Governor Little spoke on a panel on restoring America’s energy dominance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C. earlier this month.
According to the conference’s website, the Conservative Political Action Conference brings together 18,000 people every year from all age groups who represent leading conservative organizations, educational institutions, elected officials, thought leaders, media personalities and grassroots activists.
Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke and David Bernhardt, both former Department of Interior secretaries under President Donald Trump, joined Little on the panel.
Little established the necessity and importance of keeping American energy secure in America’s hands.
“We must restore American energy dominance because China is not our friend,” Little said in a press release. “Our enemies control the worldwide supply chain of materials we need for national security. We need policies that work, and I’m proud to be a part of the conservative push to make our country more energy secure.”
Little cited his efforts to simplify state regulations and cut red tape at the state level, cutting and simplifying 95% of state regulations in his first year as governor. He said he hoped the federal government would follow Idaho’s example, especially with the backlog of projects from the National Environmental Policy Act.
“I worked with the Trump administration to streamline NEPA, but we lost momentum when Biden took office,” Little said in a press release. “Our proposed improvements would reduce the time and cost of NEPA compliance for routine agency projects, resulting in more efficient highway and construction projects, reduced fire risk, additional domestic energy production, and jobs from increased on-the-ground activities. We need to continue our progress in modernizing NEPA.”
Little and other panelists highlighted their opposition to President Biden’s expanding the definition of “Waters of the United States” in a new Environmental Protection Agency rule as the House of Representatives passed a resolution that would undo this new definition that heads to the Senate.
To learn more about the policies the governor is introducing, visit the Idaho Government website.