The Democrats who are attempting to make the House Natural Resources Committee their battleground did not come prepared for the likes of Congressman Nick Begich, newly elected from Alaska.
As a Harvard-educated former oil executive who represents a nonprofit dedicated to stopping drilling in the Atlantic Ocean took the microphone to testify against offshore oil drilling in the Atlantic outer continental shelf, she came up against the buzzsaw logic of Begich, who eventually accused her of using a “duplicitous level of doublespeak.”
Margaret Howell has testified before on behalf of Stop Offshore Drilling in The Atlantic, a group she founded several years ago. Here’s her testimony from 2017, essentially bringing the same arguments that she presented on Tuesday.
Begich asked Howell if she supported oil drilling anywhere in the world. She said she supports it in the Gulf of Mexico (now known as the Gulf of America), and she supports it overseas, off the shore of the African continent and China. She said those areas are drilled by American companies, her former colleagues, in fact, and that “it’s important for the workforce that those jobs are available, and they’re happy, my best friend has traveled all over the world drilling for other countries, and our oil companies benefit.”
Then Begich asked her if the Atlantic coastline of the United States has some special ecological significance that the other places do not have.
Watch what Howell has to say, and how Congressman Begich traps her in a net of her own duplicitousness:
Begich has been assigned to the House Natural Resources Committee, one of three committees and eight subcommittees he has added to his workload for Alaska.
The … “Nickinator” working hard for Alaska & Alaskans!!!
Nick has already spit more truth than Mary’s last tenure put together!
Congressman Begich is proving his mettle consistently and continually. I love the moniker used above from Rob B – ‘Nickinator’ 😁
I think have elected an excellent Representative.
Someone tell this lady it’s the Gulf of America now.
Howell is obviously very full of herself and says drilling is okay, so long as it is where SHE says it should be. You know, because she has friends that work on drilling rigs and stuff.
She is not particularly compelling or interesting to listen to.
Still, I didn’t hear Begich “take her down.”
Maybe wrong clip?