Tag: Doug Lamborn

The race for the Republican nomination for the Fifth District congressional seat, centered in Colorado Springs, grows weirder by the day. You've got three-term incumbent Doug Lamborn waging a war of words not only with the district's biggest and most important newspaper, The Gazette, but also with his predecessor in Congress, Joel Hefley.

As partisan bickering grew heated Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., under pressure from his Republican colleagues, changed his vote on a fire-prevention measure at the last minute.

Depending on how things go in Colorado's primaries June 26 and in the general election in November, this will either be the year that congressional challengers were able to buy their way into office or the year in which challengers spent millions of their own money only to say in the end that they gave it their best and lost anyway.

Today, Democratic congressional candidate Sal Pace blasted Third District incumbent Republican Scott Tipton for voting against a 10 percent cut in the congressional franking budget, which pays for communications conducted with constituents by sitting members of Congress.

Colorado U.S. Rep. Jared Polis' amendment to strip $25 million in subsidies for oil shale passed the House today on a 208-207 vote. The money will be redirected to deficit reduction. The measure failed earlier in the day by a 192-222 vote but went to a second vote when a member whose vote hadn't been counted asked for a new vote, a source told The Colorado Independent.

It is a common refrain in this Republican House of Representatives that Congress should not "pick winners and losers" in the energy marketplace. The comment is usually made while debating subsidies for alternative energy. Today, though, Congress may go against the odds to try and pick a winner by voting on a measure that would allocate $25 million to oil shale research and development.

DENVER — The coal industry is resorting to online classifieds to bolster its ranks. “We hear stories of people paying folks $50 through Craigslist to come and wear shirts supporting 'Coal for America,'” Lisa Jackson, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's administrator and surprise guest at the “Rebel With A Cause” gala, told a ballroom of activists on Thursday night.

The fight over America's energy policy has a new battleground: the Department of Defense budget.

Oil and gas companies are tapping only about 28 percent of federal offshore sea floor they have leased and 56 percent of the onshore land they’ve leased is also sitting idle, the Interior Department said Tuesday.

In a concession to the oil and gas industry, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposed a rule Friday that wouldn't require the disclosure of hydraulic fracturing fluids until after drilling is completed.