By JEREMY LOTT
THE CENTER SQUARE MANAGING EDITOR
(The Center Square) — Eastern Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers is visiting America’s southern border, bringing a good chunk of Congress with her.
Rep. McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, is the new chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a large committee with many subcommittees.
Her office announced Tuesday that she would be visiting the Mexican border at McAllen, Texas, and holding “field hearings” Wednesday and Thursday in two other Texas towns.
The hearings will look at fentanyl proliferation in the U.S. and “the damage of President Biden shutting down American energy,” according to her office.
The first field hearing, held in Weslaco, Texas, on Wednesday afternoon, will be a meeting of the Joint Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee as well as the Health Committee.
It is titled “President Biden’s border crisis is a public health crisis” and will take place at the offices of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council.
The second field hearing, held in Midland, Texas, Thursday morning, will be a meeting of the Energy, Climate, And Grid Security Subcommittee.
It is titled “American energy expansion: Improving local economies and communities’ way of life” and will be held at the Bush Convention Center.
Both meetings will be streamed live on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s website.
This announcement comes a week after Rep. McMorris Rodgers live-streamed a response on Facebook to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, as previously reported by The Center Square.
In that short broadcast, Rep. McMorris Rodgers declared herself “most disappointed” that the president didn’t make a bigger deal out of the necessity of tackling the proliferation of “fentanyl and fentanyl analogues.”
“We have a record amount of fentanyl coming across the border,” she said. “Spokane has become a crisis city when it comes to fentanyl. And I’m going to continue to lead the charge to get fentanyl off our streets, in Spokane and across this nation.”
She also criticized President Biden’s energy policies.
“I continue to hear the concerns about high gas prices, gas prices that are still stubbornly high,” she said, and laid the blame for much of that increase at the president’s feet.
“Gas was at $2.39 a gallon when President Biden was sworn into office,” she said.
