Steve King (R-Iowa) last week shared his personal knowledge of exploration of the North Shore of Alaska. In 1970, King went to Alaska as part of a group hired by an Iowa-based company contracted to build roads for the construction of the Alaska pipeline until efforts were halted by litigation. Mixed in with colorful anecdotes (“When I was signed up they had to pay us $9.75 an hour, which was great wages back in 1970… because the rules then were there was no gambling, no alcohol, no guns and no women. I guess they knew that any combination of those four could cause trouble”) was a detailed, first-hand rebuttal of the absurd argument Pelosi is putting forth claiming drilling will take 10 years to produce results.

King explained, “Back in 1970, environmental extremists filed lawsuits to block the development of the North Slope of Alaska and then, as they went through this litigation, Don Young, when he was elected to Congress, introduced the legislation that cleared out all of the litigation that had stalled all of the development of the North Slope of Alaska oil fields from 1970, ‘71 and ‘72 and most of the way through 73… From the time that Congress cleared the litigation, in 35 months they had oil running from the pipeline ready to load on tankers at Valdez. And that’s after having drilled the wells, set up the collection tubes, built the terminal at Dead Horse, mile post zero at the head of the Alaska pipeline on that end, built 854 miles of pipeline down to Valdez where they built another terminal where they could load tankers and 600 miles of right of way [roads] that I was signed up on to build. All of that happened in 35 months.”

In an Oct. 30, 2002, story, Iowa journalist Chuck Offenburger talked to King about the Alaska experience.

Let’s go back to his own college years, I told him as we began our chat. What was he studying at Northwest Missouri State in Maryville, Mo.? When did he decide to quit, and why?

“Well, I was a math major, but I switched to biology and what I really wanted to become was a forest ranger,” said King, who had graduated from Denison High School in 1967. “In the second semester of my junior year, I sent out letters seeking employment that would give me some experience as a forest ranger.”

He learned most western states were hiring only their own college kids, so he took a construction job in his home area in that summer of 1970. He started making good money as he moved from common laborer to blow torch operator to truck driver to an operator of end-loaders. It was enough money that going back to college became less attractive for the young guy.

Then he learned about a construction opportunity on the Alaska pipeline. He was told he could do six-month tours working up there, with all expenses paid and a promise he could bank $50,000 per tour.

“I figured I could do two tours, have $100,000 in the bank and get a good start in whatever I wanted to do,” King said.

About that same time, he got engaged to the high school girlfriend that is now his wife of 30 years, Marilyn, a kindergarten teacher in the Odebolt-Arthur schools.

So for Steve King, back there in the summer of 1970, it was goodbye college, hello life.

But a court injunction stopped the Alaska pipeline project for a time. Finding himself “on hold for about two years,” King began working in road construction and pipeline construction in Iowa and Kansas, driving bulldozers and big earth scrapers.

Congressman Steve King, R-Kiron, says the United States must rely on a host of energy sources to meet its needs, including more domestic oil drilling.

In a town-hall swing through western Iowa dominated by energy issues, U.S. Rep. Steve King Tuesday sought to shackle Democrats with an “environmental extremist coalition” blocking the oil drilling and nuclear power he sees as vital to the economy.

“I want to expand all sources of American energy,” King, a Kiron Republican, started the day telling a crowd at the Council Bluffs Airport.

King also held sessions in Red Oak, Creston and Denison in which energy remained a key focus.

“Energy, energy, energy is the No. 1 thing right now,” said Scott McLain, 44, of Creston. “I’m a big Steve King fan.”

King, who said he’s “skeptical” about global warming, came to the meetings with charts and graphs to press his case to what were clearly receptive gatherings. At one point in Creston, members of the audience chanted “drill, drill, drill.”

“Anybody who says you can’t drill your way out of the problem is akin to saying you can’t eat your way out of being hungry,” said McLain, who operates an abstract company in Creston.

King noted that Iowa’s 5th Congressional District tops all others for its combined mix of ethanol, biodiesel, and wind power. He wants to see those sources developed and said Iowa’s community colleges should be educating people in related fields. But King says traditional sources like oil and coal must be pursued vigorously if the American economy is to grow.

“You can see $2 gas again,” King told about 15 people at US Bank in Red Oak.

The Iowa congressman — who in Creston told an audience of about 30 people that he had tried to drill for oil himself at one point (although he didn’t expand on that) — disagrees with billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens who is pushing a wind-energy and natural-gas plan.

“He may be right, but this is a problem we can’t get out of without drilling,” King said.

King said American oil companies should have incentives to chase down more. He defended the profits of Exxon Mobil, an energy giant he says Democrats have used as a whipping boy.

“I’m glad Exxon made $40 billion,” King said.  “Sovereign tyrants,” not U.S. energy companies, are to blame for energy prices, he continued.  “We need more companies like Exxon.”

In King’s view, a comprehensive energy strategy must rely heavily on nuclear power as well. King said concerns sparked by the nation’s most infamous nuclear accident at Three Mile Island are exaggerated.

“By the way, if you had been chained to the reactor at Three Mile Island when it started its reactivity, you would have gotten about the equivalent dose of an X-ray,” King said in Council Bluffs. “And that was all. So the safest energy we have is nuclear.”

King supports McCain’s foreign policy

King said the Russian invasion of Georgia could lead to problems of the sort the United States faced when the Soviet Union existed.

King said U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was right when he said that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had the eyes of KGB.

“It looks to me that Putin is starting the beginnings of a Cold War and seeking to reconstruct the old Soviet Union,” King said.

In fact, King said, he thinks Putin is flexing his muscle in anticipation of Democrat Barack Obama winning the U.S. presidential election in November.

“I think he’s looking at these presidential elections and he’s getting bolder because of what he thinks will happen,” King said.

Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, faces McCain in the 2008 presidential race.

King said McCain’s position on Iraq is proving to be correct as the military surge there is working.

As evidence King cited Obama’s recent visit to Iraq when the presidential candidate, according to King, was able to deboard an airplane in Baghdad in shirtsleeves with no bulletproof vest. King said that on a recent visit there security personnel required him to wear more protection than Obama did — which shows, King says, that it is safer now.

“If I got shot over there, they don’t care as much as if he gets shot,” King said.  “The reason he could stand there in shirtsleeves is because the surge worked good.”

(The Iowa Independent was unable to confirm that Sen. Obama deplaned in Baghdad without a bulletproof vest, because media were not with him at that point in his trip for security reasons.)

King takes a hard line on immigration

At all four of King’s town hall stops, audience members wanted to hear from the congressman on immigration — an issue King is known for nationally, but one which he says is not as prominent in the presidential election as it should be because of the respective parties’ standard bearers.

“Neither presidential candidate wants to make the debate about immigration,” King said.

For his part, King strongly advocated building a border fence, although he didn’t put a length on it when talking in Red Oak.  “I say let’s build it until they stop going around the end,” King said.

King said he sees the immigration debate in clear terms.  “The central pillar of American exceptionalism is the rule of law,” he said.

King said illegal immigrants — which he estimates at 20 million, much higher than the widely accepted figure of 12 million — should be sent to the situation they were in before their first violations of U.S. laws took place.

“That’s the nice way of saying deportation,” King said. “To grant amnesty is to pardon immigration lawbreakers and to reward them with the objectives of their crimes.”

King, who supported former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson in the Iowa caucuses and took issue with some of McCain’s positions on immigration, said he thought his role as a congressman in 2009 would be to “embarrass” the next administration, regardless of who wins, to enforce immigration law.

“If that’s what it comes to, that’s what we’ll do,” King said.

Looking ahead

King didn’t predict the outcome of the presidential race, and in an interview with Iowa Independent that he declined to speculate about or advocate for a GOP vice presidential candidate. But he did say he thought the race would open up one way or the other soon.

“I really don’t think it’s going to be a close race,” King said.

He said a slow burn of attacks on McCain could weaken him, or the nation could watch as Obama’s balloon bursts.

“I think it could be something that happens in one or two weeks,” King said.

In Creston, King called for a move to a national sales tax, arguing that, for example, if kids have to pay pennies on their Skittles candy purchases it will create a new generation of fiscal conservatives.

In Denison, King spent some time on transportation issues, acknowledging that he is making work on U.S. 20 more important for his office than U.S. 30.

“My number-one priority is a four-lane highway from Sioux City to Dubuque,” King said.

King told Iowa Independent he wasn’t advocating U.S. 20 to the exclusion of 30, and said he would collaborate with Carroll on the potential federal role for a second overpass in the city.

In total King spoke to about 100 constituents during the town-hall schedule Tuesday. King faces Council Bluffs Democrat Rob Hubler, a retired Presbyterian minister, in the fall election.

Bob Soloth, 64, a grain farmer and lifelong resident of the McLelland area near Council Bluffs, said King’s message resonates in his part of the 5th District.

“He’s right on energy,” Soloth said. “He’s right on spending. There’s really been very little I’ve disagreed with him on.”

Soloth says he has no problems with King’s well-chronicled confrontational presentation of the issues. “A lot of times when you speak the truth it’s provocative,” Soloth said. “A lot of times people want to pussyfoot around the problem.”