourth, dozens of vendors 

would no longer be selling supplies and services to us; and fifth, 

America would have less Heartland domestic oil and gas reserves 

production. 

The third thing on your plate in Washington that I’d like to discuss is the classification of fracturing fluids as hazardous materials 

under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Fracturing rocks underground 

far below any drinking water sources has been taking place all over 

the world for decades with no known adverse consequences to 

drinking water supplies. The image of oil companies polluting our 

water supplies makes for a tantalizing negative picture for the uninformed and a tempting tool to bash alleged pollute—polluters. 

The problem is that it’s a fictitious image. Hydraulic fracturing is 

not a high-risk practice. For decades, oil and gas industry worldwide has employed belts and suspenders to assure protection of 

drinking water sources and has an enviable track record in this regard. 

In my case, over 90 percent of the drilling we are now undertaking and planning over the next few years requires hydraulic 

fracturing. While this subject is likely to be considered initially, in 

the regulatory world and the EPA, it is of such national importance 

10 

that legislative action is also likely. I urge you, as responsible representatives and fellow stewards of our national resources, to reject 

any federal action that would restrict hydraulic fracturing as a 

proven method of recovering much-needed domestic oil and gas reserves. 

In closing, let me make a general request. The vigorous and innovative private sector in this country has been the engine that has 

propelled America to the highest standard of living in the history 

of mankind, and it can continue to be that catalyst going forward. 

While responsible oversight and regulation are necessary to prevent abuses, the general posture of the federal government should 

be to avoid being a hindrance to the ingenuity, creativity, determination, productivity, and honest pursuit of prosperity by small 

companies like mine. 

The best thing you can do for us is to encourage, not discourage, 

the independent producers to find and produce domestic oil and gas 

and to similarly allow the private sector to create the prosperity we 

all seek. 

Thank you for allowing me to submit this testimony. 

Ms. FALLIN. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. 

[The statement of Mr. Sullivan is included in the appendix.] 

Ms. FALLIN. Our next witness is David House, based right here 

in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mr. House has been in the exploration and 

production business in various ventures and companies for over 30 

years. His last company sold about a year ago and he is currently 

in the process of establishing a new company. 

He is past chairman and current board and executive Committee 

member of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association. He’s 

the past president of the Natural Gas Association of Oklahoma, 

and has testified on behalf of the OIPA at both the House and the 

Senate Energy Committees. 

And we welcome you here to this Committee hearing, too, Mr. 

House. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID HOUSE 

Mr. HOUSE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Fallin, and Congressman Sullivan. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. 

Thank you for your insight that two of the most critical elements 

in our nation today are small business and energy. As a small exploration and production company, our mission is to deploy capital 

in an efficient and effective manner to provide energy for our nation, jobs for our employees, tax payments to our state and nation, 

and to care for the land and the environment as we do so. Our history says that we have had some degree of success in meeting this 

mission. 

As has already been noted, it is important for us to realize that 

when we talk about the domestic energy business, we are talking 

about independents that drill over 80 percent of all the wells in 

America today. Independents are the domestic energy industry. Energy is a core value in our nation which does not get the recognition it deserves. 

11 

We must begin to total—to understand the total role that energy 

plays in our economy, our defense, and our quality of life. If we 

don’t understand this, we will someday pay for our ignorance. 

A viable energy policy is one that promotes domestically-sourced, 

reasonably-priced, and environmentally responsible energy over a 

long time horizon and can meet our total energy requirements. 

While the current administration goal of green energy is laudable, 

the reality is that the last 25 years of effort in the wind and solar 

business now produced about two to three percent of our total energy requirements. Green energy is good and we should encourage 

it, but don’t be misled. It will not be a significant part of our total 

energy requirement for decades to come. 

There is, however, a national energy strategy that we can employ 

that will significantly change our reliance on foreign crude oil. And 

very simply, as has already been noted, we must move a substantial portion of our transportation fuel to compressed natural gas. 

Starting this process is a difficulty, and may I suggest to you that 

the way to start this is for the federal government, as many states 

as we can get to sign on, to mandate that all new vehicles over the 

next 36 months be CNG vehicles. If there’s any place that is appropriate for government to insert itself in the free market, it is this 

critical area of moving us to a sustainable, long-term fuel. 

We will never replace oil, nor should that be our goal. We have 

substantial remaining oil reserves in this nation that we should 

produce and—develop and produce. What we must do, however, is 

reduce our reliance on foreign- owned oil by those who wish to 

harm us. The improvements in horizontal drilling and fracture 

treatments have opened vast new natural gas reserves that were 

not available to us even five to seven years ago. The current estimate is that we have over 2,000 tcf—2,000 tcf. That’s the only 

number out there bigger than the federal deficit. We have to use 

this domestic resource. It is environmentally acceptable and it is 

abundant. The technology for using CNG is old school. I used CNG 

in a truck 20 years ago. It’s used around the world, and it will only 

improve as the market for it grows. 

At the same time, we cannot kill this goose that is about to lay 

the golden egg. We must not rip up 50 years of tax policy that’s 

embedded in our industry. The retention of the expensing of intangible drilling costs, percentage depletion, and the exemption from 

passive loss rules are critical to our ability to attract capital. With 

outside capital—without outside capital, we cannot survive as an 

industry. 

Let me just say that the main reason that we have this huge 

amount of natural gas available to us are the improvements in hydraulic fracturing. This, again, is old school technology. It is totally 

safe; it has been studied by the EPA for years. If you go back far 

enough you will find that no one other than Carol Browner herself 

has declared this to be safe completion technique. To take away 

this critical technology as is currently proposed by Congress is foolhardy beyond imagination. 

My five minutes is up. Thank you for your time and I’m certainly 

available for questions at your convenience. 

[The statement of Mr. House is included in the appendix.]* 

12 

Mr. SULLIVAN OF OKLAHOMA. Our next witness is Mr. Mike 

Terry, president of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association. 

A lifelong Oklahoman, Mr. Terry graduated from the University 

of Oklahoma and began his career in the commercial banking industry. He later returned to join his family’s oil business in Ada. 

There, Mike co-owned and managed a successful oil field service 

company called CFI and began purchasing oil and gas properties 

in 1984. After selling the service business in 1992, Mike was appointed as executive director of the Oklahoma Commission on Marginal Wells at Sarkeys Energy Center in Norman. 

In 1994, Mr. Terry was hired as the first executive director of the 

newly formed Oklahoma Energy Resource Board where he manages—where he managed the nation’s first oil and gas check off 

program. 

In March 2006, Mike accepted a position as executive vice president of Diamondback Energy Services in Oklahoma City with the 

responsibilities in operations, marketing, and sales. Mr. Terry was 

named president of the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, one of the nation’s largest oil and gas associations, in February of 2007. Representing the interest of more than 2,000 members, welcome, Mr. Terry. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL E. TERRY 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you, Congressman Sullivan. Chairman 

Altmire, welcome to Oklahoma. Congresswoman Fallin, thank you 

for having us today. 

The Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association is the largest 

state oil and gas association and one of the larger energy groups 

in this country. And although some of our more than 2,000 members are large companies like Devon and Chesapeake, more than— 

many of our—most of our members are small companies and they 

are the backbone of our association. 

For the most part, independent producers spend more than a 

hundred percent of their profits on drilling oil and gas wells. They 

are not big oil. They don’t operate refineries. They don’t sell gasoline. Much like the farmers and ranchers in our state who sell cattle and wheat at the market price, independent producers have no 

say in what they get for their product, they just take what the 

market gives them. 

Oklahoma’s oil and gas fields remain strong relative to other 

states, and we rank third or fourth in natural gas production and 

fifth in crude oil production. Independents dominate the energy industry, drilling 90 percent of the new wells in our state, producing 

96 percent of the crude oil, and 88 percent of the state’s natural 

gas. Sadly, however, it is estimated that 70 percent of the natural 

gas we produce in this state leaves the state and goes to the rest 

of the country. We lose that value-added by doing that and of 

course, that’s another subject. 

Even more relevant to Oklahoma’s energy industry and the connection to small business are the marginal oil and gas wells. These 

low-volume producers, also known as stripper wells, are defined as 

producing less than 10 barrels of oil per day or 60 mcf of gas. Oklahoma has more than 73,000 of these wells. Marginal wells produce 

13 

29 percent of our U.S. domestic production, but they present—they 

produce 85 percent of our oil wells in this state. With more than 

400,000 of these marginal wells in the United States, that represents more than a million barrels per day. 

It goes without saying that these independent producers are a 

major component of our state’s economy. For the first time in our 

history, more than one billion dollars was paid in state gross production taxes in 2006. If you combine that with income taxes, ad 

valorem taxes, motor vehicle taxes, and other miscellaneous taxes, 

our industry accounts for more than 25 percent of all the taxes 

paid to our state. Add to that a 2000 workforce of 76,297 workers 

with a total labor income of 8.9 billion, which is larger than our 

state budget. The wages that are paid are much higher than most 

other industries in our state. In fact, in 2007 that average was 

$97,420 annually, which is almost three time more than the other 

industries in our state. 

But equally important to the jobs and the taxes paid are the philanthropic contributions made by these business owners and their 

employees. They are the same people who devote their time and resources to the local charities, to schools, to civic clubs, churches, 

hospitals, and museums. All you have to do is travel around this 

state and look on buildings and you see oil and gas names everywhere. It’s the imprint of the oil and gas sector. 

I’ve spent this time defining the Oklahoma energy sector to make 

a point. The independent producer is inextricably linked to small 

business and small business is critical to our state and our nation. 

A recent survey completed by the Oklahoma Marginal Well Commission reported that approximately 50 percent of the respondents 

operated less than ten wells. 

With that in mind, I want to turn to the negative impact that 

U.S. Government could have on small business. I do that by concentrating on two areas of grave concern, and that is tax policy and 

regulatory burden. The tax policy of oil and gas drilling and production activities has been the foundation of the independent producers decision-making process for years and years. These age-old 

tax policies have recognized three essential elements of our business: Number one, the huge capital expenditures that are required 

to drill and equip these wells; number two, the high risk associated 

with the operation and production activities; and number three, the 

ultimate steep decline curve of the production. 

In my opinion, the tax policies proposed by the White House combined with the cap and trade bill passed by the U.S. House would 

be the largest money grab on small business in the history of our 

country. The proposed tax treatment is specifically designed to dramatically curtail the drilling and production of the independent oil 

and gas industry, thus thrusting a dagger in the heart of small 

business. Repealing the expensing of intangible drilling costs, reducing or eliminating the deduction for depletion, and exempting 

passive losses for interest owners will have severe implication on 

the independent’s capability for attracting capital as we’ve already 

heard. Fewer wells will be drilled, production, especially marginal 

production, will decrease at an alarming rate, consumer energy 

prices will escalate, and dependence on hostile foreign countries 

will grow dramatically. 

14 

Any government policy that would cause increases in energy 

costs during the severe recession like we are in now is simply bad 

policy and beyond comprehension. HR 2454, also known as the cap 

and trade bill, is one of the worst pieces of legislation to ever come 

out of the U.S. House in my opinion. It’s the perfect example of economic pain without environmental gain. The estimated cost by the 

EPA to consumers and energy producers would be 1 to 2.9 trillion 

dollars by the year 2050. 

The goal, to reduce greenhouse gases 80 percent by that time, 

simply impossible. Especially since most of the other top carbonproducing countries in the world will never participate in a meaningful reduction of emissions. Big government will just get bigger. 

And a no-free-market regime will be established as the government 

will dictate everything from the number of emission allowances 

auction to the amounts purchased by individuals and companies. 

There will be stacks and stacks of buratic red tape and the monitoring required to prevent fraud and cheating will go on and on. 

The system is also designed in my opinion to give big business 

just another advantage over small business. As the large and the 

publicly-held international companies develop emission trading departments, they’ll use this as just another profit center for their 

companies as they buy, sell, and trade emissions while the small 

company will just be left in the dark, unable to hire experts, establish trading activities, or even have a good understanding of how 

you compete in this new world of emissions trading. 

Finally, environmental and regulatory rules and regulations have 

become the ball and chain for the independent producer. And as 

this environmental movement sweeps across the country, there’s a 

constant barrage of new bureaucracy facing our members year after 

year after year. One of the most difficult challenges of our association is to educate our members on issues like storm water, drilling 

permits, water permits, air quality, tribal authority, SBCC rules, 

the Endangered Species Act, FEMA, BLM, OSHA, CO2 sequestration, flood plains—the list goes on and on and on. It’s an exhausting and very expensive process. 

And the latest warmongering by the environmentalists as has already been talked about is the regulation of hydraulic fracturing. 

Although this issue has already been investigated by the EPA and 

found to be nonharmful to our water supplies, once again, the oil 

and gas has the big target on their back for more regulation. Ladies and gentlemen here today, I’m a formal small business owner 

and now represent hundreds of small businessmen and women who 

explore and produce the energy that’s provided our country with 

the greatest quality of life in the world. 

But I sit here troubled and very frustrated. I believe the independent producer is under attack like never before. And that 

means small business is under attack. Excessive taxation and extreme regulation is the sure recipe for the demise of small business 

and in my opinion a path towards socialist society. We must educate the uneducated, we must encourage the oppressed, and we 

have to stand firm in our convictions. Time will tell if we’re all up 

to the challenge. 

Thank you for your courteous attention and the opportunity to 

share my thoughts on these important issues. 

15 

Ms. FALLIN. Thank you, Mr. Terry. We appreciate your great 

comments. 

[The statement of Mr. Terry is included in the appendix.] 

Ms. FALLIN. Next we have Mr. Larry Mocha, who is president 

and CEO of Air Power Systems here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Air 

Power Systems manufactures pneumatic cylinders and valves for 

the truck equipment industry. His company has grown from 

600,000 in sales in 1984 to over 10 million in 2006. He is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and currently serves on a number of academic and governmental advisory boards, and when I was 

lieutenant governor of Oklahoma he was chairman of Oklahoma’s 

Small Business Commission for many years and worked very actively in small business issues. 

He is currently the chairman of the Mayor’s Initiative For Entrepreneurship and is the current chairman the Center for Legislative 

Excellence. Mr. Mocha, we appreciate you joining us. Oh, I see you 

also served on the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. chairman of the Small Business Council. So 

don’t want to forget all that. 

Thank you and welcome, and good to have you here. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM MOCHA 

Mr. MOCHA. Thank you, Congresswoman Fallin, thank you, Mr. 

Chairman, and thank you, Congressman Sullivan. It’s an honor to 

be here today and I really appreciate you bringing this service to 

Tulsa, and welcome to Tulsa. 

My father started our business in 1964. I graduated from OSU 

in 1970 and was the first employee. Six months later I was the 

first employee to be laid off because the business couldn’t handle 

us. During this—I rejoined him again in 1972 and we had a good 

time working together during the ’70s. In the early ’80s with the 

Oil Bust, my father modeled to me what you do during tough times 

and how you get through it, and then I lost him in 1984 and it was 

too early. He was almost 65 and he had a lot more to teach me. 

I wish he were still here. 

In the late ’80s I had my share of recessions, two product liability 

lawsuits, those of which propelled me to get active in small business issues. I was a delegate to the White House conference in 

1995 and have been very active in federal and national small business associations. 

In 2000 we set a goal. Our business had been hovering around 

3 million in sales for too long. So we decided we have to do what’s 

necessary to be a bigger company, to be a better company, and we 

set a goal. We wanted to do 10 million and 6 by 2006. We worked 

hard, we got very close. 

In the last quarter of 2006 the EPA issued its new standards for 

emissions on Class 8 trucks. Our products that we manufacture in 

Tulsa go and work on Class 8 trucks, which we sell around the 

United States. The market that we serve, the ones that buy those 

trucks, said no, the emissions are too expensive, they cost an initial 

$10,000 per truck, and the economy, the fuel economy is worse. So 

they said no to buying the trucks. We ended the year 2006 at about 

9.7 in sales, 9.7 million, just short of our 10.6 million. 

16 

Since then, because of the EPA standards that were introduced, 

we’ve had a decline in our sales for these last two to three years. 

This recession that has most recently hit us kind of surprised us. 

We just about worked ourselves out of the problems with the EPA 

initiative when the recession hit. My problem or my concerns now 

is that—is the recession is impacting everyone. What happened to 

us in 2006 we’ve almost resolved. We’ve almost gotten out of it. 

We’ve almost figured out a way to be a better company, to do other 

things, and to offer new products. 

But the recession that’s hit us recently has hit everyone. And I 

look at Washington and it concerns me, like the EPA, who came 

with a new Class 8 restriction on emissions. Why is the government impacting and coming up with more rules and more regulation that strangle small business. 

Let’s assume for a minute that all the rules and all the regulations that come out of the agencies, all the legislation that comes 

from Congress that detrimentally impacts small business, let’s assume that they’re all good for small business, all good for the 

world, all good for our climate. Why aren’t they imposed equally 

then throughout the global markets? Why do we allow companies 

to come into Tulsa, to Oklahoma, to the United States, to compete 

against American manufacturers that don’t have the stringent EPA 

standards that we have to go by? Why do we allow that? 

My concern is it is not fair. It’s not fair for manufacturers. It’s 

not fair for American businesses. I believe in American business. 

I believe in small business. 

I think we can compete against everyone. I just want the field 

leveled. What I’d like to ask you to do specifically, Congresswoman 

Fallin, is to draw a line in the sand and say, no more. If you want 

to compete for American dollars, you need to have the same kind 

of American standards that we have to have. You need to pay your 

people well. You need to keep from drumping bad products into 

your drinking water. You need to take care of your people. 

We need someone right now to stand up for American workers 

and for American business. The line in the sand. 

I’d like to call for a new initiative and I took the creativity in 

calling it the Fallin Initiative. I worked on the Fallin Commission 

some years ago when we tackled the workers’ compensation here 

in Oklahoma and, Mr. Chairman, I don’t mean to insult you with 

it, but with the Fallin Initiative, maybe we could come up with a 

new moral code, a new moral code for importing companies and importing countries. If you want a piece of American currency, of the 

American market, you’ve got to take care—do your part of taking 

care of our world. 

You know, in closing, I just want to tell you it’s difficult today 

to be in business. It’s difficult anytime. We have to compete, we 

have to be creative, we have to take care of our employees. They 

have health insurance problems. We got lots of problems in the 

world today. The American worker can handle it. My small business can handle it. We’re going to get through this just fine. 

But wouldn’t it be nice if our government were by our side, 

standing with us, helping us navigate these troubled times? In closing, I’d only say that if you believe that small business is the engine that is going to get us out of these difficult times, can’t we all 

17 

stand up for small business? Can’t we all stand up for American 

businesses? Doesn’t that make sense? Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Mocha is included in the appendix.] 

Mr. SULLIVAN OF OKLAHOMA. I want to thank all the panelists. 

I’ve unfortunately got to leave after this introduction, but I appreciate all the valuable input you’ve given and it means a lot. Thank 

you so much. 

Our final witness is Joe Robson, a builder and developer from 

Tulsa, who, in 2009, became chairman of the board of over a 2,000- 

member National Association of Home Builders. He is founder and 

president of the Robson Companies, Incorporated, developers of residential communities and commercial properties. He has been a 

member of the board of directors since 1990, was the chairman of 

BUILD-PAC in 1998 and was the chairman of the Legislative and 

Regulatory Policy Task Force in 2002. 

He also has served as the national vice president representing 

Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska and was the moderator of the national vice presidents in 2004. Additionally, Mr. 

Robson was chairman of the Federal Government Affairs Committee 2003, chairman of the Resolutions Committee in 2002, and 

vice chairman of the Budget Committee in 2005. 

Thank you, Mr. Robson, for being here today. 

STATEMENT OF JOE ROBSON 

Mr. ROBSON. Great. Thank you, Congressman Sullivan, and 

thank you, Chairman Altmire and Ranking Member Fallin. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today about energy policy 

as it relates to housing and the homebuilding industry. Despite the 

fact that we’re in the midst of one of the worst housing downturns 

since the Great Depression, homebuilders continue to make energy 

efficiency and sustainability for new homes a priority. As well, consumers continue to demand energy efficiency in new homes. In our 

most recent survey of builders, 56 percent of those surveyed said 

that at least some of their customers were willing to pay extra for 

green amenities. 

However, cost and maximizing value for the dollar are critical 

drivers of the potential buyer’s decision making, especially in the 

current economic downturn. Most consumers are not willing to pay 

extra for a more efficient home, unless they are likely to see the 

benefit of their investment within a reasonable length of time. In 

our view, this calls for continued robust federal incentives for energy efficiency in the built environment. In fact, the homebuilding 

industry is setting the pace in green construction with the development of the consensus-based National Green Building Standard, 

the only green building standard approved by the American National Standards Institute. 

Unfortunately, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, or 

ACES Act, passed by the House in June takes the opposite approach by imposing national building codes on states and localities. 

In particular the bill aggressively increases energy code targets for 

new homes, provides greater authority for the Department of Energy to modify codes, and gives little flexibility to the states and 

local governments with specific geographic and climatic conditions. 

Perhaps the most problematic aspect of the ACES Act is that in its 

18 

broadest terms, it seeks to wring significant savings from new 

homes, the smallest, most energy-efficient segment of the market. 

According to the Energy Information Administration, newer 

homes—those built after 1991 account for only 2.5 percent of all energy consumed nationally. Further, the Census Bureau reports that 

there are roughly 128 million homes in the U.S. today, and 74 percent, or 94 million, were built before the existence of modern energy codes. Ensuring long-term energy efficiency in new homes is 

critical, but we must also focus where the greatest gains can be 

made and that’s in the existing home segment of the market. 

Codes by their very nature do not address all aspects of energy 

consumption in housing. Incentives for increased energy efficiency 

are also critical to achieving the nation’s long-term energy goals. 

There are several important incentives that exist in the tax code 

now, and my written statement discusses several of those in detail. 

What I’d like to highlight is the new home energy efficiency credit established as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Use of this 

program has increased three-fold since its creation and it remains 

the only incentive in the law for increased energy efficiency in single-family construction. I would urge the Congress to make this 

program permanent and enhance it so that it may have a greater 

effect on the energy efficiency of new home construction. 

Homebuilders are stakeholders in both building and energy efficiency industries, and we look forward to working with Congress 

to craft policies that effectively address the energy challenges facing housing and our nation. 

Thank you again for the invitation here and I’d be happy to answer any questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Robson is included in the appendix.] 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Thanks to each and every one of you for taking the time out of your day to be here, and I have a lot of questions based on your testimony, both your written testimony, which 

I’ve read, and your testimony here today. 

I wanted to start with Mr. House. You talked in both your written and statement today about compressed natural gas vehicles 

and incentives to move forward with that. I come from a region of 

the country, western Pennsylvania, natural gas was part of our 

economy as well, and I was intrigued by that. 

Can you talk a little bit about the differences and the advantage 

or disadvantage of natural gas versus electric cars? If you’re to find 

an alternative source and move away from gasoline, what’s the 

comparison between those two technologies? 

Mr. HOUSE. Well, I think that compressed natural gas vehicles 

require only a minor change to the fuel system itself. The internal 

combustion engine as we know it today is still very usable with 

CNG as a fuel. The good part about CNG as a fuel is that it produces less than half of the pollutants that a gasoline engine produces, and so that’s the biggest advantage, that it is commercially 

available today at a reasonable cost. 

And it’s something that we can actually implement in a very 

short time frame. We’re staring 2010 in the face today. By the year 

2020, we could have a substantial portion of our transportation 

fleet on compressed natural gas. I think that the ramp-up to using 

electric—electricity for our cars would be much a much longer 

19 

ramp-up time and the technology is not quite as advanced. It’s 

coming, but it’s not quite as advanced. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. How would the fill-up process work when 

you need to refill the car versus recharging an electric car? 

Mr. HOUSE. Right. It would take place at the same fueling station you use today. The only thing would have to be added is a 

compressor that could compress natural gas up to a higher PSI to 

get it into your tank, so the infrastructure is there as far as the 

fueling stations. 

They just need to make modifications to be able to accept natural 

gas vehicles. Oklahoma has over 40 CNG vehicle stations available 

to us today. The state of Utah has numerous. They’re one of the 

leaders in this technology. 

So it’s a very accomplishable goal is the reason I’m a proponent 

of it. Something we can actually accomplish. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Thank you. 

Mr. Terry. 

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Chairman, could I add— 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Certainly. 

Mr. TERRY. —to that please, sir? 

The other thing I think you have to look at when you compare 

the two is where does electricity come from? Fossil fuels. I mean, 

right—in our country today most of it is made from coal, and of 

course coal has the most drastic emissions of all the fossil fuels. So 

how efficient is that to generate electricity from coal and then pass 

that on to the automobile industry. 

And the second thing is it’s going to require a tremendous 

amount of batteries and, first of all, do we have the technology to 

really do that, and then what happens when those batteries get old 

and we need to discard them? That could be a serious environmental issue as well. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Great, thank you. 

Western Pennsylvania, we know a little bit about coal as well. 

But I hear you. Your point is well taken. 

Mr. TERRY. Thank you. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Mr.—oh, Mr. Sullivan, go ahead. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Just a quick comment. If you’re looking for something to do to dramatically impact the CNG world, seems to me 

that we’ve got this kind of a do loop going on where people aren’t 

buying or converting the CNG cars because of perception that there 

aren’t enough natural gas filling stations. We have 40 gas stations—natural gas stations in the state; there ought to be 400. 

The people that put in that infrastructure aren’t doing it because 

there aren’t enough people drying—driving gas cars, so it’s a— 

you’ve got to break that loop and the way to break it—and this is 

something where I think it’s an appropriate role for federal government—is just create a—either a massive incentive or a big stimulus charge or something to put in these natural gas outlets, and 

the best billboard you could ever have would be retailers that we 

all know around the state and have regular, premium, diesel, and 

natural gas, and everybody would see that and they’d see the difference. But if you want to spend a relatively small amount of 

money to encourage that, I think it would be a tipping point. 

20 

Chairman ALTMIRE. What would be the general price differential 

if you had natural gas versus gasoline? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think natural gas, if you get apples to apples, 

is about— 

Mr. TERRY. 96 cents. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. How much? 

Mr. TERRY. 96 cents. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. 96 cents when the world is 2.70, 2.80. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Okay. I had a question for you, Mr. Sullivan, 

as well, on the hydraulic fracturing, and, Mr. Terry, you mentioned 

this also. 

One of the largest finds recently for natural gas, of course, runs 

not only through western Pennsylvania but Kentucky and Ohio up 

through New York and West Virginia—Marcellus Shale. How does 

the environmental community’s concerns with hydraulic fracturing 

impact the development prospects for that—for the Marcellus 

Shale? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, I’m familiar with that play and the fracturing needed to make it work. And I can tell you I’ve sat in a 

number of rooms where capital expenditures were being considered 

for infrastructure and drilling the Marcellus, and the prospect, just 

the prospect, of Congress, the EPA, either one, classifying hydraulic fracturing as hazardous activity has already—just that prospect 

has kept capital from going in there. 

I just urge you—I mentioned in my testimony—just urge you to 

look at the record. It’s been going on for 50 years and nobody’s gotten injured by this, no water’s been polluted, and for your area and 

western New York and all the states that are involved in 

Marcellus, this is a huge thing. It could be an economic engine to 

generate new reserves of gas close to the marketplace, close to the 

consumer—consumption in the Northeast. So I think your area 

should be mightily interested in being careful about the hazardous 

material classification. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Thank you. 

One more on this round and then I’ll turn it over to Ranking 

Member Fallin and then we’ll come back for a second round. 

Mr. Terry, I appreciated your comments and with regard especially to small business and the impact of different policies may 

have and would have. 

With regard to the Recovery Act, the stimulus bill, that was 

passed earlier and there were $30 million in small business tax 

cuts that were in that bill, things like expensing and capital depreciation, all of those things. 

Have you seen in your industry any benefit from the stimulus 

plan upon small businesses? Did those tax cuts in any way impact 

your business or nationally do you feel that the stimulus has had 

a positive impact in any way? 

Mr. TERRY. No, I have not, and of course, when you see natural 

gas prices go from 13 to 10 to 5 to many of the small business independents are now getting $2 or less for natural gas. Those incentives just don’t help because the economic nature of the business 

where price is important is just too overwhelming, so I have not 

seen the impact of that in a positive way. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Okay. Congresswoman Fallin. 

21 

Ms. FALLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you can probably tell 

by some of the testimony, we’re pretty passionate about energy in 

Oklahoma and I appreciate— 

Chairman ALTMIRE. I noticed. 

Ms. FALLIN. —I appreciate your state’s interest in energy policy, 

too. I know that you had a strong interest. 

You know, one of the things I was thinking about was one of the 

recent policies that we had in Congress with the Cash for Clunkers 

program, and I was curious, Mr. House, if you could talk to us 

about the conversion of a gas car to a natural gas, compressed natural gas, car. What would that cost be? Do you have an estimate 

on— 

Mr. HOUSE. It varies a little by the vehicle type, but somewhere 

between 2500 and forty—$4,000 is— 

Ms. FALLIN. And we just gave away $4,500 for Cash for 

Clunkers. 

Mr. HOUSE. Right. In my written testimony I think I might have 

alluded to that. 

Ms. FALLIN. Well, and that’s just interesting because here we 

just spent, you know, I think almost $3 billion or so for Cash for 

Clunkers and we could have been converting cars to compressed 

natural gas as— 

Mr. HOUSE. Absolutely. 

Ms. FALLIN. —an energy policy. We could have been moving towards cleaner fuel at that time and so that’s good to know that figure and of course, that would have also addressed some of the infrastructure issues in—in having the fill stations for compressed 

natural gas once you would put more cars in the marketplace— 

Mr. HOUSE. Absolutely. 

Ms. FALLIN. —that could have been converted to that compressed 

natural gas. 

And if I could just ask all of you, I know that the intangible drilling costs, the percentage depletion, and the hydraulic fracturing 

changes that could be coming from EPA and of course from some 

of the rules, regulations, possible restrictions through cap and 

trade, all of us are very concerned in Oklahoma how that will affect 

our production of especially the marginal wells that you talked 

about, but if we were to have some severe restrictions on hydraulic 

fracturing, how many wells do you think that would shut down in 

Oklahoma for production, and how would that affect the employees 

in our state? 

And Mr. Chairman, as I think Mike Terry had mentioned, there’s 

about 25 percent of our revenue from our state comes in from gross 

production taxes and right now, with the price of gas and oil the 

way it is, we’ve seen a huge shortfall in gross production taxes to 

our state budget, almost 80 percent drop, which has had a big effect on our revenue as far as state, but could you just talk about 

how any potential changes in the hydraulic fracturing and restrictions could affect revenue in our state, production, and even the 

jobs, especially as it relates to small business. 

Mr. TERRY. First of all, let me say on hydraulic fracturing, I’ve 

been in that business twice in my lifetime and I’ve had hydraulic 

fracturing fluid all over me. I probably drank it. And the greatest 

component—the largest component of that fluid is a substance 

22 

called guar gum. It makes the fluid thicker so it will carry sand 

and other proppants that are used, and I don’t want to get too technical here, but that is the same constituent that’s used in ice 

cream, in salad dressing, and all kinds of stuff that we consume 

as consumers. 

It is extremely overblown. I’ve never heard of one instance of 

anyone dying from having, you know, ingested anything that has 

to do with hydraulic fracturing. Like I said, I’ve been in the business twice and very familiar with it. As far as the impact, and Mr. 

Chairman, in your area of the country, those Marcellus wells will 

not be drilled unless they’re hydraulically fractured. Just mark it 

down. It is absolutely impossible for those wells to be economically 

feasible unless you frac them. So in your area of the country, 

those—that—it’ll stop. Absolutely it will stop. 

In Oklahoma, it was proposed that there would be about 500 in 

our—in our shale play in the southeastern part of the state—it’s 

called the Woodford Shale—and all of those wells have to be, have 

to be, hydraulically fractured. That’s 500 wells that probably would 

not have been drilled, and that doesn’t include the other parts of 

the state. So I mean, it would be devastating, absolutely devastating, to not only the industry but the state of Oklahoma because of the—the tax revenues, the jobs, everything that’s related 

to our industry would come to a standstill if you take, you know, 

hydraulic fracturing out of the picture. It’s just—it just can’t happen. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. May I, on that point? 

The environmental community—and I’m asking you to maybe 

put forward an argument that you don’t agree with—but what is 

the case that they make for having to regulate that or deny the approval of it? 

Ms. FALLIN. Mr. Chairman, if I could ask, would you mind passing the microphone around, because some of the people in the back 

may not be able to hear your responses on this. 

Mr. TERRY. In my opinion, it’s more of an education situation 

than anything else. As we have seen the shale play go to other 

parts of the country and grow exponentially, there are people in 

those areas that don’t understand what’s going on. And they’re not 

educated about the oil and gas drilling practices or the production 

practices, and it concerns them. They see this large equipment and 

they see all the activity and they get worried, and they know that 

there’s drilling going on, you know, how does that affect my drinking water. 

But you know, we’ve been drilling wells for over a hundred years, 

and particularly in Oklahoma, the safeguards are in place at the 

state level. We have Commissioner Murphy here, who could testify 

about all the different rules and regulations that we put in place 

in our state to protect ground water. And when you’re hydraulically 

fracturing a well at 9,000 feet and your fresh water system is at 

400 feet, and there’s concrete and steel pipe in between, it—it’s just 

literally impossible for it to impact the ground water. 

And so it’s an education process, Mr. Chairman, and I don’t know 

how we solve it quickly. I know in Oklahoma we formed an organization that educates our people about our industry and it’s been 

very successful. It’s in the school system, it’s in the public arena 

23 

and, you know, I would propose a national education program 

about the energy, and just to alleviate these kinds of things. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Thank you. 

Ms. FALLIN. Mr. Bergey, you had mentioned that you felt like 

there was some things that you liked in the energy direction of our 

nation and, of course, Oklahoma has been one of the leaders in 

wind production, but could you further talk about the effects? I’m 

just kind of curious about proposed cap and trade legislation and 

how it would affect your industry and wind production. 

Mr. BERGEY. Sure. The cap and trade will not directly cause new 

wind farms, but it will certainly provide—it’d be one of the only— 

one of the solutions that companies may use to gain credits and to 

offset some of their pollution. 

The bigger impact would be the renewable energy standard, 

which would be mandate for utilities to use a certain amount of 

electricity from clean energy sources. 

28 states have that. The federal government is considering one, 

and that would have a large impact on large wind development— 

not small wind; small wind is more expensive than large wind so 

utilities won’t choose our products, unfortunately, for that. 

But for large wind, it would have a very big impact and I think 

would have a very positive impact for the state of Oklahoma. We’ve 

been under the what is now called the Pickens Plan, but actually 

the Department of Energy goal of 20 percent wind power by 2030, 

Oklahoma would be in the top four states in development. We 

could see up to 30, maybe as much as $50 billion of investment in 

western Oklahoma where the wind blows, and with the transmission to move that to the larger market, we could be a very substantial gainer from that. 

And also point out that the major problem with wind power, it’s 

intermittency is most attractively solved by using natural gas combustion turbines for backup. We’re very strong both in the installed 

capacity of that, but more importantly as my fellow guests have alluded, we are very strong in natural gas supply here, so it makes— 

we spend—it seems a little crazy to be importing so much coal from 

Wyoming and maybe a little bit from Pennsylvania, I don’t know, 

but certainly a lot from Wyoming when we have so much wind 

power and so much natural gas here. 

I’ll just take—stay on the microphone for this very quickly and 

say that I fully support all of the enthusiasm for natural gas vehicles for very solid economic development reasons. 

Ms. FALLIN. Can I ask you to just comment real quickly on the 

transmission lines and the grid, and I hear that’s a huge issue and 

very expensive as far as you produce the wind, but you’ve got to 

get it out to the community. So could you address the availability 

of the transmission lines and the power grids? 

Mr. BERGEY. Certainly. The—well, basically you don’t want to 

live where the wind blows strong enough to produce cheap electricity, where it takes six clothespins to hold your undies on a 

clothesline. You just don’t want to be there. So most people live in 

the big cities. 

Our transmission grid did not anticipate wind power or solar 

power, even merchant natural gas for that matter, and so it does— 

the lines just don’t go from where we need it to go to and so we’re 

24 

having to build that and that is expensive. There’s a who pays, how 

does that cost get allocated kind of question. 

The regional transmission organizations have taken a leadership 

position and have worked out the rules of the road in terms of the 

investments, and that—those projects are moving forward. They’re 

very large construction projects, billions of dollars, they involve 

land rights and some cases even eminent domain, and so they will 

take some time, and that’s why Boone Pickens has sort of throttled 

back on his centralization of his projects in Texas. It was the realization not that wind power was going to be less attractive, but 

when he starts getting those billions of dollars of General Electric 

wind turbines arriving at his doorstep, he really needs to put them 

in the ground somewhere. And he wouldn’t have any place to plug 

them in around Pampa, Texas. So he’s going to I think end up 

doing projects here in Oklahoma. 

But transmission is something that states and the regional 

transmission organizations are aggressively pursuing and I think 

that it’s—that bottleneck is going to be largely gotten rid of in the 

next five or six years. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Okay. We’ll do one more round of questions. 

I had a few—couple. 

For Mr. Robson, you talked about the consumers’ incentive to 

seek energy efficiency and if it’s a delayed payback that they’re a 

lot less likely to do it. Have you seen, despite that increased consumer demand for solar and wind—more solar I guess in your industry—just from folks who were interested in the technology and 

have questions about it and want to incorporate it into the building 

process? 

Mr. ROBSON. People are interested. They’re curious about it. 

Some do it—just a small percentage do it just because it’s the thing 

to do, but that’s a very, very small percentage. It really comes 

down to dollars and cents. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Are there parts of the country where it’s 

more popular than others? 

Mr. ROBSON. There’s parts of the country that it’s more popular. 

It’s primarily where the sun shines a lot more than others, so yeah, 

it’s going to be dependent on the kind of climate. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Good. 

Mr. Bergey, you talked about small businesses in your testimony 

and we thank you for that. I was wondering about the comparison 

from your industry’s viewpoint between small businesses and larger businesses and has there been an increased demand for alternative energy more or less in small versus larger employers—is 

there an increased interest depending the size of your business? 

Mr. BERGEY. There certainly has been an increased interest, Mr. 

Chairman. We receive calls every day from companies that want— 

large and small—who are looking to reduce their operating costs. 

For the vast majority of them, the wind resources where they’re located versus the electric rates they give don’t provide an economic 

rate of return, and so our advice is invest in efficiency, get thermal 

heat pumps, those sorts of things, to cut your electricity demand 

and then wait for solar and wind systems to get into higher production volumes so that they’ll be more economic at their sites. 

25 

But yes, there is definitely an increase in interest in green technologies, not just for the environmental aspect but for the green of 

money—to save operating costs. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Thank you. 

My final question is for Mr. Mocha, and you talked a lot about 

foreign competition and things that we could do to help our own 

businesses here in America, and I agree with the things that you 

outlined. 

I wondered if you had specific recommendations for ways that 

the EPA in particular—because you talked a lot about them and 

things they were doing wrong—do you have specific recommendations on what the EPA could do in an affirmative way to improve 

the process for development—developing and implementing regulations that impact energy businesses like yours? 

Mr. MOCHA. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. 

I’m under the impression that everything EPA is doing is right. 

It’s government trying to do its job and really doing a pretty good 

job. 

My concern is that the manufacturers in America have to use different processes and we have to play by different rules than manufacturers in other countries. In fact, we see some of the large manufacturers moving to other countries. You see people like me going 

to other countries for plating processes, for example. 

Why don’t we level the playing field? Why don’t we only allow 

those countries who have similar processes that America does to be 

able to market for the American dollar? I’m assuming everything 

that EPA is doing is right and good for the country. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Well, thank you for that. I’m glad I asked 

that question. And again, being from western Pennsylvania, we obviously can see the impact of the businesses moving overseas and 

foreign competition as well, so. 

Mr. MOCHA. We have a lot of customers in your part of the country. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. Okay. Well, I appreciate your testimony and 

I’ll again turn it over to Miss Fallin. 

Mr. MOCHA. Thank you. 

Ms. FALLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I might just follow up on 

that, Mr. Mocha, on some of the proposed changes that are coming 

down from cap and trade and how you affect—how you believe that 

would affect your competitiveness, not only here in the United 

States but especially overseas as you’re trying to operate under 

some of the new regulations that could be in effect with that piece 

of law. 

Do you see that increasing your business and your competitiveness with foreign countries or do you think it might diminish that? 

Mr. MOCHA. I’m glad you asked that. I think the American manufacturers, including us, can compete with anyone and we can compete successfully with anyone, but they have to have the same 

standards. 

My suggestion is if EPA or Congress, anyone who has new regulations, new processes, new things that are going to implement 

business, if that could be somehow accessed—somehow regulated 

where everybody is impacted by it, then that’s fair. That’s—let’s do 

it. 

26 

But if you cannot enforce regulation to other countries, then 

don’t do it to American manufacturers because you’re hurting us, 

and I don’t think that’s the intent of the government or EPA, so 

somehow we need to—if we’re going to do that—you know, in a 

sense, it’s really good for us to stand up and be a role model for 

the rest of the world. But it’s only good if the rest of the world follows suit and we cannot reward countries that do not have those 

same kind of processes that America does. 

Ms. FALLIN. Well, unfortunately, we can’t mandate those other 

countries to follow the same rules and regulations that we do in 

a— 

Mr. MOCHA. But we can— 

Ms. FALLIN. —global marketplace. 

Mr. MOCHA. —keep them out of America— 

Ms. FALLIN. That’s right. 

Mr. MOCHA. —and we can keep them out of our markets. 

Ms. FALLIN. But we don’t always do that. 

Mr. MOCHA. That’s right. I think we need to have a new moral 

code and that’s why I mentioned before, I think it ought to be the 

Fallin Initiative. It may not be an easy thing to do, but we’ve got 

lots of bureaucrats in Washington who are ready and able to do the 

job. 

Ms. FALLIN. Well, I might be able to do it on a state level, but 

nationally and globally I don’t know yet. 

Mr. MOCHA. You can do it. 

Ms. FALLIN. I don’t have that much influence yet. But thank you. 

And I want to ask Mr. Robson, you talked about the ACES Act. 

Mr. ROBSON. Yes. 

Ms. FALLIN. Is that the right terminology? 

Mr. ROBSON. Yes. 

Ms. FALLIN. And how that affects cost on homes and competition 

and some of the regulations on that, and I’m particularly interested 

in how that could affect small businesses and homebuilders and 

those that are involved here in Oklahoma’s economy about some of 

the mandates. Could you just elaborate a little bit more on that? 

Mr. ROBSON. Yes. The—as it pertains to the national building 

code that is being proposed, the mandates are to have 30 percent 

increase in energy efficiency requirements over the 2006 international energy code. That would be upon enactment. If states 

don’t enact a 30 percent code, they lose federal dollars and there 

are damages that the Department of Energy can go against the 

states. By 2014, I believe, it has to be 50 percent over the 2006 energy code, and then it increases five percent per year after that up 

to 75 percent by 2029, I believe. 

Our concern is that it is putting all of the burden on new construction, which already has had a much higher standard than we 

already have and we kind of talked along, Chairman Altmire, your 

question on, you know, what are the economics of doing things or 

not? What you do is price new homes completely out of the market. 

And frankly, I don’t know how you get there. We don’t have the 

technologies to get to 75 percent, and granted, we’ve got a few 

years to do it, but I just don’t know how you get there and squeeze 

that much more energy efficiency. 

27 

You know, the housing industry, homes supposedly use 30 percent of the energy of the country. New homes since 1991 use two 

and a half percent, so that leaves the 74, 75 percent using, what, 

27 and a half percent. That is where the real efficiency comes from, 

and nobody is addressing it—in fact, it specifically exempts existing 

homes and buildings, and that is the problem, especially from the 

construction industry. 

Ms. FALLIN. Well, I would assume if these mandates go into 

place it would increase construction costs. 

Mr. ROBSON. Yes, absolutely. 

Ms. FALLIN. Which would probably slow down homebuilding and 

last time I checked, home prices in the United States have been 

going down and majority of people have their investments in their 

homes. 

Mr. ROBSON. Right. Well, and the other problem and one of the 

major issues with the current housing crisis is appraisals. You 

know, we can’t get appraisals, whether it’s existing homes or new 

home construction. There is no allowance right now and that’s one 

of the big impediments to energy efficiency and construction is getting credit from an appraisal standpoint for the energy efficiencies 

you build into a new home. If you start adding 30 percent, 75 percent efficiencies, and you don’t change the appraisal process, you 

completely up-end the market. 

Ms. FALLIN. So it doesn’t change the value of the home. 

Mr. ROBSON. No. There’s no credit that’s being given for energy 

efficiency right now. 

Ms. FALLIN. What suggestions do you have for the current homes 

that are built that are not the new homes that you said are not 

eligible for the credit and how—what ideas do you have to help encourage current older homes to be able to create more efficiencies 

within their homes and maybe use new technology without breaking the bank and without going over their loan value as far as appraisals go? 

Mr. ROBSON. I think it’s got to be on all fronts. And Commissioner Murphy is here. We’ve been working with the Corporation 

Commission and the electric utility companies and working on the 

demand side management issues in Oklahoma. I think that’s something being addressed around the country. 

But that is a critical issue as to how you pay for energy efficiency 

and a lot of those homes are for lower-income housing and maybe 

they can’t afford efficiency improvements. There are a number of 

proposals, there’s particular financing mechanism called PACE 

that was cut out of this bill actually that would have been a possibility—more of a local option, financing option. You’ve got to be 

able to finance them and get the appraisals and the value when 

you do those, even on existing homes. So there’s a number of proposals out there. Unfortunately the ACES doesn’t address any of 

them. 

Ms. FALLIN. Okay. And Mr. Chairman, I just want to mention, 

I know that Congressman Sullivan had to leave a few minutes 

early, but he has actually authored some legislation in Congress 

that encourages compressed natural gas and infrastructure development in our nation and I’m—I just want to commend him since 

he is not here. I’m a cosponsor of that legislation and it’s very imVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:47 Dec 09, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\CLERKS~1\HEARINGS\TRANSC~1\51519.TXT DARIEN
28 

portant to us here in Oklahoma that hopefully we can get that bill 

out of Committee and get it on the floor sometime. But it’s a good 

piece of legislation. I think it would serve our nation well and help 

us move towards cleaner energy and help us with producing more 

American-made energy, reducing our dependence on foreign energy. 

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say thank you so much for coming 

to our state. As you can tell by our witnesses here, they are all experts in their field. They are very passionate in what they believe 

and we think we’ve gleaned some great ideas here today and heard 

both the good sides of what we’re proposing and some of the negative sides of what some of our policies could do to small business 

and especially to our economy here in our state to our hopefully 

moving away from dependence on foreign energy and even some of 

the small business as far as rules and regulations and mandates 

coming from Congress and how that will affect our small businesses. 

So I want to say thank you once again. Thank you to all of our 

witnesses. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. And I would second what the Congresswoman said about Mr. Sullivan. He’s a good friend. I know he represents you all very well here and I thank him for taking the time 

to be here in his absence now, and I certainly thank Miss Fallin. 

Enjoyed being here and thanks especially to Oklahoma State-Tulsa 

for your hospitality. Thanks for helping us set this up. These are 

not easy to do. We appreciate the fact that you allowed us to hold 

this hearing here. I had the opportunity to walk around a little bit 

before the hearing and you have a beautiful campus and top-notch 

facilities. Thanks for the work that you do every day for students 

from Oklahoma, but especially thanks for allowing us to be here 

today. Thanks to each one of you. 

This was very instructive to me and to the Committee as a 

whole, and this testimony was sent to everyone on the Committee 

and I’m sure they will review it and may have follow-up questions 

for you of their own, so you may be hearing from others on this. 

And with that, I would ask unanimous consent that all Committee members will have five days to submit statements and supporting materials to the record, and without objection, so ordered. 

Chairman ALTMIRE. This hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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