Nearly a dozen Arkansas lawmakers are in San Diego this week at an annual national convention of conservative state legislators hosted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. The organization, which has strong funding ties to energy magnates David and Charles Koch produces model legislation on a slate of issues for lawmakers to take back to statehouses.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is one of three 2016 GOP hopefuls at the event hoping to appeal to lawmakers and potential campaign donors alike. Huckabee opened his remarks Thursday night with a friendly nod to the organization.
“I’m grateful for ALEC. I’m grateful for the fact that you focus on how to solve the problems that everyone sees in government, at the most local level,” said Huckabee.
The organization has succeeded in getting state lawmakers to carry hundreds of bills employing language found in ALEC-written example bills, ranging from relaxing pollution-related regulations to enacting Voter ID laws.
While Huckabee had praise for ALEC he also dished out some critiques about the influence of money on politics and governance.
“The donor class feeds the political class, who takes it out on the working class,” said Huckabee.
Yet, Arkansas’s second son from Hope with Presidential aspirations also took time to deliver a number of lines that may have appealed to the fossil fuel executives that help fund the organization – lambasting the EPA and calling for expanded energy exploration.
“A country that has several hundred years of energy under its own feet – whether it’s oil, gas, coal, wind, energy, solar, nuclear, hydro – it is a country that should not import one iota of energy to our shores ever, ever again,” said Huckabee in a line that drew some of the loudest applause of his speech.
The U.S. is currently the world’s largest producer of both oil and gas, according to a 2014 report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with Russia and Saudi Arabia running second and third.
