President (To Win Colorado) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Biden*

(R) Donald Trump

80%

20%

CO-01 (Denver) See Full Big Line

(D) Diana DeGette*

(R) V. Archuleta

98%

2%

CO-02 (Boulder-ish) See Full Big Line

(D) Joe Neguse*

(R) Marshall Dawson

95%

5%

CO-03 (West & Southern CO) See Full Big Line

(D) Adam Frisch

(R) Jeff Hurd

50%

50%

CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado) See Full Big Line

(R) Lauren Boebert

(D) Trisha Calvarese

90%

10%

CO-05 (Colorado Springs) See Full Big Line

(R) Jeff Crank

(D) River Gassen

80%

20%

CO-06 (Aurora) See Full Big Line

(D) Jason Crow*

(R) John Fabbricatore

90%

10%

CO-07 (Jefferson County) See Full Big Line

(D) B. Pettersen

(R) Sergei Matveyuk

90%

10%

CO-08 (Northern Colo.) See Full Big Line

(D) Yadira Caraveo

(R) Gabe Evans

70%

30%

State Senate Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

80%

20%

State House Majority See Full Big Line

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

95%

5%

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
June 26, 2009 07:46 PM UTC

Climate Bill Debate Underway; How Will Colorado Moderates Vote?

  • 28 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Markey votes yes, Salazar votes no.

As the Pueblo Chieftain reports:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to round up Democratic support for a vote on legislation to combat climate change, but Colorado Rep. John Salazar is among the holdouts.

Salazar, a Democrat in his third term, said he is concerned that the proposed bill to set emission limits on power utilities and other caps on carbon emissions would translate into significantly higher utility costs for consumers across the 3rd Congressional District.

“While I am reviewing the bill and have not yet made a final decision, it is fair to say that I have serious concerns about the legislation and the impact on my constituents,” Salazar said in a statement Thursday. “I agree the issue of climate change must be addressed, but that does not mean I can support dramatically increasing utility rates on my constituents, at a time when I feel the economy is just starting to stabilize across the state.”

And the Denver Post reports on Betsy Markey’s red-district freshman dilemma:

…the vote is an especially dicey one for Markey, who has yet to take a public position. A first-term Democrat in a moderate district, Markey is likely to be one of the GOP’s biggest targets in 2010, and they would love nothing more than to see her vote “yes.”

Environmental groups also hope Markey supports the bill. Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund poured $1.5 million into her campaign – the group’s biggest push for any House candidate in the country – and they expected her to be a key supporter in the push for a global warming bill.

But as late as Thursday afternoon, Markey spokesman Ben Marter said his boss was still pondering the vote.

“She’s looking at it through an economic lens,” he said…

Labeling it a massive energy tax, Republicans have claimed the average family would pay $3,100 more for their electricity once the bill’s most stringent measures kick in. A recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found the increase would be $173 per family per year.

While environmental groups are watching nervously to see whether Markey and other swing votes land on their side – the League of Conservation Voters announced this week that it wouldn’t support any Democrat in the next election who voted against it – Republicans are drooling at the prospect that they do exactly that.

House minority leader Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the bill “one of the defining debates of the 2010 cycle.” Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams said that if Markey votes for the bill, “it will seal her fate, in my opinion.”

Our view: The GOP estimate of what this bill will cost is nothing short of scare-tactic lunacy, but that doesn’t really matter if they’re able to drown out the facts with enough bombast, which you can be assured they intend to do. But no matter how hard they try, we just don’t think that Americans are going to have nearly the problem with this bill that Dick Wadhams would have you believe. In fact, as the Washington Post reported Wednesday,

Three-quarters of Americans think the federal government should regulate the release into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases from power plants, cars and factories to reduce global warming, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, with substantial majority support from Democrats, Republicans and independents.

This poll indicates a little less (though still majority) support for the specific cap-and-trade approach being debated today, but we attribute that to the kind of fall-off you get any time a contentious buzzword like ‘cap-and-trade’ is invoked in a poll. Bottom line? We’re just not seeing the scary political consequences everybody keeps talking about.

Postscript: yes, we all heard yesterday how Rep. Salazar oafishly implied to Post columnist Susan Greene that all this rain we’ve been getting might disprove climate change. We’re going to charitably assume he was joking, with a note that on the off-chance he wasn’t, well, that would be about the dumbest thing we’ve heard this side of Rush Limbaugh’s first-hour monologue. We do, however, know a quick way he could redeem himself with the green community today…

Tweet
Share

Comments

28 thoughts on “Climate Bill Debate Underway; How Will Colorado Moderates Vote?”

  2. I’m sure Markey and Salazar will be among the last to vote in order to see how the vote turns out before they cast theirs.  If Pelosi needs theirs to pass the bill, they’ll vote for it, if not, they won’t.  That’s my guess.

    1. Are you implying that John Salazar is a spineless follower that waits to the last minute to decide how he should vote on something?  

      Apparently you’ve met him.  

      1. that the far-left doesn’t like him very much either. UnLucky for you he appeals to the actual moderates, and the seat is his for as long as he continues to run for it.

        Thanks for the ad hominem attack though.

      2. pretending that what MiddleRoadDem describes (strategic behavior by organized political parties) is an indictment of all who participate in it is just one more example of some combination of irrationality and blind partisan sniping (always selective, always absurd, and always dysfunctional). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: What we really need are for rational people of good will to focus more on the challenges and opportunities we face, and less on how to land some cheap and meaningless shot against their perceived enemies.

        Or is the problem that so many of those who do the latter aren’t really rational people of good will to begin with?

    1. I’d be seriously hard pressed to support her in the future if she voted no. This is a “line in the sand” vote for me, for a variety of reasons.

        1. Libertad weighs in with a comment that has absolutely nothing to do with a fucking thread.

          But hey…great song. I always loved this one. Still feeling bummed about his death, too.

          So, in all sincerity, thanks for the post. 🙂

  4. where a passed bill would actually make a difference to the health care system, this bill is absolutely climate-meaningless.  It’s already as watery as our June has been and once it passes conference committee it’ll be 99 parts soda, one part wild turkey.  So even though I work in this space and would love to see us actually do something on climate, I’d rather see nay votes across the board just to send the message that no bill is better than a meaningless one.  

    This bill is to libs as abortion moves are to Christian conservatives.  Political sops designed to do nothing to address the actual problem, only to appease some political interest group.  Oh well….  

    1. It’s politics. On issues like this generally the first bill is a toe in the water. But then, people see that it had no terrible effect, and then they will pass more.

      I too would like to see more. But this is what you get in a democracy.

      1. actually I do in general, but for this bill I don’t.  this is a major picking of winners and losers by the government, all for nothing.  the one silver lining I see in this is that it’s a symbolic message of the legislature to the citizenry that we do need to pick winners and losers on this topic.  time will tell whether that primes future moves toward more stringent controls or backfires completely.  I’d say the chances of either are even.

        1. It did almost nothing. Yet in hindsight it was gigantic because for the first time in over 80 years a civil rights bill was passed.

          And so as things progressed and the real bills started coming up, they had the previous case to make everyone realize things could get passed.

          1. Showing leadership.  It’s not just about re-election, it’s about doing something with the opportunities you’ve been given.

            Regardless, her position on this agrees with mine, so naturally, I find it a good position to have 🙂

          2. is very green. Ft. Collins is the biggest city, and even the R towns like Berthoud and Loveland are pretty environmental. The bill contained a lot of concessions to agriculture, forced by the Ag Committee (of which she is a member) promising to vote en bloc. Which they did.

            Also, she owes her election to the green political orgs, which poured literally millions into the race last year. This was not a hard call for her, although she may have wanted to make it seem so, all the better to make herself seem “independent” and “thoughtful.” So far, she hasn’t made a false move, and has played her hand beautifully. A smart, smart woman.

            1. I think it was partially that it was a good move politically. But I also have seen Betsy do what Jared has done in a couple of cases so far – voting what they think is important even though it costs them a little. I think she takes the view that there’s not much point in serving if you don’t make a difference.

              With that said, I also think her evaluating it first gives her the ability to say to those that opposed it that she also saw it as imperfect, but her choice was yes or no on the entire package.

            2. That’s an excellent point, BoulderDem. Markey owes her election to a lot of things, but without the millions funneled through Defenders of Wildlife and other green funds, it wouldn’t have happened. In the end, she could hardly vote against those interests on such a momentous bill. Salazar, of course, owes very little, if anything, to those groups.

    1. People and interest groups should tell politicians what they think, when they agree and when they disagree.  It’s called representational democracy.  

      I, for one, am tired of the notion that we can’t criticize elected leaders just because they are not Republicans.  

Leave a Comment

Recent Comments


Posts about

Donald Trump
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Lauren Boebert
SEE MORE

Posts about

Rep. Yadira Caraveo
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado House
SEE MORE

Posts about

Colorado Senate
SEE MORE

115 readers online now

Newsletter

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!