Praise, not criticism
U.S. Rep. Steve Russell told an oil and gas group its bad reputation is undeserved.
As a television ad released this week criticizes his ties to the industry, U.S. Rep. Steve Russell told an oil and gas group Friday that their bad reputation is undeserved and they should hold their heads high.
“Don’t duck your head or feel bad as critics and naysayers are poking you in the chest and telling you what you do is bad. That’s a bucket of nonsense,” the Republican congressman told a meeting of the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association.
The speech was an official event, not a campaign event, and his campaign said it was a coincidence Russell spoke to the group at a time when he is being criticized for his oil ties.
In brief remarks in a Skirvin Hilton Hotel ballroom, Russell praised the oil and gas industry for making possible everything from iPhones and razors to asphalt and automobiles.
“And yet you still have those out there that want to pontificate and somehow call the industry bad. Really? Do you like living in the Stone Age?” he asked rhetorically.
“That’s what you have as an alternative without the oil and gas industry and we don’t do a good enough job convincing Susie ‘Save the World’ or Thomas ‘I Hate You’ environmentalists who try to condemn so much of what the oil and gas industry does.”
Russell, seeking a third term in Congress, is being challenged by Democrat Kendra Horn. In an ad launched this week on several Oklahoma City TV stations, Horn attempts to link Russell to Gov. Mary Fallin and state problems, as well as oil and gas giants.
“Steve Russell promised to address the rising cost of health care and funding for our failing schools,” a narrator says in the 30-second ad. “Instead, Steve Russell took $1 million from lobbyists, corporate PACs, Big Oil and party bosses in Washington, doing their bidding while Oklahomans come in dead last.”
Russell raised $54,950 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry in 2017 and the first nine months of 2018, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign finance. Since July, he has received donations from political action committees for Phillips 66, ExxonMobil, Cheniere Energy, Marathon Petroleum employees and Chevron employees, along with Devon cofounder Larry Nichols and Nichols’ wife.
“No one is saying shut down the oil and gas industry,” Horn said on Twitter after Russell’s remarks. “We just want to shut down the pipeline of corporate PAC money flowing into your office.”
In his speech Friday, Russell said the oil and gas industry often gets a bad reputation “that’s totally undeserved.” Without the industry, America does not run, the congressman said.
“You kill the oil and gas industry, you kill America. Plain and simple,” he said.