Campaigning in Oklahoma: Newt Gingrich Wants More Drilling, Less Regulation

• Joe Wertz
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  Joe Wertz was a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma from 2011-2019. He reported on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets. He previously worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP/Getty Images

In campaign stops in Tulsa and Oklahoma City yesterday, Newt Gingrich reinforced the pro-religion, anti-regulation red state rallying cry, telling March 6 primary voters he’d undo most of President Barack Obama’s policies.

Economically, Gingrich focused specifically on domestic energy expansion, which played well in oil and natural gas-loving Oklahoma.

The former U.S. Speaker of the House spoke to about 3,500 Monday afternoon at Oral Roberts University’s Mabee Center before traveling to OKC for an evening speech to about 500 at the Jim Thorpe Association and Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.

If elected, Gingrich said he’d expand oil and natural gas drilling — offshore, on federal lands, and in Alaska — and said he’d approve the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL Pipeline.

From The Oklahoman’s Michael McNutt:

The Obama administration last month rejected the project, which Gingrich said would bring gasoline prices down to $2 to $2.50 a gallon (they are projected to reach $4 before summer), as well as produce more U.S. jobs and make America more energy independent.

Gingrich’s $2 gallon-of-gas remark is a sharp contrast to rival Rick Santorum, “who told an Ohio audience that big-city Americans should brace themselves for $5-a-gallon gas,” the Associated Press reports.

Santorum, the former two-term Republican U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, campaigned in Oklahoma on Feb. 9 and played on many of the same energy industry themes.

Gingrich also addressed the Oklahoma Legislature this morning at the state Capitol.