West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) told Breitbart News in an interview on Tuesday, shortly after his gubernatorial campaign announcement, that he is running to protect the Mountain State’s jobs and become “America’s energy governor.”
“I am the only proven conservative in this race. And we have a deep record of fighting and winning against the political elites, successfully defending our West Virginia values, and really accomplishing the biggest things that West Virginians care about,” Morrisey told Breitbart News shortly after his gubernatorial campaign announcement on Tuesday as he was headed out for a multiple city tour.
Morrisey, who moved to West Virginia in 2006 because of its natural beauty after coming to the state many times to hike the Appalachian Trail and kayak on the Shenandoah, said that he was “Taking the show on the road because every West Virginian deserves to know that their next governor cares about them and is going to be a leader for our state and country to advance conservative values.”
“I am the only one in the race with a proven record of getting those big things done,” he added.
When asked about what he would do as governor to fight back against an administration pushing woke green policies like ESG — which is also known as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) — Morrisey noted that his office has been leading the way in fighting back against President Joe Biden and his administration, in addition to the “ESG menace.”
“So right now, we led two major letters, and we’re getting ready for litigation against the Securities and Exchange Commission, because you have a bunch of folks in government that are trying to transform the role of these federal agencies and make all of them the woke advocates for their cause,” he said. “In particular, we’re seeing the EPA, the SEC, all of these alphabet soup agencies advance these ESG metrics that have really nothing to do with return on investment, but they’re just a political tool for the left to advance their cause.”
“I fought the EPA and took them all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and we beat Biden’s Green New Deal,” Morrisey used as an example. “After they lose in court, they have to resort to ESG and these other tools in order to try to get their way if they can’t win in court. They’re trying to push the investment community and these other agencies to accomplish … we’ve led on all of those issues. We stood up, we said no.”. And I’m going to continue to work with my colleagues to make sure that everyone knows of the fraud that is ESG. The ESG movement is a danger to our private market [and] capitalist system. And we need to all educate people and speak out against it.”
Morrisey was referring to the Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which was a tremendous win for conservatives seeking to rein in federal agencies, holding that regulations with major political or economic consequences require Congress to clearly authorize agencies to issue such rules.
“I want to be America’s energy governor. I want West Virginia — everyone to know — that West Virginia is going to be on the point, fighting to protect the energy jobs we need in our state, and in our country, and that’s incredibly important,” he further explained his position. “In West Virginia, we are still rich in coal. We have deep veins of natural gas. We need them for our energy jobs, [and] manufacturing jobs. And we’re going to continue to lead on all of these coalitions to protect energy jobs. It’s going to directly benefit West Virginia, and it’s going to help everyone across the country who cares about these critical issues.”
He also noted that, as governor, he would be able to use the whole power of the state’s executive branch behind him, and he would continue on his path to work against the Biden administration and the far left. “Just imagine how we can supercharge those efforts when I’m governor, and we have every state agency moving in the same direction. It’s going to be a powerful Red State alliance that people haven’t seen before,” he added.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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