MIDLAND, Texas — Congressman August Pfluger paid a visit to the Permian Basin Monday, where he held a town hall meeting at the Bush Convention Center to discuss a wide range of topics.
Congressman Pfluger believes that town halls like these are important for any government official to have because they allow officials like him to hear out the people and what questions they may have so that he knows exactly what to talk about when he goes back to Washington D.C.
One of his main talking points was the southern border and what’s coming across it.
Congressman Pfluger mentioned the ten-year-old who died earlier this month after getting hit a by a truck, driven by a man who had been deported five times.
This wasn't the only issue he had with what is happening at the border.
“You see it with the drug trafficking and with the fentanyl issues and so many more that are hurting our communities. I've been named an impeachment manager, I don't say this with any sort of pleasure," Congressman Pfluger said. "We're working hard to hold the administration accountable for 9 million people in this country illegally.”
That impeachment is going against the current Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas who is part of President Joe Biden's administration that, in Congressman Pfluger’s opinion, has been overstepping their boundaries on a wide range of topics.
Some of that government overreach has been on the oil and gas industry, which is a key part to the Permian Basin.
“Time and time again, they've done this. They did it just just recently with regards to the pause, which is a ban on LNG [liquefied natural gas] exports, which again will hurt the Permian Basin," Congressman Pfluger said. "Those things are overreaching because they're not actually in law, this is the executive branch just doing this.”
Congressman Pfluger took time to mention a bipartisan bill that he had passed through the House of Representatives that he said pushes back against President Biden and an overreaching executive branch.
“Basically, this bill takes the power away from the Department of Energy and from the president on a political whim, to say that it is in the public interest to export our LNG which we've been doing very successfully from the Permian Basin for many years," Congressman Pfluger said.
The crowd also got a chance to ask him some questions.
A popular question was the current war in Ukraine and what Congressman Pfluger’s stance on it was.
To that, Congressman Pfluger believes that Ukraine does need support, but he wants the issues in the United States to take precedence.
“It's a tragedy what has happened in Ukraine, but I don't believe the president has given us a real look at what the objectives and the end state are here. When we have the debt that we have, and we have the border tragedy, we need to get our house in order," Congressman Pfluger said. "As we support our own security and as we support our own border, then it's time to continue to support our partners and allies around the world.”