GOP eyes Venezuela's untapped oil wealth as Democrats sound alarm over taxpayer risk
Lawmakers are keenly aware of the costs of running a country due to the nation’s skyrocketing debt, but now another expense may be added to Congress’ tab — Venezuela. President...
By Fox News · Fox News
Lawmakers are keenly aware of the costs of running a country due to the nation’s skyrocketing debt, but now another expense may be added to Congress’ tab — Venezuela. President Donald Trump hasn’t backed down from his position that the U.S. will run Venezuela after the surprise strikes and capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. That’s left some on Capitol Hill wondering what the price tag will be, considering Venezuela's bleak economy. Like most issues in Washington, D.C., there’s a strong partisan divide on how lawmakers expect running Venezuela will shake out. Senate Republicans believe that the vast petroleum, natural gas and mineral reserves will be enough to foot the bill and cause oil companies to come running to dump money into the region. TRUMP’S VENEZUELA PUSH RUNS INTO HARD REALITIES FOR US ENERGY GIANTS And fiscal hawks in the Senate, who routinely sound the alarm over rampant government spending, believe that running the country will be a financial boon for the U.S. "I would envision there's so much money to be made that the oil companies will show up, and they'll pay for everything," Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital. That’s a shared calculus among several other Republicans, who contend that any cost incurred from stewarding the country during the transition period would be leveraged by the colossal reserves of crude oil creeping underground. "That's the whole point," Sen. Ron Johnson , R-Wis., told Fox News Digital. There could already be a wrench in that plan following a meeting among Trump and several top oil executives at the White House last week. The roster of companies in attendance Friday touched nearly every choke point in Venezuela’s oil sector, including production, services, trading and refining. The sheer weight of that lineup underscored what is at stake for global energy policy, with the United States squarely at the center. And ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods told the administration that Venezuela was "uninvesta…