Republican U.S. Senate nominee Dave McCormick on Tuesday announced a plan to “shake up” Washington, D.C. that will include relocating the Department of Energy (DOE) to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
McCormick on Tuesday stressed his two decades of experience in the private sector in an editorial published by Real Clear Pennsylvania. He confirmed his plans to achieve permanent change in Washington include moving federal agencies away from the capital.
“I learned over more than 20 years in the private sector as a business leader that driving fundamental change requires taking on root causes, in this case three sources of the current stagnation in Washington: changing the culture in the capital, taking on an entrenched bureaucracy that resists change, and fixing misguided incentives,” McCormick said in a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation ahead of his article’s release.
In his op-ed, McCormick wrote that he would push legislation “to make it easier to fire nonperforming bureaucrats” working in government by instituting merit-based hiring policies.
He then argued, “We also should relocate federal agencies closer to the people they serve. Let’s bring the Department of Energy to Pittsburgh, so the bureaucrats who regulate energy projects can work among people who understand fracking and LNG,” and added, “we should reinstate President Trump’s decision to move the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado.”
McCormick referenced his plans at a rally held in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, at one point contrasting his legislative agenda with three-term incumbent U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA).
“We need leadership in Washington that’s going to put in place good, strong conservative policies, but more than that, shake up Washington,” said McCormick, before calling to “[b]reak the back of the monopoly” in the nation’s capital.
Turning to his Democratic opponent, the Republican declared, “Bob Casey is a career politician. He’s been in office for 30 years, he’s been 18 years in the Senate, you can’t point to a single accomplishment, a single significant legislative accomplishment, this guy’s done not one. And he’s voted with Joe Biden 98% of the time.”
Recent surveys show McCormick is polling close to Casey, with most recent polls finding the Republican nominee is just 4 or 5 percent behind the incumbent.
McCormick concluded his editorial by acknowledging that “Bringing accountability and sanity to Washington won’t happen overnight.” Instead, he said creating real change will require “electing a new generation of leaders who don’t owe anybody anything and aren’t afraid to break things.”
– – –
Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Dave McCormick” by Dave McCormick.
