Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp is heading to New York to meet with President-elect Trump ahead of decisions expected next week on who will lead the Environment Protection Agency and Energy Department, sources close to the Trump transition team said.
The North Dakota senator’s energy policy positions align more closely with Trump than they do with President Obama on EPA rules and energy development. Her state is part of a 27-state lawsuit opposing EPA climate rules and she has attempted to pass legislation last year to repeal the regulations, while introducing a bill that backs clean coal technology that is a stated priority of Trump’s.
It is not certain what the two of them will discuss, or what position she is being considered for. A Trump transition team spokesman Thursday would not elaborate on the subject of the meeting during a conference call with reporters.
Some observers have speculated about her becoming secretary of agriculture, but her environment and energy policy chops are too profound to ignore. She could be a good fit for the Environmental Protection Agency based on her work in Congress and interest in energy and environment policy.
A source close to the Trump transition team told the Washington Examiner to expect serious considerations next week of names to fill the EPA and Department of Energy spots.
Heitkamp told CNN Thursday, “Whatever job I do, I hope to work with the president-elect and all of my colleagues in Congress.”
Underscoring her interest in energy issues, Heitkamp met with rural utility executives on Wednesday, and was busy on Twitter Thursday playing up her bill to support clean coal technology. Her state is a big user of coal as well as a major oil producer using the method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been particularly hard on North Dakota under its contentious climate rule called the Clean Power Plan, which sets targets for all states to lower their greenhouse gas emissions a third by 2030. North Dakota has complained that it has been unfairly targeted by the EPA with a nearly impossible target that far exceeds any other state.
Heitkamp met with the EPA alongside her state’s utilities to negotiate a more reasonable target when the rule was still in its its proposal phase, only to find out that when the plan was finalized the state’s reductions were even more stringent.
Heitkamp called it a “slap in the face,” she said in August 2015 when the plan was finalized. “EPA’s final rule actually makes it harder for North Dakota to comply, not easier as they have claimed, further burdening the state after our utilities have genuinely tried to work with EPA on a feasible solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Her energy outlook seems to jibe with Trump’s plan to increase fossil fuels, although she thinks it is feasible to up coal, oil and natural gas while reducing carbon pollution.
“If we’re serious about becoming North American energy independent while reducing greenhouse gases, we need policies that incentivize the use of natural gas as an alternative and the development of viable and cost effective clean coal technology,” she said last year in promoting her legislation to put in place incentives for clean coal technology. “We can find a viable path forward for coal — which produces almost a third of the nation’s electricity,” she said.
A little over a year ago she joined with Republicans in support of a resolution to overturn the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
She also has been interested in reforming the EPA’s renewable fuel program because her state is a big producer of corn and ethanol in addition to being the largest oil producer in the Midwest.
