Wednesday, Wyoming GOP Sen. Cynthia Lummis said that the Biden administration’s policies on fossil fuels hurt Republican states. She also said that the Social Security fund should be bolstered with climate funds from the Inflation Reduction Act that have not been spent yet.
The Biden government has been going after red states, like Alaska and Wyoming, Lummis said at the POLITICO Energy Summit. “They decide who wins and who loses based on whether you live in a Democrat or Republican state.”
Oil and gas production has reached all-time highs under President Joe Biden, but Lummis said that his policies have slowed down energy output in red states like Texas while speeding it up in blue states like New Mexico.
She was especially angry about the Biden administration’s plan last month to stop new coal leases in the Powder River Basin, which is the largest coal area in the country and is in Wyoming and Montana.
“That’s a bad rule,” she said. “We will still need coal in this country until we can find other sources of baseload power.”
Lummis did not agree with former President Donald Trump’s call to get rid of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was Biden’s signature climate bill and has brought a lot of private investment to states like Wyoming. She said, though, that the money that wasn’t spent would be better used to keep the Social Security fund from running out of money in the future.
“I am not going to say that the laws passed in the last four years have no benefits at all,” Lummis said. “But I will tell you this: I believe the harm to our national debt is much greater than the good for our economy.”
