Wyoming GOP Sen. Cynthia Lummis on Wednesday accused the Biden administration of harming Republican states with its fossil fuel policies and called for using unspent climate funds from the Inflation Reduction Act to shore up the Social Security fund.
“The Biden administration has targeted states that are red states, particularly Alaska and Wyoming,” Lummis said at the POLITICO Energy Summit. “They’re picking winners and losers, and they pick them by whether you’re a Republican state or a Democrat state.”
President Joe Biden has overseen record oil and gas production, but Lummis said his policies have tamped down energy production in those Republican states while ramping it up in blue states like New Mexico.
She particularly blasted the Biden administration’s proposal last month to end new coal leases in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana, the nation’s biggest coal field.
“It’s a terrible policy,” she said. “Until we have sources of base load to replace coal, we still need coal in this country.”
Lummis did not join former President Donald Trump’s call for repealing the Biden administration’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which has attracted heavy private-sector investment to states such as Wyoming. But she argued the unspent dollars would be better spent in preventing the Social Security fund from running out of money in the future.
“I’m not going to say there are no benefits, zero benefits, of the legislation passed in the last four years,” Lummis said. “But I will tell you, I think the detriment to our national debt strongly outweighs the benefits to our economy.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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