Congressman Frank Lucas (OK-03) held a town hall meeting on Thursday, Feb. 16 at Standing Bear Museum from 9 am to 10 am. This town hall was one of several the Congressman held over a two day period in Creek, Pawnee, Noble, Kay and Osage Counties, the areas he represents in the US House of Representatives.

The Congressman discussed several items included the lay of the political landscape in Washington DC.

“When we were last together a year ago, the body was a little different. In the House of Representatives I was in the political minority because there were five more Democrats than Republicans out of the 435 member body,” said Congressman Lucas. “In this session, there is still a five seat difference, but the voters flipped it and I am in the political majority.”

Congressman Lucas serves on three committees in this current session and discussed several major topics those committees are concerning themselves with.

The first is Committee on Financial Services, which oversees the entire financial services industry including securities, insurance, banking and housing industries. The biggest issue is currently that of cryptocurrency.

“Crypto is the wild west of the financial services industry. There are no real rules, reg, no straightforward laws dealing with it,” said Congressman Lucas.

Congressman Lucas shared that Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry (R-North Carolina) wants to introduce a bill dealing with the cryptocurrency.

His second committee assignment is with the Committee on Agriculture which has jurisdiction over federal agriculture policy including fields such as forestry, nutrition and water conservation, amongst other agricultural entities.

He discussed the 2023 Farm Bill. This bill concerns the five-year reauthorization of hundreds of billions of dollars in agriculture and food programs. Congressman Lucas said that there is a coalition of people opposing the bill including some liberal members hesitant to help these rural areas, and very conservative members don’t want to spend any money, on any occasion, for any reason.

The third committee assignment is with the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, a committee that Congressman Lucas serves on as committee chair.

This committee has jurisdiction over non-defense federal scientific research and development, with jurisdiction over several federal agencies including NASA, NSF, NIST, and the OSTP.

One of the issues tackled was the production of more computer chips domestically as to not rely on chips from overseas. Another issue was updating radar equipment for the National Weather Service, which is operating with equipment from the early 80s.

Another focus was on the space program and the prospect of a new space race with China.

“Sometimes my fiscally conservative friends chew on me a little bit on how much money we spend, but I’m old enough to remember the Gemini two-seaters. I remember watching that very grainy black and white picture, on our black and white TV, of an astronaut coming down the ladder. I was part of the generation that found that all fascinating,” said Congressman Lucas. “We’re engaged in another space race now, and it is not like the 1950s and 60s. The Science Committee was created because of Sputnik 1 in 1957, that got us all fired up about how far we were behind in science. In the 50s and 60s, the challenge was getting to the moon first, ahead of the Soviet Union and showing our technological prowess to the world. This is different now. Our competitor is not the Soviet Union…our competitor is the Chinese Communist Party.”

The Congressman shared that China has a rover (Yutu 2) on the far side of the moon and have plans to build their first moon base by 2028.

He then took questions on issues presented to him by constituents of the Third Congressional District. The following are some select questions presented in a question/answer format: Q: What procedure would need to be involved for digital currency to be put in place in America, and what are the chances it will happen?

Lucas: “I think it takes a statutory law that outlines the authority of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System. It also requires language that deals with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission authority under the ag committee because you have to have some entity clear all these transactions too. A lot of people want to define crypto as a derivative as opposed to a traditional kind of currency. What are the odds of it happening this year? I personally don’t see a consensus. I don’t expect a bill this year. The proponents of cryptocurrency like it because the view is you create a payment-transaction system that is outside the control of the government.”

Q: Is there anything being discussed to address China buying land in the United States?

Lucas: “Traditionally land ownership has been a state issue, and I believe that it has been on the books for over 100 years that foreign land ownership is illegal in Oklahoma. On the federal level, while it’s not against federal law for a foreign entity to own land, there is some reporting requirements. You’re supposed to report once a year if your are a foreign corporation or foreign individual that owns property. This didn’t become a hot issue until medical marijuana came along. The legislature put a moratorium this last session on new licenses. I don’t know if it is the Chinese government or organized crime. I don’t know if I can answer that question…but I will tell you that my law enforcement people tell me it is the most organized stuff that they’ve ever seen.”

Q: How did the situation with social security get so complicated?

Lucas: “This is an election season, or what I call a presidential silly season. A United States senator from Florida, Rick Scott, was chairman of the Republican Senatorial Committee, and who has great ambitions to be president someday, decided to craft his own budget proposal. And it was not geared toward the general public, but geared toward inter-Republican primary activity. One of the things he said was: ‘all federal programs should be sunsetted every five years, that way it makes us determine if they are really a good use of resources.’ I think, personally, something has to happen. But we’re not going to cut benefits, it’s not happened since 1935, its not going to happen now.”

Q: What can you tell us about these unidentified flying objects that were shot down?

Lucas: “We went home on Thursday, when we get back, I hope they have us a report on the piece and parts of the first big balloon they pulled out of the ocean. There is going to be a lot of grumbling about where was our air defense system? I suspect it will be confirmed as a Chinese spy balloon, I would hope by then they’d have the piece and parts to know what capacity it was in. These other things that we shot down, I honestly don’t have a clue. I don’t believe in little green men, but there are a lot of entities out there that put balloons up in the air. Somebody owns those things. When we encounter things we don’t understand, we try to pursue them so we can figure out what is going on. There are other countries in the world that will just start shooting. If we start something we can’t control it won’t because it is in the United States.”