One of the more weighty responsibilities of U.S. senators is the “advise and consent” role they play in vetting a president’s picks for top executive branch posts. Here they should not just serve as a check on a nominee’s credentials, but also as a watchdog against nominees with radical ideas or agendas that pose potential threats to home state interests.
It’s in this role that Colorado’s senators, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, have failed, by rolling out a welcome mat for the radicals President Obama keeps picking for top posts. The recent withdrawal of Colorado’s Ron Binz to chair the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) offers one embarrassing case in point.
Binz, a “green energy” guru who had a troubling tenure chairing Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission, had been tapped by President Obama to chair FERC, a little known but powerful board wielding regulatory authority over interstate energy transactions and transport. Obama undoubtedly hoped Binz would round out the roster of his second term “green dream team” — a group that would lead his climate change agenda — but something happened on the way to confirmation.
Although Binz was gushingly endorsed by Udall and Bennet, more discerning senators gradually developed enough doubts about his fitness for the job that he failed to win approval from a key committee, forcing withdrawal. Questions were raised not just about the nominee’s anti-fossil fuel attitudes — something we in Colorado saw first-hand — but also about the honesty of his testimony, in which he tried to cloak his extremist views behind a veil of moderation.
Thankfully, enough senators saw the truth about Binz to sink the nomination. But he could easily have cruised to confirmation, with a glowing recommendation from Udall and Bennet, had more serious senators not done their homework, raising serious questions about the judgment of both senators.
This is part of a larger pattern we’ve seen as the president’s second-term team is even more extreme than the team it replaced. Virtually any pick the President wants, the president gets, with nary a peep of protest, nor a hard question asked, by Colorado’s compliant senators.
Newly appointed EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, already is showing that she’ll be more aggressive than her predecessor, Lisa Jackson, in implementing President Obama’s green energy agenda. EPA rules on Colorado coal companies, workers and power plants have become even more aggressive under McCarthy, despite Obama’s campaign claim to have an “all-of-the-above” energy policy in his second term.
First term Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar was a huge disappointment, as he loyally executed this administration’s efforts to limit drilling and restrict access to federal lands. But his replacement, former recreation company executive Sally Jewell, is saying and doing things that make Salazar look moderate. Yet neither of these nominees raised any red flags, or received any real scrutiny, during the confirmation process from Colorado’s senators, who instead rolled out the customary red carpet and bolstered phony administration claims that these people are “moderates.”
This willingness to rubber-stamp President Obama’s nominees might be forgiven on picks that don’t hold Colorado’s economic fortunes in their hands. But when it comes to nominees who will wield real power over issues of critical importance to this state — posts like Secretary of Interior or EPA administrator — a failure to exercise aggressive due diligence is something Coloradans should be alarmed about.
Perhaps Udall and Bennet sincerely endorse the extremist views these nominees bring to the job. Perhaps they fear they’ll be accused of party disloyalty if they buck the president’s nominees and policies. But the two must be made to understand that their primary loyalty is to Colorado, which hasn’t fared well at the hands of this President and his radical cabinet choices.
It’s time for our senators to decide whether they’re representing Colorado’s interests in Washington, or Washington’s interests in Colorado.
Dustin Zvonek is Colorado director of Americans for Prosperity, the nation’s largest free-market grassroots advocacy group.
