Colorado News Stories: Connecting Some Dots

Today was another day in which a number of news articles caught my eye.  They warrant additional context, especially the connections between some of them.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been working behind the scenes to talk with what the corporate media likes to term “centrist”/”moderate” Democratic Senators regarding health care.  He will continue to try to convince CorporateDems to vote to allow debate on the Senate health bill.  What’s the center position between corporatist lackeys and principled public servants anyway?  Another very popular Washington buzzterm came into play: Salazar is involved because he was involved in several bipartisan agreements while a Senator.  He was at the forefront of what I term the Gaggle of Gangs in the Senate – joining with other “centrists” to keep the filibuster around but ensure Democrats wouldn’t use it while in the minority.  Which is part of the reason why Salazar is being sent back to work on his former colleagues: the Cons are threatening to filibuster the health bill (though Democrats won’t actually force them to carry one out) and -gasp- Democrats might join them.  That’s the answer to “How did that bipartisanship end up working out”.  Whatever happened to the Cons’ “Upper-down-vote!” they couldn’t get enough of?  One person of concern is Sen. Lieberman, the man who campaigned for Sen. John McCain in last year’s presidential election and is doing everything he can to keep himself in the news this year.  Salazar was “mentored” by Lieberman when he joined the Senate, so I’m sure Lieberman can be convinced to play nice – aren’t you?  Oh, and after watering down the bill with nonsense to appease “centrist” Republicans, where are their votes to move to debate?  MIA?  Why did we negotiate with them exactly?  They’re not going to vote for the final bill.

2009 CO GOP Strategy Clear: Delay & Distract

The 2009 Colorado legislative session is underway and the Colorado Cons have made their intentions and general strategy quite clear.  They will spend the 120 legislative days delaying the work of the legislature and distracting from actual problems in the lead-up to next year’s elections.  A frame is being established and Democrats need to ensure things get done despite the wasteful tactics the Cons are employing.

Example #1: State Sen. Shawn Mitchell (R-Broomfield) led an attack on regulations that were released last month by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.  He and his followers are using a false talking point in an attempt to eviscerate the regulations at the behest of the fossil fuel industry.  The talking point: any amount of regulation on industry activities will cause a devastating impact on the industry.  Instead of being manhandled by regulations, drilling corporations have consistently threatened to pull up their stakes and move to other states to do business.  This threat is simply ridiculous: would corporations willingly give up millions of dollars of profits in the face of justified regulatory activity?  Of course not.  But they keep pushing it nonetheless.

State Sen. David Balmer, not to be “out-talking pointed”, provided the following:

“By every metric I could see … the oil and gas business is declining in Colorado”

Sen. Balmer must not be looking very hard for metrics.  Oil and gas drilling operations have exploded across the state in the past 8 years, even during 2 years of Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter’s term.  I have a question for Sen. Balmer: what is the state of Colorado getting out of all of this new drilling?  More crime, more pollution, more use of taxpayer-funded  infrastructure (that the oil and gas corporations are not helping to pay for, by the way) and more negative impacts on tourism (hunting and camping, among others).  Meanwhile, Colorado isn’t receiving the tax payments it’s due because of an old exemption put in place to help the oil and gas industry establish themselves in the state.  Well, they’re plenty established, but still aren’t paying their fair share.  But they’ll happilly fear-monger the populace into believing they’ll leave if the status quo changes.  As an added note, Harris Sherman is quoted in the article as identifying falling commodity prices as the primary reason the gas industry has slowed down from its record pace last year.  Maybe Sen. Balmer should spend some more time in a basic economics course before throwing around b.s. causes.

Lawmakers will be allowed to amend the proposed regulations prior to their enactment.  I hope CO Democrats will not allow the Cons to wreck the process, which has already taken years.