Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso is seeking to take over the top Republican slot on the Senate Energy Committee next Congress from term-limited Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
“My state is home to some of the greatest natural resource wonders in the world. Our abundant energy supplies help power the nation,” Barrasso said in a statement Wednesday announcing his intent to lead Republicans on the energy panel. Barrasso is currently chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, though he also sits on the Energy Committee.
“The enjoyment, protection, and utilization of these special places and resources are at the very heart of our economy and western tradition,” Barrasso added.
Another Coal State Republican, West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, is expected to take the top GOP post in the Senate Environment Committee. She would be the first woman to hold the Republican leadership position on that panel and the second-ever woman to chair the committee, behind Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, if Republicans keep the Senate.
Murkowski, during her chairmanship of the Senate Energy Committee, has pushed several versions of comprehensive energy legislation. Her latest bill, the American Energy Innovation Act with top committee Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, hit a snag in early March on the Senate floor despite general bipartisan support for the overall package.
Many energy groups, supporting both clean energy and fossil fuels, are hoping the bill could still pass this year, as are Murkowski and Manchin, but it’s unclear whether Congress will take it up.
A Senate Energy Committee under Barrasso’s leadership is likely to maintain a focus on low-carbon technologies Murkowski has also strongly supported, including carbon capture and storage and advanced nuclear. Barrasso has co-sponsored several pieces of legislation to boost research and development for those technologies.
However, Barrasso may not lean as far into broader climate policy discussions as Murkowski, who has recently expressed an openness to consider policies like carbon pricing and talks frequently of how warming oceans, melting ice, and other climate change effects are harming her state.
Barrasso has criticized extensions of renewable energy tax credits and is strongly opposed to carbon taxes.
“He believes free market innovation, not government taxation or regulation, is the best way to address climate change,” Mike Danylak, a spokesman for Barrasso, recently told the Washington Examiner.
