Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., blasted California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday on Newsmax after he said during a climate conference in Brazil that President Donald Trump's plan to open six new offshore oil leases along California's coast was "dead on arrival."
Zeldin told "Rob Schmitt Tonight" that Newsom should focus on fixing California's problems instead of campaigning abroad.
"Maybe instead of Gov. Gavin Newsom spending his time down in Brazil, he should come back home to California and save a state that, unfortunately, a lot of other Americans are pretty embarrassed by," Zeldin said. "And a whole lot of Californians are leaving by the day."
Zeldin defended the administration's energy strategy, saying Congress and the White House have reversed several of the Biden-era EPA rules that targeted traditional energy production.
"Thankfully, this administration sent to Congress, and then with Sen. Capito's leadership, passed three Congressional Review Act bills to get rid of Biden EPA waivers on tailpipe emissions, including that electric vehicle mandate, which the president was able to sign into law," he said.
Newsom attended the World Climate Action Summit in Belém, Brazil, where he vowed to block any drilling along the state's 840-mile coastline, calling offshore oil expansion "a relic of the past."
Trump administration officials reportedly are planning to open the California coast to oil drilling lease sales for the first time in decades, according to a draft map reviewed by The Washington Post. The plan proposes six offshore lease sales between 2027 and 2030 along the California coast.
Capito said that cutting off access to domestic energy resources would raise prices and deepen economic inequality.
"We can be self-reliant on our own energy resources, whether it's oil, natural gas, coal, wind, solar, nuclear — whatever it is, we're going to need it all," she said. "To cut off resources the way the governor of California is explaining that he's going to do, all he's going to do is have California reach even quicker to $6 [a gallon] gas."
Capito said such policies "cut jobs, hurt people in the middle and lower incomes, and stymie development."
"Energy is the key to prosperity," she added. "That's what we see here in West Virginia. And that's what we're for."
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