Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) caught Biden’s Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland dead to rights on the agenda to kill everything regarding oil and gas exploration. It occurred during a budget hearing. Manchin whipped out the Department of Interior’s own documents highlighting their intention to kill the whole show. Haaland was left speechless:
Biden Interior Secretary Deb Haaland struggles to explain a memo from HER department calling for the shut down of new oil leases.
“I am sorry, and am sitting in this hearing and not ………” pic.twitter.com/bLypsaAt8H
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 19, 2022
It didn’t stop there. The West Virginia Democrat took a blowtorch to the Biden administration’s energy agenda (via The Hill):
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) claimed the Biden administration’s oil and gas leasing policies have “put America’s energy security at risk” during testimony by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Thursday.
In a hearing on the Interior Department’s fiscal 2023 budget request, Manchin pushed back on the administration’s repeated references to the industry’s 9,000 unused leases to explain the energy crisis, arguing the administration has the power to pressure industry to use them.
“If the administration’s argument is that industry is sitting on these leases … why don’t they do something about it?” Manchin said. “For example, if the concern is that too many leases are not being developed in a timely manner, the department could increase the rental rates over time to provide a financial disincentive against holding leases for speculation alone.”
