With only two months until the election, we thought U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet had finally decided to kick into high gear and pay a visit to his constituents on the Western Slope.
But it turns out he was just paying a special interest visit to his old pal and former Senate staffer, Zane Kessler, now the executive director of the Thompson Divide Coalition.
The “tour” gave Bennet the opportunity to pose for the press, and show his top contributors from national environmental groups that he was doing what they paid him to do: oppose Colorado’s energy industry.
Bennet, a Democrat, has tried in the past to introduce legislation that would both cancel the existing leases and permanently remove the area from consideration for future oil and gas leasing.
Kessler made the ludicrous claim that his group hosted a spectrum of differing interests to join the tour and present their views to Bennet. Not astonishingly, all of the so-called differing interests shared the same view: Shut down energy.
“And what I heard over and over again today is their concern that, if there is leasing of oil and gas here, it will have a negative effect on the economy here in Carbondale,” Bennet said.
Bennet proceeded to criticize the lease-holders for daring to challenge any eventual cancellations in court, and then essentially threatened to pass legislation that would “relieve people of the burden” to do so.
Bennet has spent his short political career evading the obvious; he opposes the oil, gas and coal industry and the boost to our economy it provides, he just doesn’t like to admit it to the folks whose jobs he is trying to kill.
But find him among his green grassroots supporters, the League of Conservation Voters being his top contributor, and he’s more than willing to confess his true intentions.