Retiring Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has some advice for the next Congress: The era of big energy bills is over.
The five-term Democrat said lawmakers should move beyond trying to pass sweeping, catch-all energy bills in favor of measures that separately address different sectors.
“Congress is in a mindset . . . where . . . if you say ‘energy,’ then we have got to have a 1,000-page bill and it has got to include everything but the kitchen sink. I think that has caused us more trouble than it has advantaged us in recent years,” he said.
Wide-ranging bills have also failed to make it across the finish line.
Going forward, Bingaman advises tackling electric power legislation and transportation fuels-related bills separately. He noted that policy debates sometimes blur an important distinction.
Bingaman gave his farewell speech on the Senate floor Thursday.
It included a call for tackling climate change, noting that the “bipartisan consensus” than enabled the major 2005 and 2007 energy bills “has, unfortunately, eluded us in the current Congress.”
