WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), senior member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, expressed support for President Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. Risch also recognized the incoming Trump administration's partnership in stopping the Lava Ridge Wind Energy Project as soon as possible.
“The issue for us in Idaho right now is the Lava Ridge Windmill Project [. . .] We don’t want them in Idaho. We hate windmills in Idaho. They are a tremendous blight on our viewscape. We really don’t like them. The New Green Deal that this administration has put together is trying to saddle us with 100,000 acres with 241 windmills on them. They’re a little higher than the Space Needle.
“The good news is [. . .] that project has only got about 95 hours left to be on the table. That’s going to go on the by and by. Believe me, in Idaho, this is a 99 to one percent issue. We’re going to be so glad to see it gone.”
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Senator Risch also spoke on the importance of delisting grizzly bears and stated: “We don’t want grizzly bears – they kill people. The federal government already gave us wolves. We had them killed off about 75 years ago, and then some yayhoo back here decided we needed them again. We couldn’t get them delisted until I came back here, and we were able to build a coalition to have them delisted. Grizzly bears are so far over the top because they kill people. They don’t mesh with society.”
Senator Risch urged Burgum and the Trump administration to select a leader of the Bureau of Land Management who works well with Western states: “We had a real problem with [Tracy Stone Manning]. Fortunately, she’s only got about 95 hours left. She was an eco-terrorist. She engaged in the work that was done in Idaho of spiking trees – you probably know about spiking trees. Since she’s been BLM Director, we [in the Committee] haven’t seen her. She’s only been up here once in the four years. It divided this committee deeply. We had a huge fight over it. It was a straight party-line vote. She got confirmed. We don’t want somebody like that running the BLM. Particularly someone we can’t find. So, I urge you to use your best decision-making ability when you choose that person.”
Senator Risch celebrated the role Burgum will play in energy policy, specifically nuclear energy:“Idaho is the birthplace of nuclear energy in the universe. We’ve still got the first lightbulbs we lit in 1951 by generating nuclear energy. We built about 52 reactors out there at the [Idaho National Lab]. There is a tremendous resurgence of interest in nuclear. Coming off the drawing boards at INL are small modular reactors, which will be followed by modular reactors. That is going to change the world as far as energy is concerned. I’m glad to hear you talk about baseload. When you’re talking about nuclear, you’re talking about baseload. I suspect the world, as we go through this century, will rely heavily on nuclear.”
