GLEN DALE - Republican John Raese said if he is elected to the U.S. Senate, he will do more than write a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Director Lisa Jackson criticizing the EPA's policies.
Raese said he will work to see Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is elected, then he will write a letter to Romney asking him that Jackson be fired.
Raese served as keynote speaker for the Marshall County Republican Dinner Saturday at the Glen Dale Firemen's Hall, and said he recently attended a Friends of Coal gathering at the Greenbrier Resort.
He noted most all members of West Virginia's Congressional delegation were in attendance, with the exception of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
Other members of the delegation are Reps. Shelley Moore Capito and David B. McKinley, both R-W.Va., and Sen. Joe Manchin and Rep. Nick Rahall, both D-W.Va.
"It's a mind-boggling situation when Democrats and Republicans sit there together in unison," he said. "If anybody doesn't think they work together well in Washington, they do. I got a good dose of it" at the Friends of Coal meeting.
At the end of the meeting, those present decided Manchin and Rahall, D-W.Va., should write letters to Jackson about the agency's plan to implement more strict regulations, according to Raese.
Raese is challenging Manchin in the Nov. 6 general election.
"I can tell you I'm going to do more than just write a letter to Lisa Jackson," he said. "The first thing I'm going to do is see we elect Mitt Romney ... that is the end of Lisa Jackson. I didn't hear that from one Republican that was there. I didn't hear that from one coal operator. I didn't hear that from anybody except me.
"Lisa Jackson needs to go. She needs to be fired. That's what we do in the private sector. She is destroying our economy."
Other statewide Republican candidates also attended the GOP dinner. Among those present were Patrick Morrisey, candidate for attorney general; Kent Leonhardt, candidate for commissioner of agriculture; and two candidates for state Supreme Court, Allen Loughry and John Yoder.
Pat McGeehan, candidate for state Senate in the 1st District, spoke to the crowd, as did Patrick Mull, candidate for Marshall County sheriff, and Robert Miller, candidate for Marshall County commissioner.
