President Joe Biden's ban on oil and gas leases on federal lands is a "direct attack" on Wyoming and other states that rely on energy to boost their economy and employ their workforce, according to Gov. Mark Gordon.
"This Biden ban really has a devastating effect, not just for Wyoming," Gordon told Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "It's bipartisan in its devastation."
The level of the financial impact is going to measured by state agencies, as required by a recent executive order by the Republican governor.
"Losing that revenue is devastating to our schools, devastating to our communities, devastating to those small businesses that really depend on the energy sector," Gordon said. "It's a big deal."
After Biden's Jan. 20 order, Gordon retaliated with his own executive order Jan. 29:
"[Biden] signed executive order No. 13990 requiring the Secretary of the Interior to unilaterally stop all Federal leasing of oil and gas resources in Wyoming. Such action will cause immediate and considerable harm to the state of Wyoming, including to the critical services upon which Wyoming residents depend."
Wyoming's lands nearly half federally owned, per the governor.
"There's obviously this discussion about being able to train new workers with new jobs and new capacities, but it's not a one for one kind of thing," Gordon said.
"When you look at a place like Gillette, which has benefited from years over years of energy development, it's really established itself as a pretty remarkable town. And then you look at what happens with just sort of a big group of people coming to construct renewables and then leaving, it's a little bit [of a] different impact on our communities."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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