A climate activist ambushed Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, asking her in a social media post, “How much money would it take to buy you back from Big Oil?”
Britt snapped back, saying: “From Big Oil? Look at how dishonest that was. You ask if you could take a selfie, and now, you’re asking questions.” Britt then walked toward an elevator.
“And tell me, what is it … what do you think about Big Oil … tell me about that,” the senator continued.
“I think that the climate crisis is here and is getting worse, and you’re being funded by the people who are making that happen,” the activist said. According to Open Secrets, Britt received more than $171,000 from the oil and gas industry in 2022, when she was campaigning for Senate.
“Listen, we’ve got to be not only energy independent but energy dominant,” Britt said as the elevator door shut. “We do it better than anybody.” The video captioned Britt’s remarks as “parrots Big Oil talking points.”
The activist, identified by the Washington Examiner as Amalia Hochman from Boston, works for the Sunrise Movement, a 501(c)(4) political action organization dedicated to political action on climate change.
The organization has similar videos questioning Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and John Fetterman (D-PA) and Reps. Michelle Fischbach (R-MN), Chip Roy (R-TX), and Nick Langworthy (R-NY) on climate issues or on how much Big Oil donates to them.
Many of the members of Congress involved in the videos typically don’t offer much to the activists, so Britt’s response is a departure from that. Fetterman seemed to take particular issue with being approached by them, whipping out his phone to record another activist, who said she was a constituent, and mocking them.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) once took part in a Sunrise Movement sit-in at the office of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in 2018, just before Pelosi became the speaker of the House for the second time.
Amy Hasenberg-Elliott, a spokeswoman for the senator, told AL.com that Britt “would have happily had a conversation with this Green New Deal activist, but her dishonesty from the outset made it clear she wasn’t interested in a good-faith policy discussion.”
“Instead of driving international energy customers to buy from adversaries like Iran and Russia, Senator Britt knows that we must achieve not just American energy independence — but American energy dominance. This is vital for growing our economy and protecting our national security,” she said.
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The Sunrise Movement had its own rebuttal.
“Katie Britt has been responsive to the demands of oil billionaires, not young people who are concerned about their futures as climate change gets more dangerous,” the group told the Washington Examiner. “Young people want more than selfies from politicians. We want action that protects us from climate disasters like the extreme heat happening in Alabama right now.”
Britt is one of the youngest senators at 42 and has only been in office since January 2023. Nevertheless, she delivered the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech earlier this year, once saying, “Bless his heart. We know better,” in response to “Bidenomics.”