True or false: In a seemingly unprecedented display, both the U.S. House and Senate this month unanimously passed a long-delayed measure that reduces federal regulations and, according to just about everyone who looks at it, will increase private-sector jobs across Colorado and the West.
If you answered “false,” I wouldn’t blame you.
Surprisingly (astonishingly? amazingly? adverb-of-your-choice-ly?), the answer is “true.”
I swear.
Late Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed by unanimous consent the Ski Area Recreational Opportunity Enhancement Act.
The multisyllabic measure would, as Denver Post Washington Bureau reporter Allison Sherry wrote, allow ski areas to apply to use national forest land for activities in the spring, summer and fall.
Put another way: It gives resorts a chance to make their mountains magnets of recreational and economic activity for more than just the winter months.
The House earlier this month passed the measure 394-0.
While the vote totals would seem to indicate it faced little opposition, the bill to boost business for the downhill industry was first introduced five years ago and has faced an uphill struggle ever since.
It has had numerous champions from Colorado’s ski industry and in Washington, including Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, and Sen. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs.
The bill passed the House last year, but got snowed under somewhere in the Senate.
After soaring through the House again this year, it was once again on to the Senate where Udall, in what could be described as mountain-man-mafioso mode, was able to push it through.
The episode should serve as a model for what could get done on the jobs front moving forward.
The White House has said that President Obama will sign the measure.
Might I suggest he do it here, in swing state Colorado, when he returns this week?
Obama could gather the Democrats and Republicans from Colorado’s congressional delegation alongside donkeys and elephants from county commissions and town councils from across the state. He could use the desk from the governor’s mansion (it’s still there, I checked) on which he signed the $787 billion stimulus in February of 2008 and say:
“This isn’t nearly as big as that one, but it could be more important. It’s an example of what this country needs at this moment: action.
“This is a piece of legislation that languished for at least a year for no greater reason than Washington couldn’t get around to it. When they did, it wasn’t hard. It was devoid of electoral politics. It was unanimous.
“This can be a template moving forward. Let’s find other jobs bills that have been going nowhere for no good reason. Let’s break my $447 billion jobs plan into pieces and see where we can find common ground. It includes measures that have found support from both Democrats and Republicans before. Let’s find it again.
“No more campaign speeches from me. Just cooperation.”
That, of course, is the optimist’s wishful thinking.
The realist in me thinks that Republicans won’t “give him a win,” as one Republican aide put it recently.
That would be unwise. And it would also be unwise for Obama to continue down a course in which his rhetoric plays only to stage left.
In unaffiliated-voter-rich Western states including Colorado, people are fed up with partisanship.
They want problems solved.
If those in power now are unwilling to come together and tackle them, it’s a good bet that efforts to find willing moderates will snowball.
E-mail Curtis Hubbard at chubbard@denverpost.com
