The Issues
Ranked by the National Journal as the Senate’s 5th most conservative lawmaker in 2007, Enzi has nonetheless broken with his party when he believes legislation is helpful to the small businesses and rural areas he represents.
The Economy
Enzi voted against the fall 2008 financial bailout package, calling it a “very costly band-aid for big banks that will do very little to help patients who needs major surgery.” He also opposed President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package, calling it “bailout baloney” on the Senate floor.
Enzi favors tax incentives for homeownership, and favors re-opening trade with Cuba.
2006 Health Care Bill
In 2006, Enzi sponsored a bill that would have helped small businesses provide health insurance to their employees, which he called a compromise between the current state of affairs and the Bush-backed deregulation of “association health plans.”
In trying to broker a deal, Enzi cited his own experience as a small-business owner and said that health care had become so expensive that instead of buying into a plan for his employees, he simply gave them cash.
Enzi’s proposal would have allowed insurers to offer cheaper plans by providing fewer benefits and pre-empting state laws, but with slightly more regulations. Critics, however, claimed that Enzi’s plan would “undo years of work.” Enzi’s proposal cleared the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, but was never put to a floor vote.
In previous Congresses, Enzi has worked to expand women’s health initiatives at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute , and co-sponsored a bill, passed in 2006, that requires manufacturers of dietary supplements and non-prescription drugs to report any adverse effects to the FDA.
Enzi has also staked out a firm position on abortion rights, which he firmly opposes. He co-sponsored the largely-Republican-backed late-term abortion ban, which passed in 2003.
2009 Health-Care Reform
During the 2009 health-reform debate, Enzi was the only senator to sit on all three committees related to the issue: Finance, Budget and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), on which he was the ranking Republican.
Enzi opposed the broad outlines of President Obama’s health-care plan, instead favoring a free-market approach. Yet attending the March 2009 White House Forum on Health Care Reform, Enzi told the Casper Star-Tribune that “We've got both sides working toward having hopefully 80 votes out of 100 to get this done.”
In May 2009, HELP's then-Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) released a bill including some progressive reforms Enzi opposed, including the option for Americans to choose from private insurance or a government-run insurance plan.
But Finance chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) pledged to craft a bipartisan bill. Baucus asked Enzi to join his "Gang of Six," a group of six Finance Committee members from both sides of the aisle who spent the summer of 2009 trying to hammer out a bipartisan reform. Baucus and Enzi wewre joined by Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.).
The group rejected the president's public option, instead discussing Conrad's proposal for a series of private, non-profit health-insurance cooperatives, and Snowe's idea for a "trigger" that would only put a public plan into effect if private insurers failed to reform.
During the August 2009 congressional recess, at townhalls in his home state, Enzi came under fire from constituents opposed to the public health-insurance plan. Enzi defended his role in the bipartisan group, saying he was there not to compromise but to extract concessions from Democrats. "If I hadn’t been involved in this process as long as I have and to the depth as I have, you would already have national health care" he said.
Later that month, in a weekly Republican radio address Enzi said the Obama health plan would increase the deficit and ration care. The White House shot back at Enzi, saying he had abandoned bipartisanship.
Coal and the Environment
Critics, including his 1996 Senate opponent Kathy Karpan, have accused Enzi of being too “cozy” with coal companies. Though along with gas and mining companies, the coal industry is by far the largest contributor to his campaigns, Enzi defends his work on the industries’ behalf, saying that coal interests are important to his constituents. (Wyoming is the largest exporter of coal in the nation, accounting for 40 percent of the country’s coal. It is a $12 billion a year industry).
Enzi supports offshore drilling and opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and opposed the Lieberman-Warner bill that aimed at reducing global warming that died in summer 2008. He has sponsored numerous bills related to the management of Wyoming coal-containing lands, and has advocated for increased coal usage, coal-to-diesel conversion incentives and a higher use of coal-based jet fuel.
Enzi is in favor of alternative energy sources, especially wind power, and supports “find[ing] ways to consume less energy.” But, he told his colleagues in Congress, “if we want a clean environment, we cannot destroy our economy.”
