Hageman vows to protect state rights and Wyoming interests

CHEYENNE — Republican Congresswoman Harriet Hageman painted a picture of a broken Washington, D.C., at the Greater Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Friday.

But she assured constituents she was standing up for their interests in her first year holding office.

Hageman defeated incumbent Liz Cheney in the Republican primary last August and swept the general election that brought her to the nation’s capital. She said she has been voting on legislation since she arrived to take power out of Washington, D.C., and her primary objective is to return it to the states, where it belongs.

The freshman U.S. representative said she wants residents to have a voice in the type of government that fits and works in the state of Wyoming, because it’s not Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida or California.

“It’s one of the reasons why I have always been opposed to stockpiling more and more and more power in Washington, D.C., is that it essentially disenfranchises you from being able to engage with your government,” she said. “We have one representative in Wyoming, and we have two senators who have a voice back there. But a lot of Washington, D.C. is broken.”

She explained that there is no accountability, and it will have to come from Cheyenne.

“Right here, with the state Legislature, right here with your county commissioners,” she said. “It shouldn’t be back in Washington, D.C., with bureaucrats that none of you will ever see and never have an opportunity to talk to, even though they may be making decisions that are going to cost you or your businesses millions, if not billions, of dollars over time.”

Although she is pushing for a balance of power between federal, state and local government, she is still tasked with weighing in on many issues in the U.S. House of Representatives. Hageman walked through her record on important legislation that would impact small businesses and energy in Wyoming.

She voted in support of the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, which would repeal appropriations for 87,000 Internal Revenue Service agents that were funded last year.

Hageman backed the Protecting America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve From China Act alongside more than 100 Democrats. It would prevent the U.S. from selling any oil taken out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and she believes it will pass in the Senate.

“I wasn’t aware of this until I got back there, but a lot of SPR oil has been sold to China. What is so wild about that is that our SPR is now down over 40%, and it is at the lowest point since the 1980s,” she said. ”But what a lot of people don’t understand is that the reason it’s at the lowest point since the 1980s is that’s when we were filling it. It takes nine years to fill our SPR oil reserves.”

Another piece of legislation to coincide with preventing sales to China was the Strategic Production Response Act, which is designed to limit further drawdown from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve until the Department of Energy develops a plan to increase the percentage of federal lands leased for oil and gas production.

“To the extent that any president determines to raid the SPR, they will have a plan of action in place of how they’re going to refill it,” the U.S. representative added. “We are not filling our SPR right now, even though President Biden has promised to do so starting in February, but he couldn’t because oil prices are too high.”

Other legislation she voted on was to end the COVID-19 national emergency, require the president and federal agencies to obtain the approval of Congress before prohibiting or delaying new energy leases or permits on federal lands, and provide access to broadband in rural areas.

Wildlife, economic development on reservations, protection of women in sports and fighting against environmental regulation were also on her radar.

However, Hageman has more than just her voting power. She discussed how she would utilize her positions on the Committee on Natural Resources, the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government to address regulatory reform for businesses and natural resources.

She is also the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs and the first from Wyoming. She said she will oversee the nation’s 574 tribes and five territories and find ways to build up independent economic growth in their communities.

There are many challenges she has recognized America will have to overcome in her work on the committees so far, but she said they will have to be handled because the nation is the greatest country in the history of the world in her eyes.

“We have to make sure that we preserve what it stands for, what it is and what makes it the greatest country,” Hageman said. “And that includes things such as the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment equal protection, the 14th Amendment, but it also means private property rights. And it means the rule of law.”