Colorado U.S. Senator-elect Cory Gardner’s office announced his committee assignments today. It will come as no surprise to politics watchers that Gardner has landed on the Energy and Natural Resources committee. A Representative of the Colorado Front Range gas patch for the last four years in the House, Gardner has been a reliable champion of oil and gas on Capitol Hill, and his election campaign coffers have been brimming with oil industry money for years.
Gardner was also appointed to Senate committees on Foreign Relations; Commerce, Science and Transportation; and Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
“I am honored to serve the people of Colorado on these four committees in the United States Senate,” he was quoted in a release. “We have important work to do for Coloradans across the Four Corners — we find ourselves in the middle of an energy revolution, danger has increased significantly in the Middle East and beyond, and it is past time to ensure our telecommunications networks are able to continue to modernize and grow. In addition, my seat on the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee will be essential in ensuring our small businesses continue to play a critical role in growing our economy.
“It is a tremendous privilege to be selected to serve on each of these committees and I look forward to fighting for Colorado interests when the new Congress convenes in January.”
Last year, ramping up his run for the Senate, Gardner attended a retreat for lawmakers and campaign donors in Southern California hosted by the oil-billionaire Koch brothers. The Colorado chapter of Americans for Prosperity, one of the Kochs’ main political organizations, ultimately spent millions on Gardner’s campaign, spearheading a major get-out-the-vote effort on his behalf.
Gardner was a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives. One of the more recent orders of business that committee undertook came two weeks before Election Day, when Gardner, most of of the other Republicans on the committee and none of the Democrats signed a letter sent to President Obama asking for details on how the executive branch was “protecting the public health and safety of the American people” from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
The gist:
“We are concerned …that projections reinforce the need to take further actions to limit the risk of Ebola-case importation to the U.S…”
