INTERVIEW: Rep. Stephanie Bice on the Schumer Shutdown's damage to American energy producers and Native Americans
Rep. Stephanie Bice on the split screen between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats, how the shutdown harms Native Americans, and much more.
As the Schumer Shutdown careens into its second month, Republicans are growing increasingly frustrated between the contrast of President Donald Trump securing peace deals and trade deals abroad, while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) continue their historic obstruction.
Rep. Stephanie Bice (R., Okla.) painted a bleak picture of the GOP’s attempts to negotiate in the legislative branch, while the executive branch continues its work apace. “It’s easier to negotiate with Hamas evidently than it is to negotiate with Democrats right now,” she told the Washington Reporter in an interview.
“You can bring peace to the Middle East, but you can’t get the government back open,” Bice said. “It’s actually pretty remarkable. We are willing to have conversations around those important topics, including health care, but we’re not going to be forced or held hostage by Democrats to do things that are unreasonable, and that’s what they’re asking right now. They’re asking us to spend $1.5 trillion on a variety of health care initiatives, and some that are not health care-driven, in order to open government back up. And that’s just not tenable.”
The Democrats’ demands, Bice explained, stand in contrast with what she’s seen both from her fellow Oklahoman on the Appropriations Committee and from Trump.
“Thanks to the leadership of Tom Cole, we were able to get all 12 of our appropriations bills out of committee and onto the floor, and three of those bills have been conferenced with the Senate, and we are really close to having some final numbers on those,” she said. “We’ve been passing continuing resolutions for the last two years now under the last administration, and now a temporary one under this administration, so that we could have enough time to get our appropriations work done. That was the ask: seven weeks we felt like was plenty of time. We’ve now wasted four weeks of the seven week time frame for the CR, and time is of the essence. We need to be able to get back and open the government back up, and get to work on these appropriations bills, so that we can get them completed and onto the president’s desk.”
In a previous interview with the Reporter, Bice blasted Democrats for ignoring rural Americans during the Schumer Shutdown. The White House subsequently shared Bice’s interview, and she said that it helps to have the whole Republican Party singing from the same song sheet.
The White House has “reiterated what Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson have said,” she explained. “This should be a nonpartisan exercise, a clean continuing resolution. They have encouraged Senator Schumer to sign the clean CR and get the government back open. We can have negotiations around other topics. But Chuck Schumer is holding the American people hostage, and President Trump is, I think rightly so, pointing out that this is a partisan exercise. This is a political exercise for Chuck Schumer. He is afraid of losing his job. He’s afraid of losing his seat. And the president continues to be supportive of members of Congress in our ability to get a clean CR done, get the appropriations process back on track, and try to get something to his desk.”
While Schumer works to insulate himself from a primary challenge, Bice explained two of the many ways that his namesake shutdown is harming her constituents.
She predicted an “across the board impact” from the shutdown. One of the big issues from an energy production standpoint, she explained, is permitting.
“You can’t file for new permits when the government’s shut down, so this is delaying the ability for our oil and gas producers across the country to be able to continue to drill, and the president has been very clear that he wants the United States to be energy dominant, and if you can’t permit new operations, that means that we’re not drilling which has the potential to increase prices which American families can’t afford,” she noted. “Right now, they’re already being hit with with inflation that we’ve been dealing with for the past four years, and certainly that’s beginning to come down, thankfully. But you’re delaying what is really an important, critical, national security issue, which is making sure that we are able to produce enough energy for this country to operate.”
In her district in particular, she noted that there are “lots of programs that are administered by our Native American tribes in Oklahoma, like housing programs and other healthcare programs that are being impacted by this shutdown.”
“They get money from the federal government to run these programs, but right now that’s not happening,” she said. “I also have had conversations with realtors. They’re being impacted, whether it’s through USDA, rural economic development loans or other programs within USDA, those transactions are not happening. If you’re talking about real estate transactions, you’re using certain real estate or certain government entities and those aren’t going through, which means the purchase of real estate may not happen in some cases, until the government reopens, and at that point you may lose the property. There’s a huge ripple down effect in a lot of these scenarios that people aren’t really thinking about.”
Bice, however, has been on the ground hearing directly from her constituents. “Contrary to popular belief, some Democrats tend to share the narrative that we’re on vacation,” she said, fact checking a popular narrative from her colleagues across the aisle. “You keep hearing Leader Jeffries talk about how Republicans are on vacation. Well, his idea of vacation and mine are very different, because I’ve been working my district every single day.”
“I have met with groups, from farmers and ranchers to banks to credit unions, I’ve met with the National Guard,” she said, ticking off her constituent meetings. “I’ve met with with the insurance commissioner back home to talk about some of the ACA subsidy numbers. I want to make sure that everyone knows that my office is accessible, that we are here to help, and that we are continuing to try to advocate for good policy, which is getting this government back open as soon as possible; the impacts that it’s having on my constituents are going to be profound.”
One example stood out to her in particular: “When you have a single mother who is a service member who does not get a paycheck, you are jeopardizing the livelihood of that family, but you’re also jeopardizing things like childcare,” she recounted. “You hear the Democrats talk about that. They are focused on children and families. But in fact, that’s not the case, because in the situation I described, there’s the potential for the service member to lose their childcare if they can’t pay for it. So you’re actually putting that family in a very precarious position, because without childcare, the mother can’t work, which means they’re not going to get paid. They’re already not getting paid because of the Schumer Shutdown, and this creates this really big ripple effect across Oklahoma, and I think that’s the piece that Democrats are missing.”
She also explained how SNAP recipients and military servicemembers are poised to feel real pain in the coming days. “You also have families that are relying on SNAP benefits,” she said of the former category. “These are people who are working two jobs, but are still struggling to make ends meet, and that need those subsidies. And without SNAP benefits, you have thousands of families across Oklahoma that are going to be be hurting.”
When it comes to servicemembers, she talked about a meeting she had with the Adjutant General for Oklahoma, General Thomas Mancino. “He’s very worried about his junior enlisted service members and those in the reserves not getting paid,” she said. “It’s had an impact on them. They’re young. They probably don’t have a ton of savings to be able to tap into, and then you have these service members that are single parents who are going to struggle to feed their families, that may have an inability to be able to pay for child care, which impacts you if you lose your childcare. Getting childcare in Oklahoma right now is a challenge. There’s not enough open opportunities for childcare across the state, so you’re putting that family in peril. And I think that Chuck Schumer is using American families as a political pawn to demand something this totally unreasonable. And fortunately, Oklahoma families recognize that.”
So, how does Bice think the shutdown will end? Well, she explained that the same off ramp exists today that existed in September.
“The off ramp is voting for the continuing resolution we already passed,” she said. “The House passed a continuing resolution on September 19th, it had no partisan riders, no extraneous policy riders on there. It was literally the same bill that Chuck Schumer voted on in March of this year — exactly the same — and that he had voted on several times prior. The difference is that Chuck Schumer is being challenged from his progressive left to not vote for this, and he’s scared of a challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or others, so he’s unwilling to play ball. This is really a political exercise. This has nothing to do with policy initiative. The Democrats want to make it about policy, but it’s not. This is about politics and leverage as Katherine Clark mentioned in a speech she gave last week. She is leveraging this. Senate Democrats are leveraging the American people to get what they want, or at least they think they’re going to try.”
Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Stephanie Bice, lightly edited for clarity.
Washington Reporter:
Congresswoman Bice, we are now going into month two of the Schumer Shutdown. When Congress is normally working, you are on the Appropriations Committee. I imagine that this is getting increasingly frustrating, seeing how Democrats have turned this whole process on its head after you all on that committee did your day job.
Rep. Stephanie Bice:
Yes. Thanks to the leadership of Tom Cole, we were able to get all 12 of our appropriations bills out of committee and onto the floor, and three of those bills have been conferenced with the Senate, and we are really close to having some final numbers on those. But yes, we’ve been passing continuing resolutions for the last two years now under the last administration, and now a temporary one under this administration, so that we could have enough time to get our appropriations work done. That was the ask: seven weeks we felt like was plenty of time. We’ve now wasted four weeks of the seven week time frame for the CR, and time is of the essence. We need to be able to get back and open the government back up, and get to work on these appropriations bills, so that we can get them completed and onto the president’s desk.
Washington Reporter:
You’ve talked with me already during this shutdown about how Democrats don’t care about America’s heartland; I imagine that Oklahoma in particular is seeing its energy industry get needlessly harmed. How has the Schumer Shutdown been impacting energy producers in Oklahoma?
Rep. Stephanie Bice:
You certainly are going to see an impact across the board. The big issue from an energy production standpoint would be permitting. You can’t file for new permits when the government’s shut down, so this is delaying the ability for our oil and gas producers across the country to be able to continue to drill, and the president has been very clear that he wants the United States to be energy dominant, and if you can’t permit new operations, that means that we’re not drilling which has the potential to increase prices which American families can’t afford. Right now, they’re already being hit with with inflation that we’ve been dealing with for the past four years, and certainly that’s beginning to come down, thankfully. But you’re delaying what is really an important, critical, national security issue, which is making sure that we are able to produce enough energy for this country to operate.
Washington Reporter:
The White House shared that article where you were talking about this issue. How has their leadership been for you as a lawmaker, as this month has gone on?
Rep. Stephanie Bice:
They have reiterated what Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson have said. This should be a nonpartisan exercise, a clean continuing resolution. They have encouraged Senator Schumer to sign the clean CR and get the government back open. We can have negotiations around other topics. But Chuck Schumer is holding the American people hostage, and President Trump is, I think rightly so, pointing out that this is a partisan exercise. This is a political exercise for Chuck Schumer. He is afraid of losing his job. He’s afraid of losing his seat. And the president continues to be supportive of members of Congress in our ability to get a clean CR done, get the appropriations process back on track, and try to get something to his desk.
Washington Reporter:
And I want to talk about what you’ve been hearing as you’ve been back home. But what do you make of the split screen between Trump in the Middle East and in Asia signing peace deals and trade deals? Meanwhile with the Democrats here, their negotiation strategy is no deal.
Rep. Stephanie Bice:
That’s correct. They are unwilling. It’s easier to negotiate with Hamas evidently than it is to negotiate with Democrats right now. You can cut a deal in the Middle East. You can bring peace to the Middle East, but you can’t get the government back open. It’s actually pretty remarkable. We are willing to have conversations around those important topics, including health care, but we’re not going to be forced or held hostage by Democrats to do things that are unreasonable, and that’s what they’re asking right now. They’re asking us to spend $1.5 trillion on a variety of health care initiatives, and some that are not health care-driven, in order to open government back up. And that’s just not tenable.
Washington Reporter:
We’ve already talked a little bit about what you’ve been doing during this month with your constituents here. But what else have you been doing? Walk us through some of the other meetings that you’ve had. And what are the takeaways that you’re trying to bring from those to your job here to end the shutdown?
Rep. Stephanie Bice:
There’s been a lot of meetings that I’ve been doing back home. Contrary to popular belief, some Democrats tend to share the narrative that we’re on vacation. You keep hearing Leader Jeffries talk about how Republicans are on vacation. Well, his idea of vacation and mine are very different, because I’ve been working my district every single day. I have met with groups, from farmers and ranchers to banks to credit unions, I’ve met with the National Guard. I’ve met with with the insurance commissioner back home to talk about some of the ACA subsidy numbers. I want to make sure that everyone knows that my office is accessible, that we are here to help, and that we are continuing to try to advocate for good policy, which is getting this government back open as soon as possible; the impacts that it’s having on my constituents are going to be profound. When you have a single mother who is a service member who does not get a paycheck, you are jeopardizing the livelihood of that family, but you’re also jeopardizing things like childcare. You hear the Democrats talk about that. They are focused on children and families. But in fact, that’s not the case, because in the situation I described, there’s the potential for the service member to lose their childcare if they can’t pay for it. So you’re actually putting that family in a very precarious position, because without childcare, the mother can’t work, which means they’re not going to get paid. They’re already not getting paid because of the Schumer Shutdown, and this creates this really big ripple effect across Oklahoma, and I think that’s the piece that Democrats are missing. You also have families that are relying on SNAP benefits. These are people who are working two jobs, but are still struggling to make ends meet, and that need those subsidies. And without SNAP benefits, you have thousands of families across Oklahoma that are going to be be hurting. Another example is I had a meeting with the Adjutant General for Oklahoma, General Thomas Mancino, and he and I were talking, and he’s very worried about his junior enlisted service members and those in the reserves not getting paid. It’s had an impact on them. They’re young. They probably don’t have a ton of savings to be able to tap into, and then you have these service members that are single parents who are going to struggle to feed their families, that may have an inability to be able to pay for child care, which impacts you if you lose your childcare. Getting childcare in Oklahoma right now is a challenge. There’s not enough open opportunities for childcare across the state, so you’re putting that family in peril. And I think that Chuck Schumer is using American families as a political pawn to demand something this totally unreasonable. And fortunately, Oklahoma families recognize that.
Washington Reporter:
Can you talk about with Native American communities in your district? I imagine that’s another group that is being damaged a lot by the shutdown.
Rep. Stephanie Bice:
Absolutely. There are lots of programs that are administered by our Native American tribes in Oklahoma, like housing programs and other healthcare programs that are being impacted by this shutdown. They get money from the federal government to run these programs, but right now that’s not happening. I also have had conversations with realtors. They’re being impacted, whether it’s through USDA, rural economic development loans or other programs within USDA, those transactions are not happening. If you’re talking about real estate transactions, you’re using certain real estate or certain government entities and those aren’t going through, which means the purchase of real estate may not happen in some cases, until the government reopens, and at that point you may lose the property. There’s a huge ripple down effect in a lot of these scenarios that people aren’t really thinking about.
Washington Reporter:
Earlier today, you were with your RSC colleagues and House GOP leadership talking about the Schumer Shutdown. What’s your sense as you talked with your colleagues, both in Oklahoma and around the country, about how you are all approaching this? Are people trying to look for an off ramp?
Rep. Stephanie Bice:
The off ramp is voting for the continuing resolution we already passed. The House passed a continuing resolution on September 19th, it had no partisan riders, no extraneous policy riders on there. It was literally the same bill that Chuck Schumer voted on in March of this year — exactly the same — and that he had voted on several times prior. The difference is that Chuck Schumer is being challenged from his progressive left to not vote for this, and he’s scared of a challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or others, so he’s unwilling to play ball. This is really a political exercise. This has nothing to do with policy initiative. The Democrats want to make it about policy, but it’s not. This is about politics and leverage as Katherine Clark mentioned in a speech she gave last week. She is leveraging this. Senate Democrats are leveraging the American people to get what they want, or at least they think they’re going to try.
Washington Reporter:
Congresswoman, welcome back to D.C. Thanks for chatting as always.