1 day ago
By Ernest Scheyder
Aug 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's push to build the Western Hemisphere's largest aluminum smelter in rural Oklahoma has divided the state's Republican voters and emerged as a key issue in the contentious race to be the next governor.
The two Republicans who will face off for their party's nomination on August 25 have taken opposing views, underscoring the willingness of some conservatives to buck Trump and use industrial projects as campaign leverage.
"I'm not going to let it be built," Gentner Drummond, the state's attorney general, said at a candidate forum last month with his opponent, former state Senator Mike Mazzei. "We have to protect farmland."
The $4 billion smelter project would be the first in the U.S. since 1980, but it has attracted some opposition from the community where it is slated to be built.
#built #donald #western
Aug 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's push to build the Western Hemisphere's largest aluminum smelter in rural Oklahoma has divided the state's Republican voters and emerged as a key issue in the contentious race to be the next governor.
The two Republicans who will face off for their party's nomination on August 25 have taken opposing views, underscoring the willingness of some conservatives to buck Trump and use industrial projects as campaign leverage.
"I'm not going to let it be built," Gentner Drummond, the state's attorney general, said at a candidate forum last month with his opponent, former state Senator Mike Mazzei. "We have to protect farmland."
The $4 billion smelter project would be the first in the U.S. since 1980, but it has attracted some opposition from the community where it is slated to be built.
#built #donald #western
