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June 15, 2011 03:40 AM UTC

Colorado Republicans Abandon "Pickens Plan?"

  • 17 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Important details added by the Fort Collins Coloradoan, who put together the probable bottom line here without much help from local Rep. Cory Gardner:

The bill is being carried by Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla., and has 188 co-sponsors from both parties. But its most prominent backer is energy magnate T. Boone Pickens, who has pushed the use of abundant domestic natural gas in vehicles as an alternative to importing foreign oil.

Conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity have criticized the bill as a subsidy aimed at picking winners and losers in energy choices.

The Coloradoan’s Bob Moore adds up some very simple math to explain this sudden change of heart, at least as far as Gardner is concerned–$300,000 spent by allies of oil-industry tycoons David and Charles Koch taking out Rep. Betsy Markey in 2010, and some $12,000 directly from the Koch’s PAC to Gardner. But of course, says Gardners’ spokesperson,

“No, those factors did not influence his decision,” she said.

No no, folks. Not Gardner’s decision, or Scott Tipton’s, or Mike Coffman’s. They all just, you know, decided to pull their names off this bill, all at once, on their own.

—–

An interesting story from The Hill–what do you suppose would have made three Colorado Republicans, Reps. Cory Gardner, Scott Tipton, and Mike Coffman, suddenly remove their names from the long list of sponsors of a bill promoting natural gas truck fleets yesterday?

Four more House Republicans on Monday withdrew their support for bipartisan legislation that would provide billions of dollars in tax credits to boost deployment of natural-gas-powered trucks.

The bill – which billionaire energy magnate T. Boone Pickens is promoting – is under attack from several conservative groups that allege it represents government meddling in energy markets.

Reps. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) and Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) yanked their sponsorship Monday, according to the legislative information page maintained by the Library of Congress. They join four other GOP members who have backed off the bill in recent weeks…

The plan’s principal sponsors – led by Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) – say the bill can help wean the country off reliance on oil imports by expanding use of domestic natural gas in vehicles.

Groups opposing the bill include Americans for Prosperity, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, the Club for Growth and the Heritage Foundation.

If it were simply a matter of them coming out in opposition to this bill, it would be one thing–having just watched the coal industry roust up some Republicans in the Colorado legislature in opposition to the “Clean Air, Clean Jobs” plan to convert coal-fired electricity generation along the Front Range to natural gas, we’ve heard a similar slate of arguments about not “subsidizing” one industry over another. And we watched most Republicans in the state legislature, led by Speaker Frank McNulty, reject them. But we could see them going either way.

No, what’s weird is how Gardner, Tipton and Coffman were originally co-sponsors of this legislation, and have now pulled out en masse. We’re not so foolish as to actually think they just now realized this bill “picks winners,” or didn’t know what they were sponsoring.

But we’d like to know more about who got to them, and why…

Comments

17 thoughts on “Colorado Republicans Abandon “Pickens Plan?”

  1. Remember HR3, the “redefine rape” bill? Gardner and Coffman didn’t pull their names off that. But don’t ask them to pick “winners and losers” between oil and gas, cause that’s just too immoral.

    Each is gross in its own special way.

  2. Groups opposing the bill include Americans for Prosperity, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, the Club for Growth and the Heritage Foundation.

    Seems to me you answered the question.

    1. Will have a story on this issue. I got comments from Coffman and Gardner, but Tipton didn’t respond. I also explore the opposition to this bill by the Koch brothers, who are major contributors to Gardner and to Tipton at a smaller level.

        1. Sullivans’ bill will die.

          T. Boone is rich and all, but he is not in the league with Exxon/Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, Chevron and the other Bigs.

          I surmise…The majors don’t have the natgas holdings to make it profitable for them. They will not allow T. Boone and his wildcatters to shift the market just yet.

          In a few years, after the Bigs have solidified their gaseous assets (bought more leases, that is) they will support a conversion. The notion that the republican Benzene Brigade gives a rats ass about spending taxpayer dollars on corporate welfare is just a stupid thought.  

  3. When three or four congressmen ALL change courses virtually simultaneously, we might want to explore who is their controller.  This issue, or roughing up unions, or privatizing whatever (schools, social security, medicare, ad nauseam)all may have the same source.. ALEC or some other similar back room for controlling the right wing message.

    1. When the grass roots of the Tea Party Koch Bros Big Oil (. . . you get the point) speak, our patriotic Republican legislators listen with a singleness of ear.

      (PS — BTW It’s damn hard to trust Pickens on anything also.)

  4. Please ask the legislators if they also think that tax cuts for oil companies are “a subsidy aimed at picking winners and losers in energy choices” and  “it [tax credits for oil companies] represents government meddling in energy markets.”

    1. From this here liberal’s point of view, if we have to extract it from the Earth – oil, gas, coal, minerals – or if we pollute our environment, then we should think long and hard about just why we need to do it, weighed against the consequences.  All of which is completely off-topic to this diary.

      The question here is, why did three Colorado Republican Representatives simultaneously pull their sponsorship from a bill that they had previously sponsored?  That kind of a coordinated move normally comes with some kind of political statement – or from a stern talking-to by a major player.  Since we don’t have the political statement, the next place to look is for the player behind the scenes.

  5. How will he explain this to his natural-gas-uber-alles constituents in Mesa County?

    Assuming the local paper bothers to cover it, that is.

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