I can’t support Clinton or anyone else in politics without giving up my sense of right and wrong. On Friday, Manchin’s letter arrived.
Senate Minority Leader Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, threatened on Friday to stop the confirmation of a key nominee for the Department of the Interior (DOI) because she is an activist for climate change. Senator Manchin is in charge of the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Laura Daniel-Davis was chosen by President Biden to be the assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Department of the Interior. Manchin’s action makes it impossible for her to get the job. As proof, he pointed to a note that got out of the agency and had been passed around for a week. As this paper shows, a lower-level official in the Department of the Interior named Daniel Davis chose to put climate measures ahead of energy independence.
When serving as chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Manchin announced in an opinion piece for The Houston Chronicle that he would not be advancing the nomination of Laura Daniel-Davis to serve as assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior.
To reduce fossil energy development and save on costs, “Daniel-Davis allowed increased royalty fees for the Alaskan Cook Inlet sale,” he said. I’ve always liked her, but because of party politics, I can’t vote for her or anyone else who agrees with a reading of the law that could be so bad.
In June of 2021, President Biden first suggested Daniel Davis for the job. Since then, she has had two confirmation hearings in front of the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but the full Senate has never voted on her nomination.
On January 23, the White House said it would give the Senate another chance to vote on the nomination.
Daniel-Davis is the main deputy secretary for now, and she is in charge of managing land and minerals. In the past, he held a big job with the National Wildlife Federation, an organization that has pushed for radical environmental policies. Because they are worried about how she would handle energy policy, Senate Republicans are all against her running for office.
This week, Republican Montana Senator Steve Daines said on Fox News Channel that Laura Daniel-campaign Davis’s should have ended a year ago when she didn’t get through the committee. “It’s not a surprise that the oil and gas industries are being attacked right now. Senate Democrats and Biden’s out-of-touch picks have put the religion of climate change ahead of energy security and the needs of local communities for a long time.”
On March 3, word got out about a memo from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to Daniel-Davis. It proved the department’s point that energy security would improve if the federal government lowered royalties for oil and gas licenses in the waters off the coast of Alaska.
Even though a royalty of 16.23% “may be more likely to help speed up and organize the development of [offshore] resources and give Alaskans more energy security,” the memo says that the maximum royalty of 1834% for Cook Inlet leases “favors a reasonable balance of environmental and economic factors for the American public.”
Daniel-Davis chose the option with the highest royalty rate, but he didn’t say anything about how this would affect the country’s ability to make electricity.
Because of the paper, Manchin attacked her, and Daines and other Republicans told her to drop out of the race.