RUSH: To the phones! We’re gonna go to Bruce in Farmington, New Mexico. You’re up first today, sir. I appreciate you waiting. Great to have you with us. Hi.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. Thanks for having me on. And since you don’t know me from Adam, it’s not an honor but it is a true privilege.

RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: Hey, I wanted to clear up some of this stuff about fracking, and I’ve been dying to get to you. I’m an exploration geologist, and I used to work as an engineer in a frack group. I’ll start with your methane comment today. Fracking has nothing to do with methane. Methane is the natural gas that you burn in your house that is the byproduct of drilling wells, and up here in the Farmington area we’ve got 30,000 wells. Of that 30,000, 90% have been fracked. There’s nothing new with fracking. We’ve been doing it since the 1890s, and hydraulic fracturing since the 1930s. In the 1960s, the Department of Energy even used nuclear weapons up here to try and see if that would frack better.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: What’s new is the drilling processes, the horizontal and the directional drilling. But because everything is political and words have meanings, the left has glommed onto fracking because nobody understands it. They haven’t heard of it before. Everybody can relate to drilling, and everybody knows you have to drill.

RUSH: Yeah. (pause) I’m not ignoring you. I’m looking for the story that mentions methane as part of fracking, and the story even postulates that’s why Obama is now trying to limit methane or cow farts.

CALLER: Well, what happens with methane in the wells is when we drill the well —

RUSH: Look, I’m glad you called. If you’re right, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got a story here that says it nevertheless. So the media or whoever is behind this is just putting out absolute BS —

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: — in order to drum up support for Obama on this. No matter what, we know that’s happening.

CALLER: Well, and they can’t point to drilling and say, “These new drilling techniques are bad,” because they know we’ve been drilling since early 1800s.

RUSH: That’s not stopping ’em.

CALLER: No, it’s not.

RUSH: They’re blaming earthquakes on fracking, horizontal drilling. They’re blaming everything they can on it.

CALLER: Right, and there’s nothing new about it. There’s absolutely nothing new except that the public is aware of it now.

RUSH: Well, wait a minute. You mean there’s nothing new about horizontal drilling. Look, I know it is an a new technology, but it’s newly occurring because of the cost, right? We haven’t been able to engage in it ’til the price of oil reached a certain level?

CALLER: Well, the technology actually do horizontal drilling has evolved significantly in the last ten years. You know, we had tried to do before. We knew these beds were full of oil and gas. We just couldn’t get to it economically because we didn’t have the ability to drill a mile out horizontally from the vertical wells.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: And we do now.

RUSH: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That’s why I say, “We’ve always known how, but it was never economically feasible or senseless to do it.”

CALLER: Right. Right.

RUSH: So the Saudis now — who are actively lowering the price of oil — are trying to harm our newfound independence via fracking. They’re trying to make it more expensive and less sensible for us to do it. No question about that.

CALLER: Well, the problem with that thought process is that we already know it’s there. We’ll just idle everything until the price of oil gets back up again and then get back after it. I mean, the only thing they’re gonna do as far as hurting us is a very momentary pause in what we do. And then, you know, when we need it again later, we know where it is; we’ll go get it.

RUSH: Just like we’ve gone and gotten it now.

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: But see, the thing that some people are afraid of — and I think wisely — is what if Obama comes out with some anti-fracking executive order, just outlaws it. With the ration of fear that exists, understandably, of government power today, what if people are just shut down? He’s gonna be gone someday, I know, and someday the price of oil is gonna come back up. It always does; it always has. Although I saw this the other day, too. Some expert somewhere (might have been in OPEC) said that the days of $100-a-barrel oil is gone forever. It’s never gonna get that high again, implying they weren’t gonna let it.

CALLER: It won’t happen like that because who this is hurting is the Soviets (sic), and if their industry collapses, they can’t recover like we can.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: Once they collapse, the price of oil will rise, and OPEC will own it again. You think a hundred was expensive? Wait ’til it’s $150 or $200, and then we will crank back up again. We can turn it back on. This country has got such depth and such capability, the industry will come back.

RUSH: Spirit of entrepreneurism.

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: Spirit of can-doism and refusing to be told “no.” I totally agree with that, and I totally understand it. But at the same time, do not doubt that people in this Regime are gonna be doing everything they can to make it impossible — with regulations, with laws, with penalties that are punitive financially. That’s how they are going to do this. It is very obvious. From the Keystone pipeline and Obama’s deliberations and his whole modus operandi there, it is very clear that Obama and his administration do not want the US to have oil independence.

Just like every other Democrat they run around, they campaign on it, they complain, they run against Exxon and they run against Mobil and all these other people. But when it comes down to time for the pedal to hit the road, they don’t want any part of energy independence! They don’t want this country to escape that yoke. It’s just who we have. I appreciate the call, Bruce. Thanks much.

This is Hussein in Orlando, Florida. You’re next, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, how’s it going, Rush? First-time caller, long-time listener.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: Hey, I think that George Will has it wrong. Obama’s desire not to have that pipeline come across the US, I think it has to do more with his adoration for Islam. He has a soft spot and adoration for especially the radical parts of Islam and the Middle East. So he’s not gonna do anything to weaken the Middle East. Having the US be self-sufficient, having the US be able to produce our own oil is gonna weaken the Middle East. That’s not something he’s gonna want. At the same time, he’s gonna have the ability to weaken oil companies, which support Republicans.

RUSH: All that may be true, but that’s not what George Will was saying. George Will was not commenting on whether Obama’s right or wrong. George Will’s point was that Obama’s handling of the Keystone pipeline has illustrated that he’s a faux intellectual, that he’s not thoughtful, that he’s not particularly bright, and that he’s not anything everybody thought he was back in 2008. George Will’s point was that this is so obvious, everybody knows it.

In my mind, who is “everybody”? I don’t think the vast majority of people yet realize what a fraud Obama was. I don’t… My point again, is not I’m disagreeing with George Will. Don’t misunderstand me. I wish he was right. Now, maybe in his world — people inside the Beltway that play chess and checkers every night — they may be talking about Obama being incompetent and a fraud and they’ve figured it out.

But do you think in Hollywood they figured it out? Do you think at Sony they figured out? Do you think…? Take your pick of anywhere you want to go in the country. The oil business knows. I mean, certain elements of the free-market-based economy know, but the low-information crowd? Does anybody in that crowd realize now how Obama has exposed himself as a fraud by virtue of the way he’s handled the Keystone pipeline?

I guess this is hard to explain. All I’m asking is, George Will’s stating what you and I all know to be true. I knew it before the Keystone pipeline. I didn’t have to have Obama show me. I knew that he was a fraud and a phony from the get-go. But George Will claims the Keystone pipeline — the way Obama’s handled it — has finally shown everybody, and I’m just not sure everybody gets it. That’s my point.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. I found it up in there, folks. This is it. It’s an AP story. “Obama Moves to Create First Methane Limits for Gas Drilling — The Obama administration laid out designs Wednesday to issue the first regulations to cut down on methane emissions from new natural gas wells, aiming to curb the discharge of a potent greenhouse gas by roughly half. … The White House set a new target for the U.S. to cut methane emissions by 40 percent to 45 percent by 2025, compared to 2012 levels. To meet that goal, the Environmental Protection Agency will issue a proposal affecting oil and gas production.”

I told you people I saw this. The caller said, “It has nothing to do with methane and oil.” Well, tell Obama. Tell the EPA, because they’re getting ready to regulate it here. “The Environmental Protection Agency will issue a proposal affecting oil and gas production, while the Department of the Interior will also update its standards for drilling to reduce leakage from wells on public lands.” Methane, which leaks during the production of natural gas, leaks, yeah, that means it’s not supposed to be there, right? Yeah. It also leaks when cows expel gas. Yeah. Not supposed to be there, right?

“Methane, which leaks during production of natural gas, has grown as a concern for environmentalists amid the ongoing boom in drilling for oil and natural gas.” Of course it has because they’re opposed to it, and so is Obama. That’s what the Keystone pipeline shows. And now with the gasoline or the oil price down hovering around $50 a barrel, now the anti-Keystone people are coming along, “We don’t need it anyway. We don’t need the Keystone pipeline. We don’t want that dirty filthy oil transversing our country in a pipeline, we don’t need it anyway.”

But they don’t care about energy independence, not for the United States. That’s not part of Obama’s dream, transformation for the country.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: James in Auburndale, Florida. Welcome, sir. I appreciate your patience hanging on.

CALLER: Rush, an honor to talk to —

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: — to such a person of a high position of authority as you. God bless you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much. I don’t know about that, but I accept your nice, kind words.

CALLER: Pertaining to the Keystone pipeline, when you’re contradicting the talking points of the Democrats, I never heard you comment about this, and I was interested in this. If there ever was an oil spill, under this Republican bill, the United States would have to pay everything, and Canada would be off the hook, Democrat or Republican. That’s not right. A fair question to ask you. Yes?

RUSH: Well, I’m not even up to speed on the concept. What happens if there’s a spill now in the Alaskan pipeline?

CALLER: Good question.

RUSH: I don’t know what happens. I don’t think they’re gonna build this with the idea of a spill. They’ll probably build it with the idea of making sure it’s tamperproof and all that. You know, we clean up the messes of the world, we just do it, whether they happen here or elsewhere. We accept the blame for everything.

CALLER: True. Thank you very much for taking my call, my friend.

RUSH: You bet. Happy to be of assistance out there. (interruption) What? (interruption) What do you mean? What was he gonna say? (interruption) No, he didn’t wimp out. He said that. (interruption) Well, he might not have said he was a Democrat, but he was. But he said in all the times he’s heard me talk about the Keystone pipeline he’s never heard me address the concept of who’s gonna clean it up. (interruption) Oh, he was gonna say that?

Oh, the caller was going — this in the screening process, you learn these things, and Snerdley said he was gonna make the point that we would never see a dime as a country from this. That it would all go to Canada. I don’t know. The oil would go to refineries and they don’t work for nothing in there. I wish he’d have gone there, and he didn’t.