‘"The last thing we need is to put more regulations in your personal or business lives," state Rep. Todd Hunter said. "This shale play is good and we need to be helping you rather than burdening you."’

It sounds like Mr. Hunter is more of a corporate life coach than a state representative, but at least he’s making it clear where his loyalties lie.

“Smitherman railed against the possibility of more federal regulations on the industry in the future.”

You’d think that someone who’s in charge of regulating petroleum company activities would at least pretend not to hate regulations so much, but at least he’s honest.

“’If people are making money off of the shale, they'll be less likely to be upset by the inconveniences," he told the audience.”

Hopefully, the inconveniences that state representative Phil King is talking about are not carcinogenic in nature. Still, he makes a valid point – if I were a petroleum company, I’d hire him. After all, according to lawyers.com, he does practice both oil and gas law and eminent domain law, so he seems highly qualified to give advice to oil companies. However, if I were a constituent with an “inconvenience”, I might feel a little differently.

“Morrison said gathering these panels together and giving the audience a chance to ask questions is a good way to find out about problems and concerns the state legislature could address…”They deftly shrugged off questions or statements from the audience that looked at anything negative.”

So, the purpose was to find out what questions would be asked, not to answer them – that sounds like something that a typical politician would come up with, so I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising given who organized this summit – or was it a political rally, or publicity stunt, or something else entirely?