{"id":4641,"date":"2009-06-10T11:10:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T17:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/06\/national-journal-profiles-bingaman-energy-debate\/"},"modified":"2009-06-10T11:10:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-10T17:10:00","slug":"national-journal-profiles-bingaman-energy-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/06\/national-journal-profiles-bingaman-energy-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"National Journal profiles Bingaman, energy debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A new article describes U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman<\/a>, D-N.M., as an attentive listener, straight shooter and gentleman who also has \u201ca bit of a stubborn streak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sounds about right to me.<\/p>\n

The article is published in The National Journal Magazine<\/a>, and takes a look at energy reform legislation being developed in the Senate by profiling the leaders of two committees working on the effort. They are Bingaman, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee<\/a>, and Barbara Boxer<\/a>, D-Calif., who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The link to the magazine\u2019s June cover story is here<\/a>, but you can only read it if you have a subscription. An accompanying interview with Bingaman is here<\/a>, but also requires a subscription. Sorry.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an interesting portion about Bingaman from the article:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\u201cAsked to react to his colleagues\u2019 description of him as an attentive listener, Bingaman, 65, grinned. \u2018Well, there are a lot of folks around here who have things they want to say, and they do appreciate people listening and letting them say those things, which I\u2019m glad to do!\u2019 (Sen. Debbie) Stabenow (D-Mich.) said she can tell when the Harvard-and-Stanford-trained lawyer disagrees with her, because he\u2019ll quietly ask, \u2018Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBingaman knows how to broker deals to move measures in his committee, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said. She thinks of Bingaman, now in his fifth term, as a \u2018straight shooter\u2019 and a \u2018gentleman.\u2019 He does have the earnest air of a preacher about him. He speaks softly and looks downward. He gently clasps his hands in front of him, or touches the tips of his fingers together when he’s concentrating. His smile is boyish and fleeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, some who have worked with him say that Bingaman has a bit of a stubborn streak. One former Senate aide recalled how during a 2002 conference committee, then-House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La., was seeking to make a point and break an impasse. He handed Bingaman some legislative language that the senator scanned and pronounced unacceptable. \u2018No, I\u2019m sorry that won’t work,\u2019 Bingaman told Tauzin. \u2018But, sir,\u2019 the House chairman replied, \u2018that\u2019s your language.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

And this:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMany of the chairman\u2019s colleagues who have worked with him for years say that Bingaman is not a senator who chitchats or vents, which leaves them knowing little beyond their shared Senate business. \u2018I\u2019m not purposely that way,\u2019 he shrugged. \u2018It just seems like that\u2019s what people are paying me to do — not to kibitz about other stuff.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

The energy legislation<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, on to the energy reform legislation on which Bingaman and Boxer are working. Bingaman told me in April<\/a> that he\u2019s crafting a package that will aim to improve energy efficiency, expand the deployment of renewable energy around the nation and provide more financial support for increased capacity.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the easier stuff, Bingaman said. The real energy debate is about creating a cap-and-trade program that would set an annual target on the amount of carbon that can be released into the atmosphere and would allow firms to buy, sell and trade carbon credits. Such a program, which Bingaman strongly supports, would also provide incentives to promote a gradual transition to new, lower-carbon technologies.<\/p>\n

That debate, and how it could affect Bingaman\u2019s package, is captured in the National Journal article:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\u201cThe dilemma for (Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid (D-Nev.) is whether delinking an energy package from a climate-change measure would send cap-and-trade drifting into the future among reluctant, wary senators. The dilemma for Bingaman is whether Reid\u2019s notion of trying to leverage two complex packages in search of 60 votes might actually sink his panel\u2019s bipartisan achievements on a host of energy-saving initiatives that could move ahead this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cSen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a member of Bingaman\u2019s committee who is trying to negotiate some nuclear energy and domestic-production compromises with the Democrats, says he wants to vote for a major energy bill this year but sees cap-and-trade as a deal-killer in the Senate. \u2018God, it\u2019s just a public bribery bill, isn\u2019t it?\u2019 Corker said in an interview.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

A spokeswoman for Bingaman said in an e-mail that Bingaman\u2019s energy bill should be finalized by the energy committee on Thursday. It\u2019s up to Reid to decide when to take it and other energy legislation before the full Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new article describes U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., as an attentive listener, straight shooter and gentleman who also has \u201ca bit of a stubborn streak.\u201d Sounds about right to me. The article is published in The National Journal Magazine, and takes a look at energy reform legislation being developed in the Senate by profiling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}