Congressional Candidates' Views on Clean Energy, Climate Change: CO-Senate

Most important issue of the day

That being said, voters shouldn't be deluded into thinking that Sen. Bennet is an "environmental champion".

And, he has remained a steadfast supporter of passing clean energy and climate legislation. When Senate leadership decided not to move ahead with such legislation this Congress, Bennet said in a statement, "We simply can't afford to let the opportunity to create new clean energy jobs and break our reliance on foreign fossil fuels slip away. " In the same statement, Bennet promised that, "while Washington can't seem to get its act together, I'm going to keep up the fight to pass a comprehensive energy and climate bill that moves Colorado and the country forward."

This might work in communicating with the general public, but readers at this site should be savvy enough to understand the details.  Senate leadership decided not to move ahead because they couldn't secure the ridiculous 60 vote threshold it would have taken to break the Republican Teabagger filibuster.  But why did the 60 vote threshold exist in the first place?  Because Sen. Bennet, along with over 20 other Democrats, voted to make it the threshold.  They voted with the obstructionist Republicans to do so.  That's one kind of bipartisanship, I suppose.

Requiring an extra-constitutional threshold be applied to global warming legislation sounds to me like opportunities were allowed to slip away.  It sounds really nice that Bennet attacked the Washington way of doing things in a press release, but keep in mind that he was firmly a part of that dysfunctional Washington.

Would Sen. Bennet perhaps like to explain to the rubes out here in Colorado how he expects a Republican-controlled Congress to pass global warming legislation?  Anybody can easily see that such a bill is, at best, years away from even being considered again.  And that says nothing about how few solutions were included in the bill that was ready to be brought before the Senate.  Furthermore, Republicans are already talking about initiating investigations on climate scientists, universities and shutting down the EPA's ability to regulate CO2.  If climate science isn't done and global warming pollutants go unregulated for years, how many opportunities will have slipped by?

Is Buck an extremist?  Yes, on this and on every other issue.  But what has Bennet's silly attempts at bipartisanship, wordsmithing and spin gotten him?  There was no global warming legislation out of the Senate.  He's been behind in the polls for months now.  In most cases across the country, solid Democrats are faring better in the lead-up to November 2nd.  It's the Blue Dogs and CorporateDems who largely find themselves behind.

This issue is simply too critical to our future existence to provide only part of the story to voters.  Everybody needs as much information as they can get their hands on in order to make educated decisions.  Vote for Sen. Bennet if that's what you want.  Just know what you're voting for if you do so.

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by: WeatherDem @ Fri Oct 15, 2010 at 14:25:43 PM UTC

That vote was taken before Bennet was in Congress

The rules for the present session of Congress were set when Salazar was still our Senator. Either that or the vote was taken so close to when Bennet joined the Senate that he was still voting the way that Salazar had decided to .

During the past ten months, Senator Bennet has testified in numerous committees in support of various pieces of legislation that would help prevent global warming. It easy to vote for something once most members of your party are voting with you. What is hard is trying to put together that consensus.

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by: trainstar @ Sat Oct 16, 2010 at 01:19:56 AM UTC

Sen. Bennet

voted on a Sen. Johanns (R-NE) amendment sponsored by Sens. Inhofe, Enzi, Bartasso and Roberts that removed the possibility of using the budget process to pass global warming legislation (like the health insurance legislation was).  It wasn't to continue using the same rules that were used in the previous session of Congress.  It wasn't a stand-alone bill.  It was an amendment to a budget bill- something that too easily fell into the background, obviously.

I suppose it could be argued that Sen. Bennet was working with Senators from neighboring states in a bipartisan fashion.  It seems to me, however, that one might not want to vote along with a global warming denying flat-earther in a bid to build his "environmental champion" reputation, especially when no meaningful vote on actual legislation was one of the results of his attempt at bipartisanship.  Furthermore, on what bill did Sen. Bennet get Inhofe, Enzi, Barrasso or Roberts to buck their party?  If Sen. Bennet wants to be judged on his bipartisanship, that should include assessing how many Republicans he helped bring over to ensure passage of Democratic-sponsored legislation.  The good news on that line, of course, is if Sen. Bennet wins reelection and the Democrats maintain control of the Senate in the next session, Bennet will have plenty more Republicans to convince to vote for Democratic legislation.

Holding hearings is all well and good.  But action, not words, was critical in 2009-2010.  Action will be even more critical in 2011 and beyond.  We must have an honest accounting of what went right and what went wrong in the current session if we're to have any chance of reducing the damage to the planet we're causing.

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by: WeatherDem @ Sat Oct 16, 2010 at 04:18:56 AM UTC

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