Deb Haaland's Grilling by Congress Reveals What a Clown Car the Biden Admin Is Running
We’ve seen just how incompetent and bad some of the nominees that the Biden administration has put forth are. They’ve been so bad they can’t even answer basic questions they should know for their position, such as FAA nominee Phil Washington and judicial nominee Kato Crews.
However, the problem, as we’ve also seen, is that it’s not just the nominees, it’s the folks who are already in their positions who are beyond incompetent. We see how bad White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is every day at the daily briefing — she never answers anything and is always passing the buck to some other agency to answer the question so she doesn’t have to. We’ve seen the incompetence of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) lit him up over his incompetence at his job on Tuesday, with Mayorkas even refusing to admit that there was a “crisis” at the border. Then, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) trapped him into responding to what was an “assault weapon” and Hawley nailed him on his lack of knowledge about the influx of Chinese nationals coming across the border.
But the problem stems from the top, with Joe Biden not picking good people for the jobs. So Mayorkas isn’t the only Cabinet Secretary who seems out to lunch when it comes to understanding how to properly do his job and not just be a political hack. That became abundantly clear when Biden Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was also questioned by Congress.
Haaland was asked something she should have been on sure ground on — the Green New Deal — something which she co-sponsored when she was in Congress. Yet when Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) asked her whether she knew that it banned fracking and clean coal, she appeared not to understand that, saying it was “2023” and she “sponsored a lot of bills when she was in Congress.”
I guess that’s an excuse for not knowing what was in the horrible bill that she supported that now she appears to want to run away from.
Reschenthaler also had to tell her that the Green New Deal bans oil and gas leasing. So he asked her if she still would support it, knowing this now. Yet, she still wouldn’t reject it.
Reschenthaler also got Haaland to admit that reliance on electric vehicles would make the United States dependent on China, something the Biden team has no problem pushing.
“Electric vehicles and renewables are heavily dependent on critical minerals, correct?” Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Penn., asked Haaland during a Tuesday House Appropriations Committee hearing.
“Yes,” Haaland replied. Reschenthaler went on to tell Haaland that China “accounts for 63% of the world’s rare earth mining.”
“By deductive reasoning that would mean that electric vehicles and renewables deepen our reliance on China, correct?”
“Yes, okay,” Haaland again responded.
Yet at a time you would think that the logical response (logical if you didn’t want to kowtow to China and you wanted American independence) would be to increase our own domestic capacity or alternative sources, the Biden team is trying to cut domestic mining of vital minerals.
The hearing came shortly after her department shut down mining activity on a vast swath of land in the Minnesota wilderness, as well as land in South Dakota, said to be sitting atop a mass of critical mineral deposits.
In addition to the Department of the Interior, the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has blocked certain mining in Alaska.
In Arizona, mining has similarly faced threats from Democratic lawmakers.
Her staff is now trying to say that she wasn’t admitting what she admitted. Uh, yeah. sure.
Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), former Trump Interior Secretary, asked her some more simple questions and proves that he knows what he was talking about while she seems not to know or understand anything that he was saying. The comparison is striking. He asks her an incredibly important question: What is she doing to fast-track our areas for critical minerals so we’re not dependent on China or Russia? Her response is just more from the clown car of ignorance.
Perhaps the most offensive remarks — and there were a lot where the ignorance was just stunning — was when Haaland was being questioned by Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) who asked where would she prefer to get oil and gas: from American energy production or importing energy from countries like Venezuela and Russia. That would seem to be a simple lay-up question for Haaland. But not so much. She couldn’t even agree with that with a simple yes, which is frightening.
“I appreciate the question,” was all she would say.
Hoeven asked if she would admit they have restricted energy on public lands, and her response was we’re working to make sure it’s “balanced.” Translation: restricting production for their climate change agenda.
Haaland’s testimony shows just what trouble we are in, with these people in charge.
Post a Comment