WHEATLAND -  U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) spent some time with students from Platte County answering their questions that pertained to current events and Barrasso’s personal and up-close experience that he has not only nationally, but internationally.

Barrasso covered many topics including the gas prices, the border wall and his opinions about the current administration.

The first thing on the minds of students, especially those who are graduating and may be soon heading into the workforce addressed the issue of the American job force and how it looks at this point.

“It’s always an issue in the workplace,” Barrasso said. “How you hire enough people to do any of the projects that we have and that’s a challenge. With a need for workers at all levels. I met a guy today who works in Torrington and he needs to hire four mechanical engineers and more brain power. How do you find somebody to do that in Torrington when some of the people at that level of training are getting hired away at other places.”

He emphasized to the body of students that were gathered that workforce is a big issue and he advised them to make themselves valuable to the marketplace by getting an education and learning skills.

Another question asked by a student at WHS was how did Barrasso personally think the war in Ukraine should be handled.

“I’ve been to Ukraine six times,” Barrasso said. “I went and saw Zelenskyy in Kiev this year after the bombing had been done so I am very focused on that. I am also on the foreign relations committee so I have been following Putin’s exploits the whole time. Putin is a predator and he will not stop until he is stopped. I don’t think we should have any American soldiers there. The Ukrainians can fight, and they are fighting. Our intelligence sources said that they would get overrun in four days and now they are taking it to the Russians.”

Barrasso went on to say that the greatest need in Ukraine was technology and weapons.

“I have been saying all along, give them all the weapons that they need including the advanced level drums,” Barrasso said. “They are willing to fight, they are ready to fight. If Putin doesn’t stop there, then he’s going to go to another country and another country making them bigger and stronger. He wants to conquer things.”

Going on to the energy issue, knowing that Barrasso has been an advocate for the oil and gas industry as well as a healthy mix heading into the goal of green energy, a student asked about solutions to the rising costs of energy.

“We really need affordable engery,” Barrasso said. “To have a functioning economy, at the highest level. To transport people, to transport goods, to produce things, the cost of electricity. I think we are just not getting it done because the Democrats and Biden are so focused on renewable energy regardless of the cost of the consequences. It’s hurting us as a country. It’s hurting us economically and it’s hurting us politically.”

According to Barrasso, the desire and the push for electric vehicles is without a full thought process.

“Where do we go for the minerals that we need for the electric batteries?” Barrasso questioned. “We go to China. We have a lot of those minerals here but the environmentalists won’t let us get it out of the ground here. They say we’ll be polluting if we do it. If we want the electric vehicles then we need to be using the resources that we have here, whether it’s lithium, cobalt, nickle.”

Barrasso cited a number of things that people in the nation are concerned about here in the first quarter of 2023. He mentioned inflation, the border crisis, high energy costs and national security.

“To me, it’s all about jobs, economy and national security,” Barrasso said. “National security means energy security, economic security and border security. The country’s job is to protect it’s own nation’s security.”

Gas costs in Wheatland were also brought up knowing that local gas on an interstate with no internal gas stations can be one of the causes for higher prices.

“Wheatland is a good example,” Barrasso said. “I’ll bet it we got in a vehicle and drove around town and take pictures of what gas costs, we would ask, what’s the differential of the gas costs per gallon in Wheatland? There are differences in town and it’s interesting that you ask yourself, ‘how far do you have to drive to save ten cents a gallon. There were differences, but as a whole all the prices went up. The reason that they went up was supply and demand by the policies of the administration. Biden then went and released energy from what’s called the Strategic Petroleum Preserve, which is where they keep all this stuff for an emergency. He released a million barrels a day. So that brought prices down from $5 a gallon we had a year ago to where it is now. But now our emergency supplies have been spent, so that’s going to need to be refilled at some point.”

When asked what local people could do in a small town like Wheatland that in past months has been paying anywhere from $1 to $1.50 a gallon more for gas than Casper and Cheyenne, Barrasso said that he has seen the same thing in Cody, Wyoming.

“The prices are set individually,” Barrasso said. “The bottom line is we have to get prices down by producing more American energy. That’s not what this administration wants to do. They want to release it from the Strategic Reserve, they want to keep our energy in the ground and they want to beg foreign dictators for energy when we ought to be using American energy.”

To the question asked about how much of a reality it would be for the federally mandated buses that have been proposed, Barrasso was clear and direct in his answer.

“The federal government mentioned five-thousand electric buses and the other place they said was the Postal Service,” Barrasso said. “It’s not going to work. One is, we don’t have the minerals. Two is, you don’t have the charging stations. Three is, they are going to continue to have problems all the way through if they try to force this technology because of their war on American energy and because of this devotion to the climate group that is trying to say ‘you shouldn’t use fossil fuels.’ They want us to keep it in the ground instead of using it and they don’t care what the costs are.”

Coming away from the COVID pandemic and some of the unrealistic mandates by the CDC, Barrasso commented on Anthony Fauci stepping down.

“Clearly, it’s time,” Barrasso said. “It’s also time for this whole effort on the pandemic to be over. The administration doesn’t want it to be over because they are using the “emergency funding” to pay for a lot of things that shouldn’t be being paid for by the government anymore. Whether its lend subsidies or student loan issues under the guise of the pandemic emergency. They are going way beyond their ability and I believe it’s time to end this crisis.”

The final question came regarding the elderly and the rumors of robbing seniors of their Social Security which belongs to the people and not the federal government.

“Rest assured,” Barrasso said. “Nobody’s going to come after the Social Security. It is fear-driven, voter-related and always threatening that the ‘other guy’ is going to take away your Social Security. The people get worked up, understandably so, but it’s never happened and I don’t expect it to happen. We need to be responsible as a government in terms of how much money is being spent on all sorts of things. My concern is that you get these huge debts that we have. If that leads to additional inflation, it undermines these programs that have been out there very successfully. Such as Medicare, Social Security to help our seniors and we need to make sure that those continue and we need to strengthen them and simplify them.”

Barrasso has been to Wheatland High School and many other high schools across the state answering questions and making himself accessible to the generation that will one day be the decision makers for the government and the country.