Oklahoma U.S. Senator James Lankford said his opposition this week to a new national energy bill came down to standing by his conservative beliefs and principles when it comes to government spending.
“I do have a problem when we ask one taxpayer to pay for the weatherization and energy efficiency of their next-door neighbor and to say that’s good for America—that’s a problem to me,” said the Senator in an interview with OK Energy Today a day after the vote on Wednesday. “Energy efficiency is a very good thing, but not necessarily something federal taxpayers should pay for their neighbor for.”
He and Sen. Jim Inhofe split their votes and Lankford was one of only 12 Senators to vote against the Modernization Act..
“It is flippant spending. this is not being careful with taxpayer’s dollars. It’s also not being focused on what is the right thing to do with taxpayer’s dollars—what is a federal role,” continued the Senator.
But he also had a problem with some of the funds going toward more federal land purchases.
“There’s a good spot to be able to have national parks and that’s a good thing for us but right now, we’re not paying for maintenance on what we have,” he explained. We have an $18 billion backlog of maintenance of our federal properties now.”
He described it as a fund that just continues to add more land without any maintenance.
“Let’s add at least half of this money toward maintenance of what we already have and to make sure any property we do purchase, we fix up any issues.”
Listen to Jerry Bohnen’s interview of Sen. Lankford.
