Freshman U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) speaks to constituents Saturday morning in Ark City during a town hall inside Cowley College’s Brown Center. (Photo by Brady Bauman)
ARKANSAS CITY — Freshman U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall held a town hall Saturday morning in Ark City and said the federal government will be looking into abnormal natural gas price spikes that took place during a historic cold snap earlier this month.
The City of Winfield has told customers natural gas prices on the daily index went from under $3/MMBtu to as high as $428/MMBtu during the coldest days of the cold snap and that those unprecedented price hikes combined with jumps in usage left the City with a natural gas cost increase of $10 million over just six days.
Typically, the City spends approximately $1.6 million on natural gas for customers over an entire year.
A couple days after the price peak, however, the City said prices per unit dropped back to below $5.
Marshall, who won the seat formally held for decades by Pat Roberts in November after six years in the House of Representatives, told the crowd inside the Brown Center at Cowley County Community College the issue is being examined by the Federal Energy Regulation Committee and is expected to get a hearing in the Senate.
Marshall credited Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) for helping speed up the hearing process. Manchin is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
“That sounds like a simple thing to get done, to get a hearing in D.C. — but for this to be a priority, and to get such quick response from Joe Manchin, by the way — who is the one who is going to allow us to have the hearing — so I’ve got more questions than I do answers right now,” Marshall said. “I am concerned. Was there price gouging? Was there something nefarious going on? But I can’t point a finger anywhere yet, so I’ve got a lot more research to do.
“But certainly, I’m concerned.”
Marshall met with city officials from several municipalities Friday in Wichita, including Winfield City Manager Taggart Wall and others.
“We had a great conversation,” Wall told KSOK-NewsCow Saturday. “We appreciate his efforts to shine some light on exactly what did or didn’t happen with respect to the pricing.”
Wall also said Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas has also been helpful on this issue, along with the rest of Winfield’s congressional representation.
Thursday, Wall told KSOK-NewsCow customers of natural gas would not see the spike in their bills all at once and that it would instead be spread out over several months or potentially longer.
Saturday, Wall said it would be a few weeks until the City knew the exact scope of the natural gas hikes and how they would translate to customer’s bills. Wall added bigger bills are expected for customers of larger private utilities as well.
“Our community, I think, has been most appreciative that we have been upfront about the situation — we’ve been transparent,” he said. “This is not just going affect municipal utilities. The private utilities are seeing impacts from the price that spiked… some of the larger utilities haven’t said just exactly how that’s going to effect their customers yet…. but we’ve been a little more upfront with folks and so far the feedback we get is that they appreciate that.”
Wall said he hopes the Senate hearing looks into the trading that went on for natural gas during the period prices saw never-before-seen increase.
“Let’s not just settle on just saying, ‘Okay, we have this bill,'” Wall said. “Let’s do some work on this. We’re going to fight the charges as hard as we can, as well.
“What’s interesting to me is that when this happens with GameStop or others, the SEC steps in to protect people right? Nobody has stepped in to protect anybody on this… I’ve been pretty open that I think something happened.”
Marshall, who said he suspects price gouging, said financial relief for the City and customers from the federal government is not certain.
“I don’t see any simple, easy options,” he said. “I think that’s exactly what the gas companies want to happen here. I think we need to figure out why, and what and how come, and hold them responsible first.
“There’s no easy get-out-of-jail free money, slush money, sitting there at the federal government for this that I’m aware of. I don’t think we’re going to qualify for any emergency disaster. There wasn’t enough property damage to qualify for that.
“So, I think the first thing we got to do is look at a mirror and see what else we can do locally before we always turn to the federal government to fix it — but we’re looking.”
Other Topics:
Constituents asked questions that often covered topics including jobless benefits and the federal minimum wage. Several in the crowd, including those who said they switched their children to home schooling, also used the occasion to air grievances concerning public schools.
Marshall said he was against a $15 federal minimum wage, but when pressed by a constituent on the matter, and that the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009, Marshall said he believed the state of Kansas should increase its minimum wage and that it should increase on a state-by-state basis.
Marshall also took time to discuss his opposition to transgender athletes.
Marshall was criticized by a World War II veteran for joining fellow Republican Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas in their objections to the electoral college certifications of several states on Jan. 6 and for his vote to acquit former president Donald Trump of accusations he incited riots on the U.S. Capitol Building during those certification votes. However, the veteran’s sentiment wasn’t shared by the majority of the room. Marshall was applauded after defending his actions.
Marshall was also asked if there was any chance Senate Republicans would remove Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell from his leadership role.
“I would say that Leader McConnell is the leader and will be for a long time,” Marshall answered. “I don’t see a change in the near future.”
When asked why, Marshall was frank, but jovial.
“He’s got a lot of power,” Marshall laughed.
When asked how Republicans will unify, Marshall said the next two years of the Biden presidency will unify the party ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
