{"id":4698,"date":"2009-06-30T16:59:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-30T22:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/06\/teagues-vote-on-cap-and-trade-bill-was-daring\/"},"modified":"2009-06-30T16:59:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-30T22:59:00","slug":"teagues-vote-on-cap-and-trade-bill-was-daring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/06\/teagues-vote-on-cap-and-trade-bill-was-daring\/","title":{"rendered":"Teague’s vote on cap-and-trade bill was ‘daring’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

I\u2019ve written before<\/a> about the tightrope U.S. Rep. Harry Teague<\/a>, D-N.M., has walked on energy issues.<\/p>\n

As an oilman and a Democrat, he doesn\u2019t necessarily fit the mold typically associated with either. His job requires him to work with a Democratic Congress and president whose policy views are sometimes left of his, but, at the same time, he must worry about re-election in an oil-and-gas district.<\/p>\n

In that context, Teague voted last week in favor of a controversial cap-and-trade energy bill<\/a> that passed by seven votes. Now The Politico is out with an article<\/a> that says, of all the junior House Democrats who voted for the bill, Teague\u2019s vote \u201cmay have been the most daring of any in his caucus.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the article:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\u201cAn oilman, Teague represents the most conservative part of a state that often is called \u2018Little Texas.\u2019 Until he was elected last year, the oil- and gas-dependent 2nd District had not elected a Democrat for more than a quarter-century. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs Teague himself noted in an interview with a local paper last month, \u2018Sixty-five percent of the public schools in New Mexico are paid for by oil and gas.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Teague explained to the news organization why he voted for the bill:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWhen this bill came out of committee, I could not consider supporting it without some specific changes being made to protect New Mexicans in the rural areas and small communities that I represent. That\u2019s why I fought to add provisions to keep down gas prices in rural areas, to hold onto refining jobs in smaller communities and to protect the 180,000 rural electric customers in my district.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last year, Teague authored a guest blog<\/a> in the Washington publication The Hill in which he wrote that Congress \u201cneeds someone who understands the oil and gas industry, and who is ready and able to work with alternative energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, our energy policy has been dictated by extremes, none of which are willing to work together to find a comprehensive solution to the mess we\u2019re in,\u201d Teague wrote. \u201cI want to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n

What will Teague\u2019s constituents think about his vote? Time will tell. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve written before about the tightrope U.S. Rep. Harry Teague, D-N.M., has walked on energy issues. As an oilman and a Democrat, he doesn\u2019t necessarily fit the mold typically associated with either. His job requires him to work with a Democratic Congress and president whose policy views are sometimes left of his, but, at the […]<\/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-4698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4698","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=4698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}