Domenici Hurts Energy Plans

Westerners unite! Here we are, up to our necks in renewable energy potential, and some in the United States Senate are stifling proposals for a national renewable energy requirement that could bring our bounteous wind power to market! These senators are working as a bloc to protect the South, which might have to buy renewable energy credits from the West!

Just like southern senators who stopped civil rights legislation for decades, this group of senators is a minority among the Senate's 100 members — barely 40. They stand athwart the Senate's decision-making floor, preventing the United States from joining the responsible nations developing alternative energy and combating global warming.

At their head is — oops! — a westerner! It's Sen. Pete Domenici from New Mexico!

Did Domenici forget who he was elected to represent? Why is he prominently supporting the southern bloc's effort to kill a renewable energy requirement that could hugely benefit New Mexico and the West?

Sen. Domenici was very excited about the potential for oil-shale development in Colorado in mid-2006 when he still chaired the Senate Energy Committee. He went on a tour, reported in USA Today, and said, "This is not pie in the sky. It's real."

Wind is real too. And unlike oil shale, we have wind in abundance here in New Mexico. All this renewable energy in Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, the Dakotas, New Mexico could be very, very good for our state and our country — a lot better than oil shale, and a lot more affordable, too.

As chair of the Senate Energy Committee for several years, Sen. Domenici produced a 2005 national energy bill packed with incentives for coal, oil shale, and oil and gas development. He let Sen. Jeff Bingaman's renewable energy requirement into the bill — and let it be killed later.

The picture that emerges is this: Sen. Domenici is way too close to the oil and gas industry and the coal industry, while he is harming the interests of our burgeoning and potential-packed renewable energy industry.

Hand-picked renewable energy interests and people from the national labs will rally to his defense, saying he's their best friend (does he control some of their funding?), but his actions belie the rhetoric.

Further, Sen. Domenici is not very interested in his own constituents. How does strong opposition to Sen. Bingaman's sensible, moderate renewable energy requirement help New Mexico? In plain language, it doesn't. His opposition hurts, badly.

I first met Sen. Domenici walking down a hallway at the Univeristy of New Mexico on his way to give a speech on water. I introduced myself, asking if we could meet to talk about more efficient and livable urban growth patterns — "smart growth."

He stopped in his tracks, realizing who I was — someone he had heard about from the other side. Locking on me like a political laser, he said sharply, "What you are doing is horrible for New Mexico," he said. "Your ideas would ruin this state."

Huh? He hadn't even heard my ideas! And he never did. He and his staff didn't respond to my requests for a meeting. What I wanted to discuss were transit options that could save commuters lots of time and money, reinvestment in our downtown (ruined in the early '70s by urban removal overseen by Commission President Pete Domenici), and smart growth incentives to draw developers closer to the core and transit sites. But someone had told him I supported a growth boundary (which I didn't) so he put me in the "do not talk" category.

Cities all over the West are doing these things. They make for more affordable, livable metro areas. Denver, Salt Lake, Dallas, Phoenix, Portland, Los Angeles — they're all on board. Republicans and Democrats see the value of these policies. They help people put their money into growing household and family equity (education and housing) instead of more driving (gasoline, insurance, and depreciating cars). Sen. Domenici didn't even want to discuss the concepts. He assumed I wanted to prevent the construction of affordable housing.

Sen. Domenici's run-ins regarding the U.S. Attorney are the tip of the iceberg. He's just a bad listener, not interested in learning things he doesn't know, and more oriented to the industries that support him than to the constituents he represents.

 (Ned Farquhar is a board member of Western Progress and former energy adviser to N.M. Gov. Bill Richardson)