And she wants to drill, baby, drill!
At the Los Angeles Times, "Trump said to pick drilling advocate Cathy McMorris Rodgers for Interior."
And at Bloomberg, "Trump Said to Offer Cathy McMorris Rodgers Post to Head Interior":
President-elect Donald Trump has asked Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest-ranking Republican woman in the U.S. House, to be his Interior secretary, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
In picking the six-term Republican from Washington state, Trump would be putting a Westerner who has favored opening more areas to oil and gas development in charge of the agency that makes those decisions for 20 percent of the U.S. McMorris Rodgers, 47, has been House Republican Conference chairwoman, the fourth-ranking party leader, since 2013.
Her voting record in Congress has gained low ratings from environmental and conservation organizations, though her campaign website promotes her role helping to write bipartisan legislation passed in December to modernize the U.S. energy system, including by speeding hydropower development, which is important to her state.
She supported a provision ending the 1975 ban on the export of U.S. oil, voted to allow Indian tribes to use biomass as a stable energy source, and backed a bill rejecting an expanded definition of “navigable waters” under the Clean Water Act. She also helped write legislation on funding for wildfire disasters.
Even so, the League of Conservation Voters gave McMorris Rodgers a zero score in the group’s 100-point National Environmental Scorecard reflecting votes in 2015. Her lifetime pro-environment score is 4 percent with the group, which bases its findings on lawmakers’ votes on the group’s top issues including energy, global warming, public health, public lands and wildlife conservation, and spending for environmental programs. The average U.S. House score in the group’s ratings for all House members was 41 percent.
