Comparing the Department of the Interior to a forest fire, U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl criticized Interior Secretary Debbie Haaland’s out-of-control agency.

The criticism came Thursday during a House Committee on Natural Resources hearing.

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“I’ve called your department numerous times, I can’t get phone calls returned,” Carl (R-Mobile) said. “I finally got one of your staff to call me back, and when you can’t get staff from one of these departments to call back a congressman, ma’am that is wrong.

“What does that tell me? It tells me they’re not interested in hearing my voice or anything I have to say.”

Carl said this is just an example of how Haaland is mismanaging her department.

“Pardon me if I seem a little edgy this morning,” he said, “but I think that this is well out of your control. I don’t think you’ve got control of what’s going on here. I’ve got a permit from this company laying on someone’s desk, 98% completed. It is a Met Coal project. It should be already released. It should have been processed. We should have 1,000 people on the ground working at this today, but I can’t get your staff to return a phone call, and I can’t get you to tell me if Met Coal is not a part of that coal moratorium.

“So how do you think we feel in this country when we’re dealing with bureaucrats just like this. And it goes on for months and years. This is two and a half years this process is going on.”

The congressman believes Haaland’s lack of leadership is directly responsible for the issues he’s been having with the Interior Department.

“Your department has become this huge forest fire and you’re consuming everything you touch. You’re burning it up,” he said. “This is coming from constituents and businesses that are trying to run their businesses. This company is not even in my district and I’m fighting for them. You know why? Because these are Alabama jobs. These are people that are related to the people that live in my district.”

Carl thinks this is just one example of why people don’t trust the federal government.

“(I)t’s important that our people in our districts believe in the federal government. When they get to a point that they’re scared to death of us, that’s when we quit, we have failed them. We need to go home.

“We need to start over. We need to fire people and get some people who actually know how to return a phone call.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee