4-term United States Senator feigns disappointment with results of deal to purchase oceanfront property in North Dakota
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Wrestling fans will have to tell me if there’s a term for this particular stage of the kayfabe:
The Trump administration has been aggressively working to suffocate the wind and solar industry in the United States. Its latest action could do the trick.
As POLITICO first reported on Wednesday, the Interior Department issued a directive requiring Secretary Doug Burgum’s personal approval for even the most routine activities related to wind and solar projects on federal lands. The directive could have a much broader impact, affecting scores of projects on private land that must pass through or connect with projects on Interior-managed federal land, according to industry officials, financiers and lawyers.
The memo comes as President Donald Trump has sought to squelch new wind and solar projects through executive orders and limit use of federal tax credits that moderate Republicans fought to preserve in their megalaw earlier this month. Trump has decried those energy sources as harmful to the power grid’s reliability and said those industries ultimately benefit China, which controls a sizable chunk of the world’s wind and solar supply chains.
But the directive sparked bipartisan angst on Capitol Hill. Congressional Republicans fear a future Democratic administration will use these moves as a roadmap to derail fossil fuel energy sources. Democrats worry Trump’s efforts to stunt less expensive wind and solar projects will raise electricity prices across the country.
“It is definitely playing favorites and they’ve made it very clear they do not support continuation of new wind and solar projects,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), adding the Interior memo “is like putting the final nail into” a last-minute compromise she helped negotiate as part of the GOP’s megalaw offering more time for projects that begin construction in the next 12 months to qualify for tax credits.
To be Scrupulously Fair, nobody could ever have anticipated Donald Trump reneging on a deal, Donald Trump finding ways to impound congressional appropriations, or regulatory means of obstructing clean energy projects.
One could call Murkowski a sucker here, but the truth is less honorable than that: she’s almost certainly a liar, not a complete idiot. And since feigning idiocy has been a smashing political success for the two “moderate” members of the Republican Senate conference, why stop?
The audacity and success of the Collins-Murkowski political strategy of “I was bamboozled and actually oppose every vote I have ever made” never ceases to astound me.
[image or embed]— Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty (@irhottakes.bsky.social) Jul 18, 2025 at 9:34 PM