U.S. House candidate Harriet Hageman criticized President Joe Biden’s energy policies during a panel discussion on Friday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.
Hageman was joined by moderator Sean Spicer, who acted as former President Donald Trump’s spokesman for a time during his administration, and Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Trump, who endorsed Hageman for the House candidacy, was also a featured speaker at CPAC this weekend.
The three panelists touted Trump’s energy policies, but harshly criticized decisions the Biden administration has made regarding coal, oil and natural gas since he took office in 2021.
“Wyoming is the largest coal producer in the nation,” Hageman said. “I went back and looked at policy under the Obama administration, and they very clearly stated that there is no such thing as energy independence…it’s simply not going to happen. Then we had President Trump elected, and what happened? Energy independence.”
Hageman connected the inflated prices in gas, grocery stores and more to misguided energy policies coming out of the Biden administration, which she described as a “disaster.”
“We have an administration that has gone to war with the citizens of this country, and everything they’re doing is increasing the cost of energy and fuel, food, housing, all of it,” she said.
She added that energy independence meant national security, which the Biden administration did not understand.
Later in the panel, she again touted Wyoming’s clean coal and the fact the state is able to produce it safely, as well as denouncing claims of climate change.
“We are not in a situation where we have too much carbon, we’ve got this idea of global warming and climate change,” she said. “What it’s really doing is it’s making America very, very weak, and it’s making our enemies very, very strong, because they’re not willing to destroy their economies in their countries for pursuing this radical green environmental agenda.”
She also encouraged viewers and listeners to push back against the idea that the federal government has the right to dictate to states how they should develop and use the energy they produce.
