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JOE SCARBOROUGH: We’ve been talking for a long time in this show about the importance of the energy revolution that’s been coming along. Back in 2002 we were being told we’d run out of natural gas in the next 10 to 15 years. Now, there’s practically an endless supply. Same thing with oil, that we’re going to have to get off of oil. And now you read the ‘Wall Street Journal’ a couple of years ago, they say we’re going to be the number one producer by 2020 in the world. Look at the prices that have been going down. This is what happens when you have a revolution, and have the ability for energy independence in America. How exciting.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Let’s bring in Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming who’s a member of the Energy Committee. Senator good to have you on board. What’s the concern about jobs as all of this is happening?
SENATOR BARRASSO: Well that’s why we have bipartisan legislation to help with our own economy by making it easier to export liquefied natural gas (LNG). Joe is absolutely right when he says there’s almost an endless supply, and people around the world want to buy our natural gas. Our friends around the world, and this bipartisan legislation, six Republicans, six Democrat co-sponsors, members of the Energy Committee working together to say, if we can export more of this, make more certainty available for the exports, it will help with our trade deficit and the President promised five years ago he wanted to double that trade. It will help with the jobs in the United States in terms of building the facilities. We’re seeing that right now with some facilities being built and it will help our friends overseas who are being held hostage by Vladimir Putin, who holds them hostage by charging such high energy prices.
WILLIE GEIST: We hear time and again that America is in the midst of an energy revolution. The U.S. has become the world’s biggest producer of natural gas as you know. What does that mean to the average American? What are the benefits? What’s the upside to an energy revolution in this country?
SENATOR BARRASSO: We all want to make energy as clean and fast as we can and do it in ways that don’t raise costs for American families. With all these new advances in technology, we were talking about just five or six years ago importing expensive liquefied natural gas, with this revolution we now have an abundance. It is a lot more affordable, and we have so much that we can send some overseas to our friends and allies in ways that don’t even raise the prices here in the United States.
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