The blowout on Deepwater Horizon caused the worst environmental disaster in American history. But the hole in the well isn't the only one Washington needs to plug.
A series of legal and regulatory loopholes has effectively allowed the oil and gas industry to police itself. Many of these loopholes remain wide open:
Congress should close these loopholes, as well as the exemptions drillers have carved out of the Clean Water Act; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act; the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act; and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Plenty of candidates promise to stand up to special interests. In a fundraising appeal he sent out last week, for example, my opponent Senator Bennet criticized the "lax regulations and long-standing corporate loopholes" that lead to "catastrophic financial and environmental disasters."
Mr. Bennet's stance, however, contained a loophole of its own. Twenty-four hours earlier, he voted to preserve more than $35 billion in tax breaks for the oil and gas industry, instead of using that money to reduce the deficit and advance energy efficiency and conservation.
As Colorado's next U.S. Senator, I will fight to protect our health and safety. I will promote economic development and support energy exploration practices that do not endanger our environment. And I will never have to worry about displeasing my corporate contributors - I don't have any.
Since then I have come to realize the incredible naivety of my original observations. Get them to create less ugliness? Find ways to achieve more economic benefit to Colorado? Hell, it appears that we must count ourselves lucky if we can get them to poison us a little less.
I'm really thinking that the last thing we need is another politician to represent us. You see, all the laws and money and promises from the government all these years, and wow! Things just get better and better, right? Yeah.
I side with Romanoff and HOPE his words are more than just that. Complaining that things never change and then not voting for change seems counterintuitive. (Then again, conducting the same experiment over and over again, always getting the same result is ...?0
First thing we need is to agree on how to begin downsizing the fed government and state governments to small and subordinate entities.
Then we open county and local government to COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY-- We the People have a right to know where EVERY SINGLE PENNY is going. WE will vote on any and all laws that are passed in our areas. NOTHING will be voted on behind closed doors, EVER. WE will decide how much taxes to pay OR NOT. Every public servant will be reminded sternly, who works for whom. With all that and more, we begin a journey back to the Land of Liberty, Home of the Free.
Once he's there, he'll be obliged to raise taxes, create new regulations, new laws, etc., and it all leads to where we are, and it's only getting worse.
Don't get me wrong, I've read some of your previous comments and my heart goes out to you and your family. I myself am unemployed right now, with no relief in sight. The unemployment is gone and I'm on CICP (if you're in CO you know what that is).
However, it is because of all these programs, government interference, corporate interests, etc. that we are in the mess we are, and I believe we need to accept this is a failed system.
You may have hope left. Mine has evaportated.