McConnell says GOP majority would block Biden nominees to force new energy policies

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is ready to strong-arm the Biden administration to advance GOP priorities on several policy fronts — including energy — if Republicans retake control of the upper chamber next year.
 
The Kentucky Republican foreshadowed one of those strategies: preventing the confirmation of President Biden’s nominees for the courts and positions in the administration.
 
“We’re going to do everything we can to push this administration into domestic energy production,” Mr. McConnell told Axios’ Jonathan Swan at an event Thursday. “Admittedly, he’s going to push back on [policies], but it’ll be more difficult for him to get some people confirmed to some of these agencies.”

Mr. McConnell declined to specify the sorts of energy policies that he believes could achieve those goals.

But he and other Republicans have homed in on Mr. Biden’s climate change agenda, which has sought to reduce domestic petroleum production by limiting drilling on federal lands, pressure investors not to put resources into fossil fuels and push to end federal subsidies for oil and natural gas companies.
 
“One of the things we’ve observed here in the Ukraine war is the president wants everybody in the world to produce more except us,” Mr. McConnell said. “The policies of making it more difficult for domestic energy production have been outrageous under this administration.”
 
Mr. McConnell noted that he has struck deals with Mr. Biden in his long tenure in Washington, including when he was vice president. He said that while Republicans are likely to be in control of both chambers of Congress, lawmakers will be forced to have a degree of bipartisanship under a Democratic president.
 
“We ought not to claim we can succeed at doing things exactly the way we would do them with a Democrat in the White House,” Mr. McConnell said. “It’ll be a combination of contrast and some cooperation because there are things that need to be done for the American people when you have a time of divided government.”

In addition to energy policies, Mr. McConnell said a GOP Senate majority would focus on issues “that are front and center for the American people,” such as inflation, the southern border and crime.