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By Jim Powell, Staff Writer
Yukon
Review
Dana Murphy, a Republican running for a seat on the
Corporation Commission, believes she has the experience and background
necessary to serve on the commission and wants to emphasize to citizens the
importance of the position.
“Every
time you flip a light switch, fill your car up with gas, use a telephone or
drive across a railroad crossing you’ve been affected by the Corporation
Commission in some form,” Murphy said during an interview in Yukon last week. “This is one of the most
important offices in the state of Oklahoma
and yet how many Oklahoman’s really know what it does?
A Woodward native and fifth-generation Oklahoman, Murphy has
a degree in geology from Oklahoma State University
and worked in the “oil patch” for 10 years before re-entering academia and
earning a law degree from Oklahoma
City University.
After working in an Oklahoma City
law firm for three years, she served at the Corporation Commission as an
administrative law judge for six years.
“I think it really
makes a difference to elect someone that has rural and urban experience,” said
Murphy, who worked in the farm and ranching industry as she grew up. “I’ve been
involved in the oil and gas industry for most of my life.”
Having already worked
at the commission for six years she “knows the structure and how things work”
and is “really prepared as far as regulating.”
According to Murphy, there are almost 120,000 oil and gas
wells, 3,000 oil and gas operators, 700 public utilities (including cotton
gins), 40,000 miles of pipeline, 4,100 railroad crossings, 9,000 underground
storage tanks and almost 61,000 gasoline pumps at 9,000 stations in Oklahoma.
She said the mission of the Corporation Commission “is to
regulate, oversee and supervise the drilling and production for oil and gas,
the storage and dispensing of petroleum based products, (and) the establishment
of rates and services of public utilities…to best serve the needs of the
public.”
The commission is also involved in overseeing the
conservation of national resources and abating pollution of the environment.
Murphy also believes it’s vital to maintain agriculture and
support the rural parts of the state.
“I think part of the challenge is we have to decide how
important is the rural way of life in Oklahoma?”
she asked, “and if it’s important enough to us to do something to insure that
it’s going to continue to exist. Oil and gas are number one but right behind
them is agriculture and I think we have to have all of it.”
The candidate said not everyone understands the energy
crisis and the need to develop alternative sources but admits each source comes
with a unique set of problems.
“We
have to have varied fuel sources to generate power — whether it’s natural gas,
hydro, wind, coal — we have to have different fuel sources and there is no
perfect fuel. There’s some difficulty with all of them and I think it’s just
like buying stocks, you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. We need a varied
stock portfolio and I think we have to look at fuel sources like that as well. Oklahoma is blessed
because we have a bunch of different options. Some states are not like that.”
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