Equality State News

GOP Senators have backed a bill introduced by Sen. Cyntha Lummis (R-Wyo.) which prohibits the president and certain federal departments from blocking energy or mineral leasing permits on federal lands without congressional scrutiny.

“As America continues to recover from a global pandemic, our energy industry desperately needs the Biden administration’s support, not its scorn. We must work to prevent any administration from crippling our energy industry without approval from Congress,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a statement, The Epoch Times reported.

Biden's executive order on mining could lead to loss of jobs by blue-collar workers and an increase in energy costs, as highlighted by Cruz. Lummis also argued that the ban would have negative impacts on the economy both at a state and national level.

“The Biden Ban would be nothing short of catastrophic for western states that are already reeling from the decline in energy usage brought on by the pandemic and continued volatility in energy markets,” she said in a statement, as reported by the Epoch Times. “It’s a one-two punch that means disaster for energy jobs, families, and communities. Through the POWER Act, Congress would reiterate that federal lands should serve not the whims of a radical progressive minority, but the needs of all Americans.”

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a dozen other Republican and four Democratic House members have since backed Lummis.

The move by Biden is set to curb environmental degradation and the president has since promised job creation through other avenues. 

"They’ve abandoned wells that are open now, and we’re going to put people to work. They’re not going to lose jobs in these areas, they're going to create jobs," said Biden, as reported by the same publication. He did not elaborate on the how part.

Since his swearing-in, Biden has suspended the Keystone XL oil pipeline and rejoined the Paris Climate Accord. A projected 1 million workers face job loss by 2022 and households could spend $19 billion more on energy by 2030.