Jeff Bingaman

Environmental groups have participated in a series of meetings in recent weeks to press Senate staff to strengthen the renewable energy standard (RES) included in the energy bill passed by Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s (D-N.M.) Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year. The RES in the bill would require that 15 percent of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources, a standard that most environmentalists think is far too weak.

Citing a new report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that corn-based ethanol subsidies cost taxpayers more than $7 billion a year, Sen. Jeff Bingaman Thursday voiced support for cuts to the ethanol tax credit program.
Describing corn ethanol as “a mature technology whose market share is protected,” Bingaman said Congress should scrutinize the subsidy [...]

The United States Senate voted 60-39 to pass a sweeping financial reform bill today, “overhauling the regulation of everything from the biggest banks to consumer financial products to exotic instruments like credit-default swaps to the derivatives used by farmers.”
Like the vote on cloture, three Republicans, Sens. Scott Brown, R-Mass., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Susan Collins, [...]

Local environmental groups are airing a TV ad this week asking Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., to use his position as chairman of a key Senate panel to help push a climate bill, according to the Associated Press.
Bingaman has been described as the Democrats’ last hope for an energy bill. He has crafted utility-only energy bill, which The [...]

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., introduced legislation today that would reform drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf. The legislation, S. 3516, is in response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that continues to pour oil into the Gulf.

Any hopes of a climate bill may be on the shoulders of New Mexico’s Sen. Jeff Bingaman, the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who is drafting a utility-only climate bill.
Politico noted today that while John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., have been more publicly visible in their pushing of a more [...]

A nuclear waste watchdog group says the state hasn’t done enough to make sure radioactive and toxic waste isn’t leaking from Sandia National Labs’ mixed waste landfill. Rebuffed by regional EPA officials, Citizen Action New Mexico now wants agency brass in Washington, D.C. and New Mexico Attorney General Gary King’s office to review the state Environment Department’s regulation of the site.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., is working on writing a utilities-only energy bill “that would cap greenhouse gas emissions from power plants” according to The New York Times. The Times says such a bill, less ambitious than the cap and trade climate bill crafted by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., would have a [...]

Uranium mining in Churchrock advanced last week as an appeals court cleared the way for Hydro Resources to start in-situ leaching in Northwest New Mexico. But residents and environmentalists worry that the mining will contaminate water. Because of the ongoing issue of abandoned mines that haven’t been cleaned up and a legacy of illness caused by exposure in the mines, the Navajo Nation banned uranium mining of all types in 2005.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman and a number of other U.S. Senators will be involved in a discussion with President Barack Obama on energy legislation that the Senate hopes to pass this year but passage of which looks increasingly dim as time passes and the mid-term elections near.

The significant violence occurring in Mexico in recent years is due to fighting among drug cartels, New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman said to radio reporters yesterday, and one solution is to stop weapons and cash going from the U.S. into Mexico.
The remarks came during questioning about President Obama’s plan to send 1200 National Guard troops [...]

Despite initial hopes in the green movement that the spill would spur a move away from the country’s reliance on oil, the disaster has had the opposite effect. An expansion of offshore drilling was supposed to be one of the key compromises that would bring oil-state Democrats and moderate Republicans on board with a climate bill. Now, with the country’s appetite for offshore rigs vastly diminished, the compromise has collapsed.

On Wednesday, June 30, New Mexico First will host a public lecture (“Collaborative Politics: Now More Than Ever“) moderated by ABC newsman Sam Donaldson. Mike McCurry, Bill Clinton’s former press secretary, will be a keynote speaker along with former RNC chair Frank Fahrenkopf. The event takes place at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, starting with a reception [...]

A wilderness area proposed by U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall could be more open to motor vehicle traffic after the senators decided to make changes to the Organ Mountains –Desert Peaks Wilderness Act that would give Border Patrol more access.