Chuck Yates Needs A Job

0:20 Hey everybody, welcome to Chuck Yates needs a job the podcast got a good show today. I, despite my better judgment, have invited two Democrats on the program today, Chase West, Larry Baggett,

0:33 both running for state representative and it's interesting because I've gotten to know Larry a little bit here, former energy executives, so I'll get Larry to tell us his background in just a second.

0:45 Chase actually owns the audio realm studios in Richmond, Texas and is where I probably recorded the first 40 or 45 Chuck Yates needs a job podcast. So welcome in gentlemen. Thank you sir. Thank

0:59 you Chuck. Great to be here. Absolutely. So Larry real quick, give us your background. Who are you and what are you running for? Well, native born Tennesseean got to see the world. The hands

1:09 of the US Navy, I'm currently seeking the Texas Health District 3. lived internationally, worked internationally, and is enjoy traveling, meeting different types of people - Got to, where's

1:21 District 3? District 3 encompasses parts of Montgomery and all the Waller, Texas, where you get over in the Magnolia and it jumps over 45 somewhere. You know, they've redrawn the district map.

1:36 And we're trying to get a grasp on it - Yeah, that's right. You know, have they released the map yet or they still want to know - They have released it - They have released it designed - Gotcha -

1:48 The question is finding it and make sure you can understand what the changes have occurred - Yep. The, so I've got a really good redistricting story. My brother, Jay, was Chief of Staff for Joe

2:03 Crab who represented the umbel area, Republican. And this was called the early 90s

2:11 or mid 90s.

2:14 And anyway, Joe Crabbe chaired a

2:20 nondescript committee called the redistricting committee, which doesn't do anything except every 10 years, right - Right - And one day Tom DeLay called and said, You know what? We can redistrict

2:31 any time we want.

2:33 You don't have to do it every 10 years. And so the Republicans redistricted taxes. I bet you remember that The Democrats went off to Oklahoma and hid out during that. And Jay was, Chief of Staff

2:48 said, Jay was in effect Secretary of that committee. And I ran all that. Jay's got wild stories of people breaking into his office, stealing maps and all of this good stuff. Jay was just like, I

3:02 thought I had a cushy job while I was in law school. But - Yeah, no, no, I remember that was quite the kerfuffle. What was that, 2003? Yeah, I said mid 90s and I meant to say mid kind of 2000.

3:14 2010. Yeah, it was an interesting time. Chase, give us your background. Oh, so I'm Chase West. I'm running for Texas State Representative in House District 132 against Mike Schofield.

3:29 Basically, I have lived in that area for nearly 40 years. I'm a native of Harris County. My opponent is from New Jersey. Don't say get a rope. It's not allowed.

3:47 But you know, the thing is, I'm just tired of seeing career politicians coming in there, letting the lobbyists get in their back pocket. Because I mean, a Texas State Representative makes 7, 200

4:00 a year. Like, that's not money you can live off of So they're making their money somewhere else. And it's through lobbying. And I'm tired of seeing my area that I've grown up in that. I raise my

4:14 daughter in not have actual representation - And where is that? What was, there is a district 132 - It is parts of Katie that are in Harris County and parts of Cypress in Harris County - Gotcha.

4:29 You know how they got passed the

4:32 state legislature getting paid 7, 200 a year? This was, I forget how many years ago, but basically legislators never got paid and they would try to vote themselves money and it always gets shot

4:46 down because of that publicity. Somebody finally got the, I'm gonna say the good sense, even though I don't agree with it, but somebody got the good sense. They put a constitutional amendment up

4:58 and it basically says in no way, share perform under any circumstance should a legislator ever get paid more than 7, 200 a year. And that's how they did it - Yeah, they shouldn't get any more than

5:11 that not realizing how it was. actual creation of salary - Yeah - Good stuff. So I appreciate you two guys coming on 'cause what I'd like to do is talk about energy policy and just how we kind of

5:25 navigate that. I think folks know me, I'm a libertarian, they're probably votes Republican 90 some odd person at the trash time to trying you are why, like is guys you ask to wanted I what But.

5:31 stuff for ballot the on libertarian a there's and unless

5:42 get rid of my industry - I don't think either of us are - Good. And that was 100 agree with that statement because when you get deeper into it, you will find out we're in support of it but it can be

5:55 expanded to way more of a positive conversation by people trying to kill your market - No, and I appreciate that. And that was my shock question. I thought I'd get a bigger rise. Y'all are too

6:08 young for your amateur politicians running for the first time. Y'all handled that very well. No, no, that's, that's what I'd love to talk about. And let me set up a, a premise here and we'll

6:21 see if that leads somewhere. I think folks on my side of the table, energy veterans, energy industry folks need to understand that CO2 emissions are rising. Since 1950, we've gone from 300 parts

6:40 per million to 425 parts per million today. And the temperature has risen. I mean, we can all debate on whether it's, you know, ironclad science that there's causation there. Is it really just

6:53 correlation? But it's something we need to be concerned about and something we need to be thinking about and at least studying because at the end of the day, I've been in a, in a, where they grow

7:04 flowers and stuff.

7:07 a greenhouse and it's a thousand parts per million co2 to feed the flowers and stuff. It's miserable That I don't know what it means. I But I think the other side Environmentalist and I understand a

7:22 lot of their concerns They do need to accept the premise that burning hydrocarbons has been good for humanity I mean your life your life expectancy based as a society doubles when you go from burning

7:35 wood and dung to burning hydrocarbons and you can go down all the immeasurable good things That oil and petroleum based products have done for the world. So there's got to be something in the middle

7:47 there. So I set that as a premise and Chase Larry one of y'all choose go first and so what I'll say about that You know a lot of people don't realize the texas is probably one of the most diverse

8:01 states as far as the type of electricity that we use. We have huge windfills. We have huge solar fields. Of course, we have our natural gas, our oil, all that good stuff.

8:15 And I think I told you this the other day, but a friend who was a petrochemical, he had like a master's in petrochemical engineering, had told me that his professor told him one day that, you know,

8:27 with all of the good that, you know, oil

8:31 and gas and, you know, petrochemicals can do for mankind, like all the, the,

8:38 what's the word? I can't even think of the word. All of the technological advances, basically,

8:45 you know, we're really going to be sad in the future that we've burned up most of it.

8:51 We've got so many different, you know, ways that we can create energy. And like right now, like we're still blaming the freeze on windmills and stuff like that. Whereas we just haven't done our

9:07 job. We haven't went orized anything. We haven't gone through the necessary steps to make oil and gas, to make wind energy, to make solar energy, to make it efficient enough to where we can run

9:24 our own grid. And I mean - Well, I agree with you saying, Shacer, and you know me now for a while, I've gotten off community talk. I want to be thinking outside the box The windmills, solar

9:37 energy, gas oil is great. But I think of what has happened, I've got a background investigation. And then good investigator, you just don't look at this stuff given to you in the front. You have

9:46 to look at all angles. What's the possibility? What happened with the windmills? They really didn't calculate being in an area that was freeze using these windmills. So therefore, Texans are

9:57 without power. And you got people playing politics and people go on rolling black elves and things of that nature But I advocate. that the main supplier of energy brand new blood, because right now

10:11 you have people that think inside the box, right? They're always just thinking the same. And I want to tell a quick story about what Kenree Ford, when he wanted to cast all eight cylinders in one

10:21 block, he went to his engineer and said, Hey guys, I want you to do this. And they said, Well, Mr. Ford, you can't be done. He said, Great, go ahead and do it anyway. And this went on for

10:32 a while. And the defense and money engineers looked at him and said, We can do this. And the problem is you got to start, you got to stop thinking in the box. And everyone has served their time

10:44 as per bringing the market up to this point, right? But you've got to get some new innovative thinker, bringing in some new blood. And with some of the more senior people, and we can address

10:56 these issues better. And they're just not being addressed there. They're using the same whole thought process You've got to think outside of marks from different angles. something you could never,

11:07 ever conceive could be possible work, right - Yeah, you know, it's interesting on the BDE share that Colin and I do the other day. We were talking about nuclear power and a VC somewhere said, you

11:21 know, it's too bad. We didn't invent nuclear power today because if we did, we'd actually go, holy cow, we've solved our energy problem. We've got it. We've got a clean source. But to kind of

11:31 drill down on both what you guys say, I think the one thing that I think would be helpful in terms of both sides talking to each other is, I think wind and solar, you know, make a lot of sense in

11:47 certain applications. You know, I mean, as a base load power, it's difficult to have those as your base load because I know we didn't winterize wind stuff and

12:00 the freeze and all that And I actually did this if you went. the wind speeds from the counties where the wind power is in Texas. It was all pretty much below 25 miles per hour and that's what you

12:13 need. So there were definitely problems that some of those were frozen over and didn't work but there just wasn't a lot of wind there but I'm not gonna be an oil and gas homer and say you throw the

12:26 baby out with the bath water on that. It clearly clearly has its place. We just have to we have to come up with a solution where a base load is something we can count on. Well you know this is what

12:41 I think you know first of all we shouldn't offer you know the big oil and gas companies you know why don't you write us a letter and pay us 150 and you won't have to winterize your part because that's

12:53 what they're trying to do.

12:55 So for 150 all of the oil and gas companies can say oh we're not gonna winter we're not gonna winterize our stuff. Same with the windmill and solar. I think that's asinine. First of all, we have

13:12 to winterize our grid. I don't care what it costs. I don't care which company has to pay for it, but we have to do that first. Secondly, a lot of people don't realize that there are three super

13:26 switches in Texas that connect to the other grids Now, obviously, we wanna be reliant on ourselves. I get it, I'm all for it. However, only one of those switches has ever been opened and that

13:38 was one in, hit my, only one of those switches has ever been opened and that was one in Beaumont and it was opened during Harvey. So we were actually getting electricity from Louisiana. There are

13:51 two other switches, one in the panhandle and then one over near Lake El Paso that goes to Lake New Mexico in the western grid Now, if we weren't able to winterize. everything and secure our grid to

14:07 where it's going to be reliable. I mean, that's what our costs even for. We would have the ability to say the southeastern grid went down. You know, we could flip that switch and we can offer

14:20 them power and start making money off of them and vice versa. Say the power, you know, there's tornadoes up in Kansas or whatnot. Guess what? If our stuff was reliable, we could flip that switch,

14:33 start charging them for electricity, you know, and vice versa. And most people don't even know that these switches exist, but the reason we don't use them and cannot use them is because at this

14:46 point without it being weatherized, we run the

14:49 risk of, you know, damaging their equipment. Yeah. And that was the reason the Texas grid is standalone is from back in the past 30s the was it say to want I.

15:03 Texas actually chose not to join their grid with other folks in order to avoid federal regulation of it. So that was a political stance from the '30s. I could actually be talked into, we ought to

15:19 join the rest of the grid. I mean, in this day and age, I mean, because the problem is with electricity, just in general, there's no way to store it I mean, if you look at all the battery

15:31 capacity we have on the grid in the United States, if the whole grid went out, we'd have about 30 seconds of power. Yeah. You know, a minute or two of power tops. And so, you know, you just

15:43 can't store in any sort of sufficient amounts power. So I could be talked into, we need to join the rest of the grid. I am not well versed enough in power though, to be able to have that

15:56 constructive conversation At least at this point, the right and the left have said, let's go have a constructive conversation and join in the rest of the grid. And I agree with you because I don't

16:07 know your background, but I'm not an expert until I don't get, I'm good at investigating, getting details. But you said something too. I think some of the problems that are occurring is you still

16:17 got politics. You got politics and stuff in some way, shape or form, but that's one of the people. Eric Rock has not been held accountable for those of my accounts No one, you had board members

16:27 who stepped down, what did you do? No one's held accountable. But as I did an interview with a newspaper reporter entitled that politics out in people first, we got to get back to serving the

16:40 people. I understand these elected career politicians. They like the little special gifts they get. I call them bribes. They don't You and I convince you to vote for me on the way or, and I give

16:56 you something to return that's called a bribe. you educated people if that's a bribe, whether it's money or vacation home or special fun and lying privilege. It's a bribe. So, okay, I'm going to

17:10 totally change topics here because I want to stay on this point. I knew we'd cover it at some point. Sorry, Larry, you don't know me as well. She says, I have a knee. It just jumps around a

17:19 little bit. Hey, I'm good about today. We'll come back to the grid I

17:24 think one of the issues to your point about politics is ultimately you have to serve the base of your party. Republican has served the base, Democrats have to serve the base. Do you feel like

17:41 an investigation, a discussion, sitting down with the energy companies, crafting a solution? Can you do that within the Democratic Party, given the environmentalist elements that are important in

17:55 the base? And let me ask one other question. Larry, do you have a Democratic primary opponent - Not to borrow a knowledge right - Okay, so y'all, we may, at this point, y'all are both running

18:06 on a pose -

18:09 And I know you kind of asked Larry, but I'm gonna hijack the mic here because I feel very strongly about something you

18:18 said. You said that our job is to represent the Democratic base as Democrats. I completely disagree. My district is roughly 52 Republican, 48 Democrat. When I'm elected, yes, I have to

18:39 represent the Democrats who elected me, but I also have Republican constituents and I have a duty to them. As a Texas State Representative, your first duty is to the Texas Constitution, your

18:51 second duty is to your constituents and your third duty. is to the state of Texas constituents, because you're making laws for everyone in the state, even though you represent the small area. So

19:06 that's, I had to get that out - No, that's very fair. And if I was being more articulate, I should have said something to the effect of, can you win the democratic primary and become the nominee

19:21 by having a centrist position on energy? I may be, I may be should have said it that way - I mean, if I came up like a chiming, I think you can't because one, as Chase and I would discuss with

19:31 other candidates who are running on the democratic ticket, we've got to get the party back to the middle. The far leftists don't work. We want the Armenian, but we will not rubber stamp poison,

19:45 period. We must get back to certain people. And just as far as the Republicans, they get far right, they get so extreme, they have to come back Hit the metal and sit down. Talk really seriously

19:59 so you're gonna have new democratic candidates like myself and chase last coming up That we're gonna start changing the face of the Democratic Party Here in Texas when you start with it where we live

20:09 because now when I was younger we were we grew up Democrats The call the Democrats stood up for the working class people the people of color it didn't matter But they started playing game thick

20:23 they're poison and infection got in this party and they began to push poison Instead of policies that help everybody and Myself and chase we are committed to being the next the change in a democratic

20:37 party with other members We talked about a coalition on that issue and that we have to Because there are many Democrats that are flag-wafing gun-toting truck driving people in state of Texas across

20:50 this country and I Ontly serve this nation in United States Naval Service. I'll bet police officer So not all Democrats, that's so bad. They tried to pigeonhole us. And when you talk to us, you

21:04 go, well, wait a minute, how can you be on the Democratic ticket because I believe in certain policies. I've always more identified with the Democratic side because they were more open on certain

21:17 issues, right? The Republicans haven't changed nothing. They're about big business, big, big donors. They hadn't had to change the Democrat party itself though, created the situation. So as

21:30 upcoming Democrats, we have to stand up and say, no more, we're not, we're happy to get on course where we're serving the people, not ourselves, not rubber stamping anything. Well, I said it

21:43 repetitively, I will not push poison for nobody - And we're growing a spine - Yeah - Because we've been spineless for the last 30 years you know, whatever our party tells us how to vote. That's how

21:59 we vote. I'm sorry. Sometimes Republicans have good ideas. I hate to admit it.

22:08 But you know - We're recording - I know - I didn't know - I didn't know - I didn't know. But, you know, we've gotten to this just, where it's just extreme fringe politics. Whether it's CNN or Fox

22:22 or OEM or MSNBC, it's whatever is sensational that's gonna pick up the media attention. And we gotta stop looking at it like that. Because that's not serving the people. You know, when we're,

22:38 you know, pushing all these crazy bills and we know we have a super majority, you know, like the Republicans do in Austin. Like, you know, well, what are the Democrats gonna do? All the most

22:54 they could do was break quorum to try to, you know, stop it, which that didn't stop anything. Uh, so we've got to grow backbone. We've got to learn to not be bullied and to talk to the other

23:09 side just as

23:13 they talk to us. That makes any sense. Yeah. No, it's, I mean, one of the dynamics I think that happens is you're right There's totally been a bifurcation of what I call advocacy media, right?

23:24 We've gone from Walter Cronkite telling us this is how it is to both sides fighting and yelling at each other on TV. I think one of the maybe under appreciated things is with the redistricting and it

23:40 becoming a real weapon What at least what I think's happened part ways in Texas is you've created heavily democratic districts, right? Because at the end of the day, you don't want. If you're the

23:54 ruling party, you don't want everything 5050. You want to give them like five seats that they can win 90. And then we will be 6040 in the rest. Which is what they've done. Which is what they've

24:05 done. And I mean, part of that had was driven by the federal government, though, in minority districts. So I mean, part of it was on that front. But I think what that does is when you have a

24:17 very safe Democratic seat, the most liberal members get elected. And to some degree, that's been the voice of the Democratic party over the last 30 years in Texas. Yeah. I mean, which is part of

24:29 the reason why I wanted to enact term limits for all state elected new representative officials. I also think that redistricting should be done by an independent counsel, nonpartisan, to actually

24:45 represent the people. Because the way they split up my area, It's almost humorous. like they took one chunk of the Hispanics and moved them out. And then they took a chunk of the

25:06 less affluent Caucasians and put those in John Rosenthal's district. So yeah, we gave you two big democratic districts, but it's like, whoa, hold on You just tore our whole, like this is our

25:22 community. And you just tore us all up. Right by my house is now the same community that goes all the way to Ayleth and West Chase. Like, you know, that's not my district, but like how much

25:39 sense does that make? Those are totally different communities. And then they've got John Rosenthal's district, which was just Jersey Village like that kind of area and they moved all the the less

25:53 affluent Caucasians into his district. And now he's in Park Katie - Yeah - It's just like, so my district is just Katie. And then I gotta go around, Rose and all, and then I gotta go back up to

26:08 Cyprus - You almost have to have a map to figure out how they were drawn to this district. So going, I don't know if I'm in the right look. I was looking at it on the computer going, huh? Like a

26:18 urine head like, look what, why would we go this way, jump over 45 and do a loop? Come back over 45 - Yeah - I've always said, with Conco, sometimes you wonder how they drew the state line. And

26:32 you watch a history channel, you'll see. You think, I said, no, it's my way, you're just drunk, we're gonna mess them up. Why is this kind of cool - Yeah, now we're gonna put the county line

26:41 here, and we're gonna break it up and say the county line here. For example, I live in a wall or Texas.

26:54 away from where I live at. I'm more opposed to Magnolia by five miles. I was like, we dropped a rat in front with us. You know, so, but there's, I want to switch back to something you've said

27:05 in about term limits. One thing I want to ping off that a little bit too, I'm a hundred percent supporter of term limits. We have have them because after so long as an elected official, you become

27:19 detached. You don't know no more. You just go, it's just like in my district, Cecil Bell Jr. This is his fifth term of office, I understand. So he's at the end of it. He's got 10 years. Last

27:32 time, the win ran against him. Do you think he might get a little, he got a little comfortable? You're going to vote me in because I'm a Republican and I'm Cecil Bell Jr. I've been here for five

27:42 years. Well, we can't do that. But I will not only set term limits, but I will not just oversight committees looking at what these official I do. But I want real tangible, discipline actions to

27:57 take against a sitting official that thinks you can negate it. Say, Well, I'll just step down. You commit a criminal act. We need stronger laws that are elected officials need to be held

28:12 accountable to, and not excuse because so many people, when former President Trump got elected, they said, Hillary Clinton's going to jail. She wasn't going to jail ever You're talking politics,

28:24 no one. If I've had a security clearance, right? If I had done, if you got my new, well, she had been accused of her secretary of state, I still being Levin's worth thinking about when I get to

28:37 go outside - If you didn't already have your final meal - Yeah, that's right - Yeah, exactly - So I just want, when you're put in a position of responsibility, trust, and you've violated it,

28:50 There need to be a higher standards. held against you and you're for violating the law. Maybe some people say that's unfair. No, it's not. If I trust you to be my governor and I blatantly violate

29:05 that you've like blatantly violate the law, then you could say, well, okay, well, maybe I should have done it. No, no, no, no. There is me not just words accountability. There needs to be

29:17 repercussions - So, okay. So in our grand compromise, we're figuring out and we haven't thrown each other, anything at each other and all that. Term limits for politicians. I'm good with that.

29:32 What about term limits for bureaucrats? Like you can't work for the state department and I chose that or the education department or we probably ought to pick something in the Texas government for

29:46 more than 20 years or 15 years 'Cause I worry about everything you just said.

29:54 At least a politician is somewhat accountable to the voters. I agree they have that it's pretty easy to maintain re-election and all that. But at the end of the day, bureaucrat who may wield more

30:07 power than a state rep, sit in there for 22 years, do they feel holier than now? I think that that's something worth looking at.

30:19 I don't know because I'm not there yet, to be honest Yeah. A lot of those, what would be considered bureaucrats or secretaries or mail-sorders or whatever, who have just been there for 20, 30

30:34 years, however long. That's all the only job to do. That's a good point. I'll give you that.

30:41 It just depends. You have to kind of look at it and figure out where to draw the line Like where is it? If someone has been a staffer to.

30:53 a certain type of

30:57 representative for so long. Well, if we've got term limits, well, they're not gonna be a staffer that, you know, representative anymore. So, I mean, it's something to look at. I mean, I

31:09 definitely know what you're getting at, but I'm not gonna say a or a at this point - No, that's fair. I threw it out there to think about, 'cause part of accountability, to your point, Larry,

31:23 is if they have to go after 10 to 12 years, I'm just making that up, the bureaucrat, to some degree, I think that helps with accountability because beyond that, potentially, you're unaccountable.

31:37 Any idea of how we create something that's nonpartisan on accountability, you know, 'cause I mean, right now, I think what we have is whoever controls Congress, investigates the other side and

31:52 not their side. Yeah, I think we're even seeing that in the Department of Justice at the federal level. You know, here at the state level in Texas, it's probably all of the same too. Any

32:04 thoughts on how we create the nonpartisan accountability? Well, I think you have to start with it looking at your future elected officials because they have no accountability prior to going into

32:07 office. Don't worry, they're going to have none sitting up there in Austin. I think you have to start there because - Some sort of

32:25 change in the immunity that - That's right. And that's a law of some sort, right? That just says whatever it is, that you don't have immunity if you commit a criminal. Yeah, 100 got you.

32:38 Sometimes you're written in the law where it's not to excuse you. And so I'll step down without - I will plea bargain you, not your criminal, you're criminally charged me with a felony because what

32:47 I've done with. illegal and I knew I did it, right? It's just like judges and a couple of years ago, we had three judges in Harris County. Everyone of them got arrested but they were committing

32:60 felonies from the position they held. So they should have made hell of a higher accountability because they were entrusted to be a partial of not kind of a partial person or a person outside what's

33:16 going up The words not coming in. But you get to just, but three of them, they were finally held accountable. They were in the shackles in Harris County, jumps with waste chain clots every other

33:29 criminal. But what made those cases unique where they violated a very important trust. It's like the parent, and this is very touching subject with people very angry, it's like the parent that

33:44 molests their children, They value such a trust.

33:49 that I'm almost like a God-given trust that you're supposed to be there for them, and you're supposed to be at a higher standard, you know what I mean? So elected officials, whenever you violate

33:59 the trust as a voter, that you're in your district case, is you go up there and you start acting like the rest of them go, what the, what did he say? Now, you're up there doing stuff, you're

34:10 covering stuff up, you shouldn't be doing it. You've got to be held to a higher accountability than an average person on the street. So you solved out that position, him and I, we weren't put

34:23 pointed at, we solved out being state representative members called we wanna make a positive impact of changing, rug, you know, get some backbone up there in Austin - Now I'll bring up two points

34:34 to that. First, when we write that legislation, can we call it the Paxton Doctrine?

34:43 Second!

34:47 Sorry, that was too good. I was waiting on it was like, okay - You wrote that last slide - We're gonna.

34:54 Second, one thing that I've already made a pledge to do is to keep in contact with my constituents. Every quarter I will hold a town hall, whether it be virtual or whether it be in my area where

35:11 constituents can, they can come and talk to me or be a Zoom or whatever and talk to me about things they're concerned about. Or if they're mad about this bill that I signed, et cetera, et cetera,

35:25 and I will talk and I will listen, I will reason with them. They can all hate me. It could be a big cuss out session, but I owe it to them to give them that update.

35:38 So I mean, I am bowing to have that quarterly town hall type session on anything that's going on in the legislature. anything that we're working on, any concerns that my constituents have, et

35:52 cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Secondly, I have a cell phone number just for my candidacy.

36:03 I'd have to look at my phone to see what the number is 'cause I don't call it. But I've given it out on several shows and it's online But my constituents can actually call and it'll go to my cell

36:19 phone.

36:21 And if they leave a message, I will call them back or if it's earned the day and I'm not busy, I'll answer it and I'll talk to them. I don't know of anyone else who has kind of made that kind of

36:32 oath to their constituents like to really be there for them. So I mean, I don't care if there is just the most fringe Republican who wants to call me a commie Tommy, you know.

36:47 whatever, combi tree hugger. That's fine, you know, you're my constituent. So I have, I need to listen to you. What does it that makes you think I'm a combi tree hugger? How can we fix this?

36:59 How can I change how you view me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?

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37:53 Yeah, no, I think that's good stuff. The flippant, y'all are going to laugh at it, but I'm actually serious about this. I think that the party that introduces a bill, the other party should get

38:07 to name the bill. You know? That'd be interesting. Right? Yeah. You draft something that's called the Clean Water Act. Of course it might look like Clean Water. And I think there would be some

38:18 nasty remarks at first But I think eventually it would push people together of, okay, I'm going to call that the Satan Worshipping Act, you know? All right, fine. We'll call it, you know? Not

38:29 bad. Yeah, all right. Let's go back to energy, because this is something that I think is going to be a big deal. If y'all are both elected, we're going to have to work on this together. The

38:41 industry is going to have to work with the railroad commissions We're going to have to work with the legislature, and you're going to have to work with the

38:51 We have a lot of stranded wells. You know, you basically, 'cause what you do is you go, drill well, you produce it, and everybody thinks, non-energy people think that a well just runs out a

39:05 well one day. It just becomes uneconomic. It's still making oil, it just costs more to get the oil out. So you temporarily plug it, because at the end of the day, you always find more stuff to

39:16 do in that well more if it's a behind-pipe zone or whatever, and then at some point when you deem there's nothing left to do, you're supposed to plug it and move on. Well, people hate to spend

39:33 money, right? So they don't plug wells. So there

39:39 are a lot of unplugged wells out there that are gonna have to be dealt with. There are also a bunch that were plugged in abandoned, but they were done 25 years ago may not be holding today. And

39:51 that's Brian is just saturating the - Brian is sitting there. So I bring that up because, you know, if you had thoughts on it, let's talk about it. If not, if not, I may make some suggestions.

40:10 Well, I'll put my two cents worth in on it. And you will probably know this. We have currently inspectors that even after they suppose it's being plugged, that goes around on an annual basis or

40:20 every couple years to inspect as well. Do we actually have something at the state level that goes out once they've done these five-minute plug? Do they go out and do re-inspection to make sure

40:31 things hold - No, it's, I mean, that's an oversimplification. Railroad Commission's supposed to do it. Railroad generally looks to industry and generally speaking, look, I think a lot and most

40:49 of energy acts responsibly. Right - In fairness. And so, there's supposed to be self-reporting on that. I have a, I had no other situation where reports were turned in that wells were supposedly

41:05 plugged and abandoned and they just weren't. I mean, the report. So there is something, and I tell folks from the industry, look, I'm energy loud, energy proud, but I tell folks from the

41:18 energy business, the oil and gas companies, you need to get on top of this and monitor your own and take care of your own, or else the railroad commission's gonna start doing it in a bad way, or

41:32 if the railroad commission won't do it, the feds will come in and start doing it - Well, yeah, and the problem that you're gonna have with that is anytime you involve government, things get messed

41:41 up. I mean, just being honest - Yeah, yeah - We really need independent councils who are in charge of that. I know the situation you're talking about Yeah, you were, you were, you were - I did

41:53 that podcast - Executive producer of that podcast - And, you know, the fact that, you know, her mother died, her cows are probably gonna die if they haven't already. And it was just because no

42:07 one cared. You know,

42:10 that's, that's the situation that we cannot have. That's the type of situation that enrages the, the, the green people - Yeah, that's what I'm gonna call them. You know,

42:25 I'm all, I'm all about, you know, environment and being environmentally conscious, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. You know, but when we're even our own like, you know, forces or a rover

42:39 commissioner is not having any kind of council that goes out and checks and stuff. 'Cause we know it happens, especially, you know, 20-30 years ago when you know oil was just booming. all over

42:51 the impermanent, all right, go ahead and stuff. Even when it was - I'm running the end of the studio where I keep saying the line, Mike - When the Permian was just going crazy,

43:04 we knew we're all these, well, where they are. We knew where they are.

43:23 And we're not inspecting them properly. We need an independent council, which is gonna make jobs We have an abundance of funds in our budget. So it's not like, oh, we're wasting taxpayer money.

43:25 I'm sorry, if we can preserve the beauty of Texas and also keep oil and gas jobs going, I think that's a win win - Yeah, no, I mean, I think the balance that you two guys are gonna have to strike

43:40 in the legislature when this issue is dealt with is

43:46 on one hand, yes, we need to. and abandon these wells and make sure that they're sealed, no leaks, et cetera, all that. At some hand, on the other hand, we require so much in the way of

44:04 certain things that producing oil and gas in the United States becomes more expensive, and all you do is produce it in Saudi Arabia and Russia, and those folks don't care at all about the

44:15 environment And so I think when y'all are sitting down at the table and part of that backbone is gonna be having to look at environmentalists and saying, Hey, this is actually fair, you know,

44:30 putting them on a schedule to get it done and monitoring it. So that's kind of why I bring it up, 'cause it's gonna be an issue. 'Cause I'll just tell you what's happened in kind of the finance

44:41 world of that. 20 years ago, you didn't even think about plugging in abandoned wells because The working assumption was, you know, all the stuff we yank out of those wells, that kind of pays the

44:54 plug and abandon it. So it's a zero. So let's not worry about it. And then call it 10 years ago. It became a little bit of an issue. So you at least put in cost to plug and abandon the wells,

45:07 but it was out near 40 or 50. So present value wise, it didn't cost much. Nowadays, I guarantee you, anyone looking at financing an oil and gas project, they're talking about how much does it

45:17 cost to plug and abandon these wells? What's the schedule to do that? And oh, by the way, we may not actually buy this property because I know the wall says we can have a temporarily abandoned

45:30 well there for a while, but we don't want that on our watch. So it's going to be an issue. Well, I think when you sit down with them to it and I always referencing the background as an

45:42 investigator, when we're discussing things, you may be a hatred of oil.

45:48 you've all you've gotten your tank about ignition. Think of that next, what's going on in the atmosphere. But then of course, a good investigator brings up, well, did you know that we're still

45:57 in this? Did you know that when, do you wanna debate someone with facts, or do you wanna debate someone with opinions? Because usually if you have facts and I'm coming in with opinions, I don't

46:07 wanna debate you, because you can show what service it does provide, and not just the negative portions of it It does, you know,

46:19 bring more to what, then what the news lead it wants to report. Yeah, so I think that's a matter of also knowing your subject when you sit down with them. The pros and the cons, and you can find

46:31 common ground. You can be a green person, or you can be a gas, or a person, there's common ground, and it's helping everybody, but the first thing it is, gotta get everyone sitting down

46:41 together and say, okay,

46:44 how are we gonna make this work? And it's interesting you bring that point up 'cause this is something else I wanna touch on. And this is just my take on things. So critique however you want.

46:58 Because I've had the Antina Ranch podcast and various others, there's a running joke. I think there's a meme out on Twitter that says the fastest animals on the planet, the cheetah, the

47:11 hummingbird, and Chuck Yates with a microphone running towards someone that hates the oil and gas business But I really am a big believer of we need to police our own. And if something's wrong, we

47:21 need to call it out and just say it's wrong. And we also probably ought to say, Hey, by the way, we messed that up, we're sorry. And it's interesting. So I think through some of that, the

47:34 other side has reached out to me, messages in Twitter, I've talked to Fairmount on the phone. And what I seem to think,

47:46 talking to my 19 year old daughter, I get this vibe too, is it's not necessarily that burning hydrocarbon is per se evil in the environmentalist mind. The true extreme environmentalist just don't

48:04 trust the oil and gas companies. They actually think the rhetoric of the planet will blow up in 10 years because they don't all believe that And Obama is not going to buy a Martha's Vineyard house on

48:19 the ocean if he truly thinks the ocean's going to rise. It's 20 years. Right. But they think their tactics are justifiable because they're having to fight fire with fire. So one of the things I'd

48:31 love to hear y'all's take on that and then my ask would be is it would be really great if we were able to figure out some way to build trust so we could talk about these type of things and find that

48:45 little ground. talking about. So I think that trust comes from accountability. Because let's say you go into a fast food restaurant, you order a cheeseburger, no catch up, fries, and a beverage.

49:01 We're not going to end a tea.

49:05 Okay. And so fries are cold. There's a catch up on your cheeseburger And the tea, you know, it tastes like the urn. Well you tell the manager and they're like, Sorry, you know, you know,

49:20 there's nothing we can do about it. And so you're like, Okay, so you, you know, take your, not what you ordered. And then finally, after a few weeks, you're like, Yeah, I'll go back in.

49:34 You ordered the same thing. Well this time they recognize you They mess up your order again and charge you more for it. And you're like, Hold on!

49:47 And that's what a lot of the old school, oil and gas companies have been doing. They've been making mistakes. They've been saying, Oh well. And then charging the consumer more for those mistakes.

50:03 And I'm not going to point out anyone in specific, just in general, that's what's been happening And I think if both sides can really start to come to some accountability, if the left can start to

50:21 say, Okay, burning natural gas is not as horrible as we've been leading on, like there are negative consequences. I'm not going to say that aren't. But if Certainly not as bad as coal. Right.

50:36 Yeah. We'll have to talk to Manchin about that

50:42 Like, I mean, if we can just kind of come back to common sense. And that's what I think Larry and I are both of us, just common sense. We're in Texas, we're gun toting, oil and gas, field

50:56 working,

50:59 Texas, American love and red blooded

51:04 people. We like our stakes rare. We're just who we are. And there's nothing wrong with

51:15 that There's nothing saying that we cannot come back down to earth. None of us are gods. Sit down at the table and say, okay, I messed up here. I messed up here. How can we fix this? How can we

51:30 make it better? And over time, actually make it better - So how do let's drill down on that? 'Cause I really like that point. It's something I wanna do. And I don't have any bright ideas on how

51:43 to do it. But how do we actually make that happen? Is it workshops? Is it we all go get a beer together? How do we actually do that? Because one, I always have believed the more you interact

52:02 with somebody, even if you're diametrically opposed, you generally figure out how to get along. It's a lot of times when you're not directly interacting that problems happen - Yeah, so I'm gonna

52:14 chime in - Yeah, please - Like me. I like my cigar. I ain't talking to the cigarettes, the cigarettes trying to pull the cigar. So a real cigar smoker knows what I'm talking about. But a lot of

52:25 times, many times you sit around and you talked to, I go to cigar lounges and I've talked to a diverse background. I've learned about things I would have never thought about. And what it is, you

52:37 gotta stop looking at My, Chase and

52:41 I as Democrats, Republican. libertarians, we're going to start looking at each other as human beings, that we have good ideas, we have bad ideas, and we can find common ground. We have to build

52:54 relationships with each other, not just while you're on this side and he's on that side. And I'm over here because a coke thing is working with each other to protect this generation, future

53:08 generation of taxes from stupidity And we all agree, we met them, there's some dumb people out there, you've got plenty of people, and they're not, they're not, they're the only dumb because

53:19 they don't have factual information. They have false statements given to them and they run with it. But I think building that personally, I totally believe that. I don't want to put a person on it,

53:32 but I will go ahead I think

53:36 80, 90 of what people describe as hate on both sides. is ignorance as opposed to truth - Oh yeah, oh yeah - Yeah - Yeah, I mean, another way that, and the way the parties are right now, like

53:54 they're so power hungry, but if we could have at least four viable parties nationally and you know, in Texas, you know how much stuff would get done? Like have four viable parties I mean, we've

54:12 got like two and a quarter now - Right - We've got Democrats, Republicans, and libertarians. Y'all, you're gonna - We're not even a quarter - Probably not,

54:22 I was trying to time, right - Right - You know, but like,

54:26 I mean, I bet you could say 20, pro got 20 - Yeah - So, I mean, unique situation, but yeah - You know, we had a representative, Firo, El Paso, he, one of the first ability to try to pass

54:42 this year. was HB 49 bringing back straight party voting. And that was my first tweet. It was like, what? What are you doing? I was like, this is the worst thing you can do for democracy is to

54:55 bring back straight party voting because it makes people not do the research and you can just boop, Republican, boop, Democrat. And that's it. And that is the exact opposite of what a Democratic

55:11 Republic is supposed to be. You're supposed to have elected officials and you're supposed to have taxation because of that representation. But right now we don't have that. We have two parties that

55:23 are struggling for control and then we have these smaller parties that really have some good ideas. Sometimes they're a little weird, just depending on which one. But we have several other parties

55:36 that have some really good ideas And if we can find a way to make them viable as well. I think you'd find that it wouldn't be so like two-sided, left, right. We could have a spectrum of government

55:53 cooperation - So let's do this to close out the podcast 'cause this has been a fascinating hour. Let's do this. I can really only speak to kind of energy. So we'll keep it in the energy realm. The

56:09 three of us, we've all kind of hugged it out here on the Checkcom podcast. What one or two things are we gonna do to facilitate that relationship or that communication? And I want it to be really

56:26 concrete and detailed. And tell you what, Larry, I'll put you on the spot to go first, chase you again, and then I'll go last 'cause that'll give me more time to thank. the hosts. So I get that.

56:39 Yeah, yeah. We're all flipping. We get more time to think about this question. Right? Well, it's simple. I'm a people's person. It's about building solid relationships, sitting down, you're

56:50 a libertarian. You can be rude. I'm gonna make you Republican. I'm a Democrat sitting here. And you're gonna deal with that. You're okay. Terry. Yeah. We're sitting here and we're we're

57:01 battling relationship not on the floor arguing and watching the main news media. The main news media folks turn them off. They're not about giving you truth. You might want to go watch unsolved

57:12 mysteries because you might get better understanding. But my biggest thing is about building relationships. So to put words in your mouth, are you gonna are you gonna and I'm sure I'm sure we can

57:27 find the money to do it? Are you gonna have the annual cigar party where everybody's in politics? Oh, yes Oh man, one pick up.

57:36 a place in Austin to do that once a year. That's right. You're gonna sit down have a good cigar. And if you don't smoke a cigar, come hang out anyway because we want to find out who you are and

57:46 which thing. There you go. Okay, I like that. Okay, so we've got an annual and maybe to morph it to

57:56 energy, you're gonna host the cigar party. We'll either do it in Houston, we're gonna do it in Austin. I will put you on the spot. You've got to bring five to 10 environmentalists and maybe five

58:10 to 10 people that you think are kind of in the middle. And then I have to bring five to 10 industry people that are kind of hardcore, maybe five to 10. That's right. Put them in a room. They're

58:19 not they're human beings. So we're gonna we need a cool name for this cigar energy. Let's burn it up. First burn it up party. Burn it up party.

58:30 When you say that, I think of the Amma house and my house is burning down. That's the image I got, right?

58:37 All right. So we've got that. We'll make sure that happens before next summer. We've got the burn it up party all the way. That kind of offends the environment. I don't think that's fair to do to.

58:49 No, but the gist is to building relationships. Forgetting what party affiliation Just remember we're there about serving all Texans, not just small select group. And no one here is saying they

59:01 want to pass new legislation that just outright they hate man times. So then if they can bomb up, they would, right? Everyone wants to thank you to one a little bit. Good for everybody. We all

59:14 have good and bad ideas. Let's come together and listen to each other. Don't be a kid. Just listen to my view You know, I'm going to quote, I'm going to hear with this one.

59:25 as I've lived and worked internationally. I've learned you don't have to agree with someone viewed, but you must be respectful of the review. And that's it for Larry Baggett - All right - I got to

59:37 - All right - Just what's your idea? We've got the cigar party. What are you doing - Well, you know, my second thing that I'm gonna do kind of goes off that. But the first thing is, you know,

59:50 oil companies are already getting their subsidies and stuff like that from the Texas government. If an oil company is negligent in something they do and they end up polluting land or water or

1:00:05 whatever, either the subsidy should be removed or there should be a fine, some type of thing, some type of government accountability, you know, to the company that negligently

1:00:19 polluted whatever area it is I mean, I know they have a little slap on their wrist now. Hey, here you go, that was bad. You know, we need some harsher stuff. You know, if they are damaging the

1:00:31 environment, you know, they need to be held accountable. That's the first thing - Yeah - You know, of course we'll meet with people, you know, do a burn party, whatever you are coming up.

1:00:43 Burning, burning man in a truck cell -

1:00:46 But, we're all gonna get that - Burning man - This is the second thing, and this fits in with the whole burning man thing - Okay Legalize marijuana for recreational adult use, because, I mean, I

1:01:00 know we already have hemp that's legal, but there's a lot of energy type stuff that can come from hemp.

1:01:08 And then if you're legalizing marijuana for recreational adult use, you do a 15 excise tax, you're bringing in 21 billion into the state budget where you can form these commissions. that are going

1:01:25 out and checking these wells that are, you know, making sure that people are trained properly on this and that, and then you got a lot of happy people - Happy people - I mean, they're all asleep

1:01:38 on Chuck's couch, but yeah -

1:01:42 One other person can tell you, from a police officer standpoint, is I've arrested people in marijuana, and I've arrested people that drunk. They're drunk for the worst marijuana people they just

1:01:52 get in the car for you sometime - All right, I gotta get your hands - See, that's the problem is people. Marijuana makes you crazy. No, you get around a few drugs. You know people actually wear

1:02:01 shirts. Do not get shirt out of home beverages.

1:02:06 Go ahead, Chuck - No, no - You know, and it's just a political observer. I have not understood why the Republican Party in the state of Texas has not fought for that, because, I mean, if you're

1:02:21 the Republican Party the state of Texas. You're sitting here with Californians moving in every day. And I understand that it is a line in the sand, the social issues that the Republican Party

1:02:34 believes in. I get it, in terms of abortion, et cetera. So I understand that is dear to them, but you've got to throw some sort of olive branch to the Californians moving in. And I've always

1:02:48 thought marijuana is a perfect thing to do for that I mean,

1:02:54 it's fiscally a great idea. We already have the infrastructure because we already have the medical marijuana program. So we have the crops. Right now we're paying like corncroppers to destroy

1:03:07 corncrops. Like, why not pay them to grow hemp? I mean, we've got everything in. Right now, people are still smoking weed all the time I don't, I can't stand it.

1:03:24 You know, there are wheat smovers all around us. And so, you know, if they're getting it legally, they're going to Oklahoma or Louisiana or Colorado or wherever, like they're getting it. And if

1:03:39 they're not getting it from there, they're getting the cheap stuff from the cartel, you know. Like we did a weird thing, 'cause I mean, what is possession of us in an ounce, it's a 25 fine. So

1:03:50 I mean, we in effect We in effect legalized it, but we're not taxing it. You know? Right. So, and I'm not a big fan of taxes, but yeah. No, but it's kind of like the syntax, you know? Like,

1:04:03 you know, if you want to smoke cigarettes, you're going to pay more because, you know, you want to do something that is obviously harmful to your body. You know, you go to a bar, I believe you

1:04:16 pay extra for, you know, drinks because it's, you know, It's something that's not good for you. uh, technically. So I mean, it runs along the same lines. I would, you mentioned that syntax

1:04:30 and I don't know how to give them my thought, but I thought that's the most absurdity because seeing is what you decided to be. It didn't make it right. I'm wrong, right? Right. Right. I would

1:04:40 listen to the philosophers, like, you know, I Irish,

1:04:44 the former philosopher, like they said, it's not good on bad. It's how you decided to be. Yeah. Yeah. What makes it a sin is you and me. I might and that's why people argue all day long.

1:04:56 That's why we're going to discuss abortion. Isn't the argument, right? Right. And that just that is you decide you decided it's just like if I have text your message and I don't know what your

1:05:08 mind said and you were supposed to. I was supposed to meet with you or you were supposed to make with me, right? And I go, you know, I'd of keenly, hey, what's up, man? You're having a bad

1:05:17 moment. You just gave that text message Holy definite, different definition than I said.

1:05:23 Well, you're mad about something and you go, well, H, go, you can go where you can get off, Larry. You don't like that because you don't know when someone looks at something. What's your

1:05:34 mindset - Yeah, I'll do a slight asterisk to your think. Sin is what mom told me.

1:05:42 Don't do that, she's probably right. Okay, so here's my weird idea on how we help bridge it. I'm gonna say it in a political setting, but then we'll apply it to energy. You guys, as y'all are

1:05:55 campaigning, it should be that once every two weeks, you and your family have to go break bread with your opponent. No cameras can be at either one of your houses, can be at a restaurant, but no

1:06:11 public appearance for it. You just, you should have to go eat dinner together - I would love to, but he doesn't actually live in my district. Then, well. what they are. So doubt 21. Something

1:06:26 tells me he's not inviting you to dinner now. And something with the trolling on Twitter tells me he's not inviting me to dinner also. But yeah, I think that should have to happen. And to the

1:06:36 point, kind of like your cigar party that we're going to do is the CEO of Chevron will pick on Mike Worth. Should have to go eat dinner once a month, once a quarter with the head of the

1:06:53 environmental defense fund. No cameras around, no media around, Chatham House rules maybe. They're supposed to form the secrecy, but they should at least have to go break bread. I think that's a

1:07:05 great idea. I think you'd see a lot of changes. And they'd have to go somewhere nice, obviously So you can't make a big scene, you know, somewhere nice. So yeah, I think that's a tremendous

1:07:18 idea. I appreciate that.

1:07:22 Well guys, thank you so much for coming in just real quick. You got a website for the campaign if people wanna learn more - Yes, I do. I've also got something for you - Uh oh - I ain't bringing

1:07:36 nothing - He's trying to get it going - You're gonna show both. So.

1:07:43 That's the website. It's wwwwestfertexascom. That's f-o-r-t-xcom

1:07:51 I got it before Alan West decided he was running, so he had to do that. West number four, Texas - Nice - Dot com. And this is free check - Oh, I appreciate that much - A lot of people don't

1:08:03 realize that when Chuck would come to the studio, he was obsessed with our hand sanitizer. Well, one of my merchandise things is hand sanitizer. So there's a bunch of Chase West hand sanitizer in

1:08:16 there for you - That is so true We were recording all of these in the height of COVID. Yeah - And that is your Christmas gift - Oh my - It's supposed to be rare. I don't know anything about it - Oh

1:08:30 my gosh. We're not gonna sanitize hands with us - Hello, the sanitizer's in there - Yeah, well - Well, thank you very much - I also gave you a lighter that has my logo and green for the burn party

1:08:46 - For the burn party -

1:08:49 Jesus - Got your T-shirt in there We were gonna get calling a T-shirt. However, when they tried to put the print on it, it was going all the way to the arms 'cause the shirt was so small. So, you

1:09:01 know, I can only get you a T-shirt -

1:09:04 Appreciate that. That's the beautiful - Well, I'm gonna be honest. I didn't bring you nothing except for me. So I do apologize - It's been gift enough - I appreciate it's coming on - Hey, no,

1:09:16 but I'm right now. I have my Facebook for at bag Texas House District 3. You can follow me there. I do put videos out. I've done some speaking engagements as well. I bring them back up. But you

1:09:29 can find me there. I do not have a website yet, but I am definitely working with someone, matter of fact. Now that I am an official candidate, I have people reaching out to me that's got

1:09:41 experience in campaigning from the Democratic Party who is willing to help me to see me move forward in this election, appropriate ways so we get some balance of power. And Sin, Mr. Cecil Dell,

1:09:55 home led him retired. Well, he's done his retirement through state funding. I know he has. So it's time to get some balance of power up there in Austin - Appreciate you guys coming on. And if

1:10:06 you're elected, I hope we will, and even if you're not elected, I hope we stay in touch. But I hope if elected, we can really figure out what is to get together and talk about energy. It's just

1:10:17 so important to the state. And we're really having a lot of problems when it comes to the feds. And so it's in Texas' best interest to figure out how to police ourselves and keep the feds as far

1:10:31 away from this as we can.