{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://zinke.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-zinke-reacts-president-bidens-state-union-address", "Congressman Zinke Reacts to President Biden\u2019s State of the Union Address", "2023-02-08", "2023", "2023-02", "Republican", "House", "MT", "Ryan K. Zinke", "Z000018", "zinke.house.gov", "zinke", "https://zinke.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "(WASHINGTON, D.C.) \u2013 Today, Western Montana Congressman Zinke released the following statement following President Joe Biden\u2019s State of the Union address.\n\n\u201cMontanans deserved to hear a lot more from President Biden at the State of the Union, but unfortunately this is exactly what we have come to expect. He did everything but admit our country is worse off than it was before he took office. And the things he did admit were worse, he blamed on other people.\n\nLeadership matters, Mr. President. The issues Montanans are facing are fixable \u2013 but we need the President to listen to and be willing to work with us, rather than cast half the country aside as political opponents.\u201d\n\nOn Energy, Congressman Zinke said: \u201cThe only campaign promise Joe Biden is keeping is his promise to kill the American energy sector. His single accomplishment comes at the cost of our jobs, our paychecks, and our national security. For decades, Montana helped power our economy and with reliable, affordable and efficient energy sources, and we used Crow clean coal to help our allies in Europe and Asia meet their needs without asking our adversaries for energy. We sought to partner with Canada for the Keystone XL pipeline which would carry Canadian and Montana oil sands, but he killed that too. It\u2019s near impossible due to the strangulation of the Biden regulatory agenda. He kills American Energy only to beg dictators, war criminals and communist regimes for their oil. He says it\u2019s in the interest of climate change but ignores the fact that the USA has the cleanest and safest record on the planet.\u201d\n\nOn national security, Zinke said: \u201cI initially thought it was incompetence by the Biden Administration but now I know it\u2019s a willful decision for Biden to cozy up to China. There is no excuse that the Commander in Chief bent a knee to China while they collected sensitive intelligence over our heads at Malmstrom Air Force Base \u2013 one of the largest ballistic missile defense systems on the globe. Thankfully, the Billings Gazette forced the Pentagon and White House to admit what Montanans could see with their own eyes: a clear provocation and invasion of our sovereignty, and a do-nothing president watching by. This comes at no surprise after the shameful way he directed the USA flee from Afghanistan and which no doubt led to Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.\u201d\n\nOn border security, Zinke said: \u201cTwo years later and Biden still refuses to admit that we have an invasion at our borders. One ride-along with Black Feet law enforcement will expose the truth. Biden\u2019s open border policies allow criminals to prey on Montana and kill our loved ones with Chinese fentanyl smuggled by the Mexican cartels. Montana seized twice as much fentanyl \u2013 155,000 dosage units \u2013 in the first three quarters of 2022 than they did in the last four years combined. Our state has the longest stretch of Northern border than any other, and Border Patrol doesn\u2019t have the manpower to sustain operations because northern border agents are still surged to the crisis down south.\u201d\n\nBackground:\n\nBiden didn\u2019t address the fact:\n\nMontanans are paying:\n\n36% more in rent\n\n58% more for used vehicles\n\n43% more for groceries\n\n107% more for gasoline\n\nEvery state is now a border state, even Montana.\n\nHis decisions constantly place our national security at risk.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T23:18:08Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://zinke.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-zinke-reacts-president-bidens-state-union-address"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.6560890469700098, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}