Casper, WY – Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) sat down with Haley Roedder of “Wyoming News Now” in the KCWY studio to discuss her work representing Wyoming’s interests and pushing back against the dangerous policies coming out of the Biden Administration.
Watch the full interview here and see the transcript below:
HALEY ROEDDER: Joining me now, I have U.S. Congresswoman Liz Cheney. Thank you so much for being here with me.
REP. LIZ CHENEY: Great to be here, thanks for having me.
ROEDDER: Absolutely. So, believe it or not, we’re already almost two months into 2022. That is absolutely insane to me, I don’t know about you.
REP. CHENEY: It goes very quickly. Definitely.
ROEDDER: 100%. And so, you know, what have you been up to so far this year? And kind of what do you have planned as we head further into the year?
REP. CHENEY: Well, certainly, my main focus has been doing everything we can to fight back against some of the really negative policies that we’re seeing come out of the Biden Administration. Policies that hurt our ag industry, hurt our energy industry. Of course, across the state right now we’re dealing with inflation, over 7% across the country. And the real fear of increased regulation, things like banning lease sales on public lands, threats that we see that we may be going down the path of relisting some species that Wyoming has done such a good job of managing ourselves. We see a real push out of the Administration, both in terms of increased spending that is causing us real challenges around the state in terms of what that means for the debt, what that means going forward. But we also see, from a national security perspective, what it means when you have a president who, instead of relying on our own sources of energy, is running around the world begging and pleading with people to produce more to provide more, because he doesn’t believe fundamentally in fossil fuels. So, my responsibility, my job as Wyoming’s Representative is to fight for all of those issues, to make sure that the voice of our ag industry, our energy industry, of all of our rural communities, that that voice is heard in Washington.
ROEDDER: Absolutely. And something that you mentioned was that inflation, and that’s something that we’re seeing in every single industry right now, you know, whether that’s the gas prices, or you know, the cost of our food is going higher, even housing is. And so, how is that affecting us directly as Wyoming consumers?
REP. CHENEY: Well, you put your finger on it. Across the board, you know, when you see the kind of mass infusion of cash that you’ve seen in this Administration, and you see the extent to which they have ignored all of the threats, all of the warnings, coming from primarily Republicans, you know, you really see the impact across the board. Of course, in addition to some of the spending that we’ve seen, it’s just been out of control. We have real supply chain issues. I was in Torrington earlier this morning, talking about the extent to which those supply chain issues are hurting our car dealerships, they’re hurting our ranchers, they’re hurting everybody, they’re hurting our small businesses. And that some of that is as a result of the policies of the Biden Administration, certainly the increased spending and the inflation is. So, we’ve got to get spending under control. And we have to get back to government at a local level, where we don’t have Washington, D.C. trying to sort of implement a one-size-fits-all policy.
ROEDDER: Great. And, you know, as our sole Representative in the House, what are you doing to make sure that this is known, that this is something that Wyoming is passionate about — is making sure that you know, these resources are able to use and that we’re able to continue to be an influence in this country?
REP. CHENEY: Yeah, well, it’s a combination of things. It’s introducing legislation — I’ve introduced legislation, for example, that would allow the sale of meat across state lines that is inspected in state inspection facilities, that would really help to relieve some of the burden on our ag industry and on our producers. I’ve also introduced legislation that focuses on telehealth. You know, we certainly saw during the pandemic, some of the restrictions were lifted in terms of reimbursement for telehealth services, we need to continue those. We need to make sure that those are permanently lifted so people can get access to their doctors, and they don’t have to travel hundreds of miles to do so. You know, I’ve also been working very closely with a number of my colleagues on issues like healthy forest management, making sure that we are pushing to have policies implemented that actually result in the kind of forest management that we need, that’s not going to create a situation where we see wildfire spreading across the West as we have or we see our ranchers not able to graze in our national forests or on our public lands. So, it’s a combination of legislation and working with the Administration to fight back against the dangerous things that they’re doing, to make sure they understand the impact it has on us here in Wyoming, and working to get much better policies implemented.
ROEDDER: And so, as we continue to move through this year, and things continue to happen within our country, what are your kind of hopes in that outcome?
REP. CHENEY: Well, I think several things. I think we’ve certainly seen that the policies of this Administration are very negative policies, and we need America to be strong around the world. I’m also very focused on what’s happening with our ICBMs at Warren Air Force Base. I serve on the Armed Services Committee and was very proud that Warren was named as the first place where we will have the new generation ICBMs deployed. The Biden Administration is working on a Nuclear Posture Review that I think could threaten the land-based leg of our nuclear triad. And so, we have to make sure that that doesn’t happen. So, continuing to be a voice for the kinds of policies that we need in Wyoming for us to continue to grow economically and also on the national security front.
ROEDDER: Well, thank you so much for being here with me today.
REP. CHENEY: My pleasure, great to be with you.
ROEDDER: It was great to be getting to speak with you.
REP. CHENEY: Thank you for having me.
ROEDDER: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
Original source can be found here.
