Tag: Jeff Bingaman

The NewsHour on Wednesday tapped retiring moderate U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) to discuss congressional dysfunction. Interviewed by Senior Correspondent Gwen Ifill, the two provided a free-wheeling inside view of what has happened over the last couple of decades on the Hill. They touched on the roll played by the media, no-tax pledges, no-comprise candidate platforms and sacred-cow entitlement programs. They also offered suggestions on what they would do, if they could, to address the gridlock that poll after poll suggests is detested by the vast majority of American citizens.

Despite the Gulf oil spill, a massive pipeline break in Michigan and broad concerns about global warming, ambitious climate-change and energy legislation is likely dead for the year. That poses a conundrum, going forward, for environmentalists: How to convince lawmakers of the need for legislation to sever the country’s decades-long ties to oil and to reform energy policy more generally?

Colorado Democratic Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet Tuesday signed onto a bipartisan bid to pass a national renewable energy standard (RES) modeled after...

There’s a major generation gap in the public’s concerns about the environment — one that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel hopes to...

Well that just about does it for climate legislation. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tells CongressDaily (subscription. req’d) that he’ll vote against the climate bill...

Just outside of Central City in Colorado's Gilpin County, the historic Perigo gold mine drains metal-laden water at an average of 70 gallons per minute into a small perennial stream known as Gamble Gulch. Below the mine for six miles, the gulch is virtually devoid of life, according to the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety. A design for a proposed project has been completed, but Colorado won’t bid it out for construction because it worries that if it does, it open itself up, in perpetuity, to a lawsuit under the Clean Water Act.

U.S. Sen. Mark Udall has taken a careful look at mining reform proposals and has announced that he is co-sponsoring the Hardrock Mining and...

Colorado U.S. Sen. Mark Udall Wednesday took his boldest step yet on the road to a national nuclear renaissance as part of a program designed to combat global warming. He introduced the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative Improvement Act of 2009 in a lengthy speech on the Senate floor in which he acknowledged he was likely stepping on an environmental landmine.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein wasn't the only Senate committee chief surprised by an Obama Cabinet pick. New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman, who runs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, "never got official notice" that Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar would be nominated to head the Department of Interior, or that scientist Steven Chu would be tapped as secretary of energy, the Los Angeles Times reports Monday in an article about tension between the new administration and Congress. Bingaman's committee staff "pestered aides on the Obama transition team for clues" and eventually "(ferreted) out the names through their own efforts."