President Biden asked Republican US Senators to meet with him to discuss his COVID-19 relief bill but not the request of Sens. Jim Inhofe, James Lankford and others to talk about his oil and gas job-killing executive orders.
As of last Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki made it clear Biden had no such immediate plans despite their request made to him last week when they sent him a letter.
“We have no plans for a meeting of that kind that I can read out for you at this point in time — sounds like a lot of people to be in a meeting during Covid, too — but he is certainly engaged on an individual basis,” she said at a press briefing reported POLITICO.
Inhofe and Lankford were among those who signed the letter drafted by Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“Your actions will have grave consequences for our constituents, and taking these actions on your very first week as president, with no input from those of us who represent these hard working Americans is counter to the desires of the American people who want practical, bipartisan solutions to our nation’s challenges, and who want policies that support working families,” the senators wrote.
In their letter, the Senators said industries that will create the new ‘green jobs’ to replace ones lost by his executive orders “are still years away from maturing, and provide no immediate hope for our workers.”
The letter for a meeting was sent after Biden first killed the Keystone XL pipeline then put a freeze on new oil and gas drilling permits for federal lands and waters.