In his interview this week with Sen. Mark Begich, KTVA reporter Matt Felling asked about the Gulf spill, of course, but also the emotional atmosphere towards oil and gas in Begich's own party.

In this week's best section, Felling asks Begich about something President Barack Obama recently said to Politico. Basically, Obama said that if he had gone to Congress and said they needed to beef up their regulation of the oil companies, he would have been shouted down as a classic big-government liberal. (It's Felling's first question, so you don't have to search for it.)

Felling asked Begich if Obama's comment was a sound critique (of senators like himself) or if it was Monday morning quarterbacking.

Begich answered that if Obama had brought up more regulation before the spill, he would have blocked it. "Sometimes they just want to regulate you out of business because they don't like oil and gas," Begich said.

D.C. is emotional on oil and gas right now, Begich said, but he's trying to steer the conversation towards more rational decisions.

"I also believe a lot of people in the White House and elsewhere, in my Democratic caucus, back then clearly didn't understand oil and gas," Begich said. "They understand it now; the problem is they're a little more emotional about it, so we have to keep it focused on the broad picture of why Alaska can do oil and gas development the right way."

Begich also said he's proposed some new ideas recently to try to keep rational thinking around "so we don't decide energy policy around emotions."

Contact Joshua Saul at jsaul(at)alaskadispatch.com.