In this episode of The Crude Truth, Congressman Bob Latta discusses critical issues facing the U.S. energy sector, including the challenges of transitioning to electric vehicles and the discrepancies between projected and actual power needs. Latta critiques current energy policies, including the Green New Deal and the LNG export ban, emphasizing the need for a balanced, all-encompassing energy strategy that supports both traditional and alternative sources. He also highlights the importance of modernizing the power grid to meet future energy demands and ensure reliable distribution.

Congressman Bob Latta shares his vision for the Energy and Commerce Committee, stressing the need for clear legislation and reduced regulatory barriers to foster innovation and growth in the energy sector. He discusses his campaign for reelection and the significance of maintaining affordable energy for Ohio’s manufacturing and oil and gas industries. The episode wraps up with a nod to his dedicated team and an appeal for support in his ongoing campaign.

01:35 – Discussion on Power Needs and Electric Cars
07:46 – Chevron Difference and Regulations
09:29 – Energy and Commerce Committee
11:38 – JD Vance and Ohio’s Energy Sector
13:25 – LNG Export Ban and Green New Deal
15:04 – Challenges with the Power Grid
17:49 – Goals as Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee
19:10 – Final Remarks and Campaign Information

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THE CRUDE TRUTH Ep. 97 Bob Latta, Member of Congress at US House of Representatives

Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Rey Treviño [00:00:00] Well. Hello again and thank you, as always for tuning in to another episode of The Crude Truth. Today we are, here from Houston, at the Petroleum Club. Hi. Above everybody else here in Houston, there are a few more buildings, but as you can see, we’re pretty high as well.

Narrator [00:00:17] In 1901, at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, the future of Texas changed dramatically as, like a fountain of fortune, thousands of barrels of oil burst from the earth towards the sky. Soon Detroit would be cranking out Model TS by the millions, and America was on the move thanks to the black gold being produced in Texas. Now, more than a century later, the vehicles are different, but nothing else has truly changed. Sure, there may be many other alternative energy sources like wind and solar and electric, but let’s be honest, America depends on oil and entrepreneurs. And if the USA is truly going to be independent, it has to know the crude truth.

Narrator [00:01:00] This episode is brought to you by LFS chemistry. We are committed to being good stewards of the environment. We are providing the tools so you can be too. Nape Expo where deals happen. Air compressor solutions when everything is on the line. Air Compressor Solutions is the dependable choice to keep commercial business powered up. Sandstone Group. Exec Crue. Elevate your network. Elevate your knowledge. Texas Star Alliance, Pecos country operating. Fueling our future.

Rey Treviño [00:01:35] But here. Today. Oh, it’s just been such a great day. We got the opportunity to be with Congressman Bob Latta at Ohio. Congressman, how are you?

Bob Latta [00:01:43] I’m great. Thanks very much.

Rey Treviño [00:01:44] Oh, man. Well, thank you so much for coming on. You have been on a world win all summer. In fact, I want to say probably even started back in March or April. I know you were here in Houston back in March or April. You gave a great little speak, talked into a good, almost like a table chat with a bunch of US oil and gas operators. And you haven’t stopped since. But you’re also, more importantly, you haven’t stopped fighting for the oil and gas industry and the manufacturing industry. Is that correct?

Bob Latta [00:02:12] Well, absolutely. You know, the United States needs power and we need energy. And I’m very, very fortunate. I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee. In fact, I’m running for the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee. I’ve been blessed with our six subcommittees of being all six. I chair two now, but it’s important that we think about what we’re doing in this country. On the energy sector. We need more energy, not less. Everybody that comes before us in our energy subcommittee. I asked him the exact same question. We have to have more energy or less energy, and everybody has. And some of them didn’t want to say it, but they ended up saying, we have to have more energy. PJM, which is, over 11 states in Ohio, is included in, you go to their website, they say we need to have more power. And it’s essential because again, when you look around, what we do in my district, I have 86,000 manufacturing jobs as the largest farm income producing district in the state of Ohio. If I don’t have affordable power, our people aren’t going to be able to work. We’re not going to be able to, you know, make these products not only for Americans to consume, but also export around the world, because, again, it comes down to the bottom, you know, the bottom line. And if your product is more expensive than somebody else, somebody else is not going to buy it. So we want to make sure that we have the policies in place in this country to make sure that we do have the energy, and we don’t need to think about where we’ve come from. That is an absolute miracle. A lot of countries around the world look at the United States, you know, how did you all do it? Because we didn’t think you had any oil. Where did they get any natural gas? And how did you do it?

Rey Treviño [00:03:45] Yeah. You know, you talk about that, that the rest of the world comment, the rest of the world definitely takes notice of what we’re doing. You know, they call us the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. And, you know, there’s now days where we have new record production and we’ll produce on a daily basis, sometimes more than Saudi Arabia or OPEC on a daily basis right now. And that’s what the administration that does not is anti oil. You know. What are you guys seeing on a world stage right now as us as we continue to battle OPEC.

Bob Latta [00:04:14] Well you know first we we mentioned word OPEC. If you go back to the Trump administration you did not see really OPEC even being mentioned in the news. Except for one thing they’re worried about what the United States is able to do. And what we were able to produce out there when this administration came in. What happened. Well, now we’re starting to hear about OPEC again, because, again, the administration did on day one kill to kill the Keystone XL. We’d work for, you know, years on, on Keystone XL. And if the Obama administration and then you saw in the Trump administration that, okay, things were right to that point, that it was going to start going forward, you think about the 11,000, construction workers are out there, all the pipe, everything was ready to move. And so what’s the. They do kill. So we’ve had 830,000 barrels of product that flow through in a day. It’s essential. I think the American people understand this because of where I’m from in northern Ohio, especially in northwest Ohio. There’s something called line five. Line five comes in from Canada, goes across the Upper Peninsula down to the, Lower Peninsula. And that runs down to our refineries in Ohio and also a large refinery, in Detroit. But again, with that line brings in 540,000 barrels of product a day, and you’re seeing a Democrat governor and a Democrat attorney general of Michigan, you know, fighting to get rid of line five. And it’s like, how are you going to replace that and how is it going to affect our economy? But it’s essential again, that we have more power, not less.

Rey Treviño [00:05:49] You know, how is it that where do they come up with these ideas? I mean, it’s like, oh, we’re going to shut down this line that’s crucial to the people up there. Just like you said, you know, they got they got to get to work. They got to do these things. You know, how how do some of these people not have common sense? Let me ask you.

Bob Latta [00:06:05] Well, you know, I think that’s a good question because give me an example. Toward the end of last year, we had to hear from the EPA testifying before, our committee and I, because this is also during, you know, the time frame we people were hearing, you know, the president talking about that everybody’s going to be having an electric car by the year 2035, which we all knew was never going to happen. But I asked the gentleman, I said, how much more power are we going to have to have if, if, if this president’s plan would ever, which is not going to work, would ever come to fruition? He said 4.5%, 4.5%. I said, you know, we were given estimates of a minimum of 50% more power. And so the fear is this when you have this being put out there, by the other side, then people start thinking, oh, it must be true that we don’t need this power. We don’t need this generation. We don’t need to have more oil or natural gas or any other way. We’re going to be generating our power. But it’s essential that people understand that these are the folks that make these decisions, that when you write the regulations that make it absolutely impossible, do you ever get any more power? And when you think about what’s happened, especially with our data centers out there in the data centers, you know, the estimate right now on top of our current needs, I’m looking at four and a half to 6% more power that they’re going to have to have. Where is it going to come from? So again, this is why back in 2008, the Republicans in the House came up what we called an all of the above energy strategy. The federal government should not pick the winners or losers out there. So if any one of our traditional sources or the alternative but it’s it’s all part of a mix. And I think that, you know, this, that the American people need to see and hear.

Rey Treviño [00:07:46] You know, you talked about the EPA and that Chevron difference just came out about a month ago. Now, you know what? Are you pretty excited to hear about that? You know, because the EPA who again, I’ve said it many times, they’ve done great things, you know, but they’re now just doing all these regulations and putting more hindrance on things. What were your thoughts with the Chevron difference?

Bob Latta [00:08:07] Well, a good question because, you know, one of the things that we’re we’ve had people before or when I’ve been out, across my state or across the country, I’ve never heard anybody in any, any business from oil and natural gas, you name it, in the manufacturing. No one has ever told me we’re against regulations. They say just give us regulations. We can live with it. But in in the House for a good number of years we would try to get through in sign in law called the Reins act in which would say that at $100 million that that regulation would have to come back to Congress to be approved. But with what we saw with the court recently, we were talking about Chevron. It’s important because no longer are we going to have unelected bureaucrats getting to make the decision and having the courts defer to them on interpretations out there. So I think what’s going to really help us is that first, I think that our legislations we’re going to have to make sure we have well crafted that the language is clear. And not only there is that, then we have to always when we do it right now, probably going to double our effort to make sure that we have the oversight hearing is going on to bring them in before us, because, again, if they start going off on one of these, they said, no, you can’t. You’ve crossed over with the court says you can’t. That’s Congress on the legislative side that should be doing this, not on the executive branch side.

Rey Treviño [00:09:29] You know, I want to, get back to the Energy and Commerce Committee as a whole. You all have been a part of that committee now for how many years?

Bob Latta [00:09:36] I went on to, 2010.

Rey Treviño [00:09:38] Yeah. So you’ve been there now since, you know, for almost almost 15 years. And so you definitely see changes. You know what? What is it about that committee that you really enjoyed and why you want to be, you know, be be the be the chair, I think.

Bob Latta [00:09:52] Well, first of all, and, to, all deference to my other friends on other committees, is the best committee we. Because the other thing we have, we have the brass jurisdiction. You will never, ever even think about getting bored. So we’re going to energy and concentrate. Because just think from energy, health care, telecommunication environment. We get the, the scepter, we got digital cameras, consumer protection. We would had, like the, professional sports were within our our purview. So you have such a broad jurisdiction, but you can get so much accomplished and so much done. The great thing about serving on the Energy Commerce Committee is another factor is that when you sit up on the dais, you’re looking over the horizon literally 5 to 10 years for so many different, folks and companies across this country. Because when you’re talking to them in committee, you’re asking, you know, ask them what where they think the where they’re going to be. So you don’t want to enact legislation that then turns into a regulation that’s going to put them in slowdown where they’re going to be the you want to make sure that they can keep advancing. You don’t want them. We have to be looking at as you’re driving down the road, looking in the back to the rearview mirror of the car, instead of looking out that windshield way down the road as to where they’re going to get. So it’s the it’s it’s talking and having these innovators in our committee that have done the spectacular things. And again, it comes down to, you know, on the energy side, again, from from going from, you know, farmland to fees and, you know, and here’s the thing, you know, I always have to tell people, always remember, it was always there. But because of these, again, these folks that have figured it out, give them that law, given that regulation to get out there, to bring up that energy, to make this country keep running and keep us ahead of the world.

Rey Treviño [00:11:38] And ahead of the world, you know, that is something that I think is definitely our American ingenuity in anything is always kept us number one in the world. Right now we’re in a another turning point. You know, we’re in another election season. And, Congress are not congressman, but, JD Vance is now running as a vice president. And being from Ohio, a place that has many oil and gas jobs and manufacturing jobs. You know, can you kind of jump on that and, and just share kind of your thoughts on JD Vance and where that goes?

Bob Latta [00:12:07] Well, you know, we’ve been fortunate to in Ohio because, you know, years ago, we produced a lot of oil in northwest Ohio especially. And of course, with that kind of and I probably all still a lot of it’s still there new technology. Get in there and get things moving. We’re starting to see some wells being drilled again. But when you think of our manufacturing sector and our reliance on that, that energy that’s affordable. And, you know, I think that with JD on the ticket, you know, he understands. And one of the things that it’s important people always remember Ohio is just not a manufacturing state or an agricultural state. That and you know, with all of the different things that will be happening into the future, I think that was, you know, I did with, President Trump that one of the things I think he looked at was to get someone in there that came from a state that had all these things happening that also, you know, have somebody with a lot of the same views on where this economy needs to go and we need to keep growing this economy. You know, you ever say, well, we’re done. You know, you got to make sure that you keep because someone’s out there in the world that will always be your competitor, that will try to take sectors away from you. And if they can’t turn around and say, well, how’d that happen? And so it’s making sure that, you know, we keep it keep moving in this country.

Rey Treviño [00:13:25] You know, you talk about sectors and things happening and people doing things. You know, President Biden did that LNG export ban. You know, how has that how has that in your committee, you know, what have you all done to try to fight against that? And also as now that we have a new running for vice president, Harris is not running for president. You know, how can you guys in the energy and commerce continue to allow Americans to drive, if that if she was able to, you know, become.

Bob Latta [00:13:51] Well, we’re not going to go we’re not going to think that that that’s going to happen. But because, again, when you think about this Green New Deal and the, you know, about $80 trillion that they were talking about there, it’s it’s crazy. You never going to get there. But, you know, again, we have to make sure that we point out there record and and that’s that’s a very important because again you have a president that’s done everything he possibly can to curtail the exploration and the, production of energy into this country. And again, as I said, when I think about line five, which, which is, which helps, Michigan and Ohio, when I think about all of the different, areas, that this president has shut off for exploration, it’s it’s it’s hurting us. And so I think that, again, what we have to do is just keep pointing it out. You know, time’s getting short. I think people have to do this. They have to go out and tell their friends why it’s, you know, just don’t listen to the news media. Just talk to your friends. But get the real facts out there. And those real facts are that if you want to, if you want to see this country fall behind. Just put that the other team in. And so the Trump fans.

Rey Treviño [00:15:04] You know they are just it really worries us. You know I got a question yesterday from somebody that’s looking at oil and gas. And they go well can they shut you down tomorrow. And I always like to tell them no because I think that’s the truth. Because if somebody actually shut down the oil and gas industry tomorrow, the price of oil would skyrocket in America. Because, you know, us as independents, you know, we, you know, we produce over 50% of the oil by the then everybody else, Exxon’s and Chevron’s produce the other half. So, you know, there’s just so many people that are involved in the oil and gas sector, in the energy sector as a whole. And I mentioned that because of the grid and how much, you know, natural gas and oil and coal all provide to the grid, and they want to transform that to electricity, you know. But is our grid even ready for a full blown overnight transfer? Do you like electricity? Yeah. That’s a I’m sorry. That’s a terrible thing. Our grid is electric, but I guess what I’m saying is, how do I ask it? Because I know Stuart.

Bob Latta [00:16:04] Well, I think I know you’re from. Okay. It’s important on the grid side. First of all, the grid is not set up right now to handle what we’re going to have to have.

Rey Treviño [00:16:12] Thank you.

Bob Latta [00:16:12] Yeah. We need the grid to be modernized. And I’ve worked on grid modernization, grid cybersecurity that it’s important again that we understand that once you produce the power, how are you going to get it to the next spot. So it’s that transmission and the distribution. And you know, we had an EPA that was going to kill Transformers, the villain we made in this country. They backed off finally, and we kind of, you know, had a sigh of relief that all of a sudden, it’s okay with it, okay, we can do something on that. But what we see on the other side is how many roadblocks can we put up. Yeah. And you know, it’s one of the things that especially in committee for us is we have to do something, permitting and permitting is something that we worked on. We, you know, we want to make sure that, you know, that everything is safe and sound, but at the same time, you just can’t keep holding up projects from not moving down the road. So on, on the on the side of when it comes to the grid, the grid needs modernized. But when you look at the amount of additional power that needs to be put into the grid, it’s it is not there in every, every mix. But if you know, again, do we want to have people, you know, in situations that you okay, you have to share your lights out or, you know, we’re going to have to in certain areas, you know, you’ve seen around the country to this year talking about, well, we might have to have rolling blackouts. We won’t be able to keep the lights on. That’s not what we want to do. We want to make sure that not only do we have that energy, but that energy goes into the grid to get to the ultimate consumer. Either, with your small little store on the corner, a large factory, or a family’s home.

Rey Treviño [00:17:49] Well, I know, let’s, you know, when you become chair, what are some of the things that you really want to work on as chair of the engineering conference?

Bob Latta [00:17:57] Well, you know, on the energy side, right off the bat, it’s making sure that we have the energy because, again, everything that we’ve seen, no matter who who is being reported from or coming out of some study, all say the same thing. We have to have more energy. And so how do we do that? Well, it’s it’s again looking at that all the above energy strategy. It’s making sure that when someone goes out to start that they know they’re not going to have the rug pulled out from underneath them, that once you start something, we want to make sure that they can continue. We want to make sure that on the, how we are on the transmission side, that we’re modernizing the grid, because again, without that, it’s impossible to make the move it. So if you look or look across the entire area that, you know, is, again, is that the federal government does not pick winners and losers, there’s a there’s something out there for everybody. But again, it’s what the market is looking at, not the federal government. I always tell you that any time the federal government is going to pick a winner or loser, we are all going to lose. It’s it’s like is we were terrible at it. And plus the federal government, it’s not the federal government’s role to be doing this.

Rey Treviño [00:19:10] You know, that I feel like that’s been one of your mantras since day one. There’s like, hey, if they’re going to pick winners and losers, we’re all going to lose. And and you are absolutely right. We got to let the market take, take, take its course. And also that I’m also an olive guy. Like it’s like we can use all forms of of of energy electric, wind, solar, you know oil, gas obviously. And you know, so there’s definitely room for everybody at the table. You know, Congressman, I cannot thank you enough for your time. As we wrap up, you know, working people, because you’re running, there in Ohio as well, not just to be part of the chair, to be the chair. Excuse me, of the interstate commerce. But you’re also run an election reelection campaign right now. Where can people reach, to find out how they can support you guys?

Bob Latta [00:19:54] Well, you know, because it’s there’s a kind of a, steel curtain, which we. In our our what we have on from our, official side in our, political side. But it’s a lot of Congress is the, is you can go to the that on the website you that’s where we are. But, I really appreciate the opportunity to be with you today.

Rey Treviño [00:20:13] Well, you know, I do want to do this. Also. I want to say thank you to Ryan Walker for, for making the introduction, a couple months back and then allowing us and, Craig Wheeler, and talking to him. So thank you so much to those guys as well in your team. Yeah.

Bob Latta [00:20:26] So I just I’ve been blessed. And again, in nine terms of Congress, they have such great people that work for me. It’s not just me that’s out there. Villages. I didn’t have the great team. We couldn’t get a lot of things accomplished. And, so every everybody has done a tremendous job, through the years. And Ryan was my first chief of staff.

Rey Treviño [00:20:46] Yes.

Bob Latta [00:20:46] And, he’s, he’s moved on to bigger and brighter things. And so always, always great to see him and, always catch up.

Rey Treviño [00:20:55] Well, Congressman, thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you all. And we’ll see you again on another episode of The Crude Truth.

Narrator [00:21:03] Again, the Crude Truth would like to thank today’s sponsors LFS chemistry, Nape Expo, Air Compressor Solutions, Sandstone Group, Exec Crue, Texas Star Alliance, Pecos Country Operating, and Real News Communication Network.

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