WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., announced Monday that he will be chairman of two subcommittees this congressional term.
Bennet will be chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Conservation, Climate, Forestry and Natural Resources and the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure. He was the ranking member of both subcommittees last congressional term.
U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., also serves as chairman of two subcommittees – the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Science and Space and the Senate HELP Committee Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety.
Bennet’s subcommittee on conservation examines legislation related to rural development, forestry, climate change and conservation efforts. It was recently modified to include the word “climate” in its name, indicating the committee’s added focus on climate change.
Bennet plans to foster bipartisan discussions as chairman.
“From healthy soils to the forests that sustain our water supply, conservation and forestry are central to our economy in Colorado,” he said in a news release. “Climate change threatens our way of life in the West, and I’m glad that we’ve expanded the scope of the conservation and forestry subcommittee to focus in a bipartisan manner on locally led efforts to build climate resilience.”
Bennet has focused on bipartisan conversations around climate change for a while.
Last fall, he convened a roundtable of Coloradans to help inform his environmental policy work. The group consists of people across the political spectrum, and it is focused on discussing the most pressing environmental issues facing their communities in a bipartisan way.
In February, the group came up with a final framework of priorities for policy related to the climate.
As chairman of the subcommittee on energy and infrastructure, Bennet plans to improve U.S. energy tax policy and find better ways to finance U.S. infrastructure. He said he will include a climate-centered outlook in his work.
“On the energy and infrastructure subcommittee, I’ll work to promote a forward-looking energy policy that addresses climate change while working to build consensus to finance our nation’s infrastructure needs,” Bennet said in a statement. “Colorado has been leading the way toward building a resilient, 21st-century clean energy economy, and I look forward to bringing our state’s experience to my committee work.”
Grace George is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C.