By David Velazquez
Casper Star Tribune
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

WASHINGTON — The halls of the United States Capitol were calm the day before the 119th Congress was set to be sworn in. Desks on the floor of the Senate were being rearranged and the door of the whip’s office was still labeled for South Dakota Republican John Thune, who is set to become Senate Majority Leader. 

Republicans on Friday took slim majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate ahead of Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration on Jan. 20. 

Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso succeeded Thune as majority whip — the second highest-ranking position in Republican Senate leadership. 

Barrasso was first appointed to the Senate in 2007 to fill the seat held by the late Sen. Craig L. Thomas. He won a special election in 2008 to complete the term and has since been reelected three times: 2012, 2018 and 2024. 

He was most recently chair of the Senate Republican Conference, the third highest ranking Senate leadership position in the Republican party.

In an interview on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Barrasso met with the Casper Star-Tribune to discuss his new leadership role within the conference and the issues facing the Republican-led Congress. ‘

Star-Tribune: You are set to take the Republican whip position. What does the job mean to you and what changes for you? 

Barrasso: Well, it’s a step up in the leadership of the Senate as the No. 2 person in the majority party. So he’s responsible for helping get President Trump’s team in place, which is the first thing we got to do — is get his cabinet confirmed. 

And you know after what you saw happen in New Orleans yesterday, it does point to the fact that we really need to get his team in place immediately. So that’s going to be a lot of it. And then, of course, the agenda we’ve talked about the last couple of years before the election is getting America back on track.

I was in Wyoming [Wednesday], and all around the state and in Casper. You talk to people and they’re really unhappy with the wide-open border and with high prices. And that’s why President Trump won. He won because Americans were sick and tired of high prices and the open border. President Trump and Republicans said, “We’re going to do something about that.” 

And we are, and that’s part of the early legislative process, is to get the border under control and get prices down. 

And you can start specifically with energy prices by producing more energy. And Wyoming is America’s energy bread basket. We’re a powerhouse of energy in Wyoming. … Oil and gas is our bread and butter. We have world class reserves of coal. We also have world class wind. So we need all sources of energy and the energy jobs are important to power the economy. So those are the things that I’m going to be working on as the whip, as trying to make sure we can round up votes to get the cabinet in place and get the agenda enacted into law.

Star-Tribune: What excites you most about the job? 

Barrasso: Well, I love having the opportunity to represent Wyoming and fight for Wyoming people and Wyoming values, and I’ve been doing that from the day I got here, and it’s not going to stop. And just, I just have more opportunities to help Wyoming folks. 

Star-Tribune: In November, following your reelection win, you talked about the importance of securing our southern border. Is there a plan or a bill in the works? 

Barrasso: Joe Biden threw open the border without a law: he ignored the law. He stopped enforcing America’s laws. President Trump the first thing day in: he’ll start enforcing the law again. Biden had 94 executive orders, basically saying ignore the law, do this and this and this. 

If we just go back to applying the law, enforcing the law, that will go a long way to getting the border under control. 

We need to do more. We need to finish constructing the wall that President Trump started, and you may have seen that Biden has been trying to sell off the things that taxpayers have paid for to finish the wall. 

What Biden is doing in his last month and a half in office, or his staff is doing — because people really aren’t sure how much in control of things he is these days — [is] destructive to our nation, and it’s sad to watch. And we’re going to be able to reverse so very much of it. 

Star-Tribune: In the West, there are a lot of jobs that are filled by immigrants. How do you balance that with the need to protect the southern border? 

Barrasso: President Trump has already talked about that, intelligent immigration, legal immigration. And not this illegal immigration where you worry who’s coming in, that are drug dealers, members of criminal cartels, human traffickers, all of those things, people on the terrorist watch list. All of these have been great concerns and we have to secure our border. Then you want to bring in people legally to help us … build our economy and grow our economy. 

And that’s been the big fundamental difference of what I’ve always wanted to do was grow the economy and fighting the Democrats who want to grow the government. And as people of Wyoming, when we think about Wyoming interests … we’re the Equality State. And when they think about equality, they mean equal opportunity based on your effort, not equal outcome based on your existence, and that’s the big fundamental difference. 

Star-Tribune: In November, following your win for reelection to the Senate, you mentioned the importance of unleashing American energy. How will the Senate support the incoming Department of Interior Doug Burgum? 

Barrasso: Doug [Burgum,] as you know, is governor of North Dakota, which is like Wyoming: an energy state. And I met with him on several occasions. 

He’s also — as governor — served closely with our current governor, Mark Gordon, and they worked on energy projects together. So he is going to be very open and welcome to American energy. The administration that just got thrown out and lost the election has a long history of opposing American energy production. They’ve been fighting us and our ability to use energy. So in all the discussions I’ve had with Doug Burgum, he wants Wyoming to be producing more energy. He wants to find ways for us to basically take off the handcuffs that Biden and the administration have put on American energy. 

So I think it’s going to be a much better day ahead for American energy and specifically American energy workers, which we have in Wyoming. 

And then, of course, the consumer is going to be able to have a chance to have more affordable energy. And it’s not just driving your car, it’s heating your home [and] Electricity. 

Star-Tribune: The Bureau of Land Management has finalized its decision to end new coal leases in the Powder River Basin. How quickly will the Senate work to overturn these types of regulations? 

Barrasso: These things were punishing regulations brought about by Joe Biden and the Democrats. These were not, in any way, a new law that got passed, and we’re trying to reverse all of those things. 

Star-Tribune: You have mentioned the size of the government. How will the Senate tackle the size of the government and spending? And will the Department Of Government Efficiency play any role in that? 

Barrasso: I’ve met with Vivek [Ramaswamy] already. We have Elon Musk and Vivek working together on that and they’re going to identify areas where they see a vast government and expenses that ought to be pared back. I see many areas, and then we have to find ways to — within the law — eliminate unnecessary work, unnecessary duplication. Right now, there are still lots of government employees getting government paychecks, who theoretically are working from home, but they have not been in their office buildings since COVID. Well, if you can do the work from home and it’s necessary, fine. If the job is so unimportant that you never have to come to work, maybe that could be eliminated. And if people don’t need to be in their office buildings, maybe we ought to sell some of these buildings. So there’s a lot of things you can do. COVID has exposed just the excesses of government in terms of the excesses of real estate holdings and the excesses of people on the payroll. 

Star-Tribune: Republicans have taken control in the Senate, House and won the presidency. What do you see as the biggest challenge the next two years? 

Barrasso: We need to make sure we can get everything done that President Trump has promised, which is securing the border, getting down prices, bringing back America’s strength around the world. The whole goal we ran on is to get America back on track. And people in Wyoming know that we went way off track the last four years, and they spoke as the voters all around the country in saying we need to change direction. And that’s what we’re in the process of trying to get done. 

Star-Tribune: Before the winter recess, you moved to pass the Pilot Butte Conveyance Act but were blocked by two Democratic Senators. Where does that bill stand and what will be needed to get it over the hump? 

Barrasso: We’re now into a new Congress. So … any legislation has to start over. Harriet Hageman was the one who initially introduced the legislation, because the local community came to us and said, “There’s this power plant and it’s been sitting idle for 15 years. The government’s going to spend millions of dollars to knock it down. It’s a hydro power plant, if we have this open again, we can use the electricity, and we’re happy to put the money into it and save the money of knocking it down.”

So we thought it was a good idea, and we’re continuing to try to get that passed. So we’ve already gotten it passed in the House, it was blocked in the Senate. And we’ll start again. … A couple of senators, not from Wyoming — never been there, haven’t talked to the people on the ground — decided they were going to block this. This is an area about the size of one and a half football fields. We’re talking about a relatively small area. … If they’re going to meddle in what we’re trying to do in Wyoming, which is a specific Wyoming project brought to the delegation by the citizens of Wyoming. … Then I’m going to make sure that those senators, if they have projects that they’re working with in their communities that are that size or bigger:

 No, they’re not going to have much success in the United States Senate. And they’re the ones that started it by meddling in what we’re trying to do in Wyoming as a result of [when] a local community in Fremont County and the neighbors got together and came to me in the delegation and said “Can you help us with this?”