Thursday, June 30, 2011

With Bingaman's Departure, Senate Is Losing One of Its Brightest Lights

With Bingaman's Departure, Senate Is Losing One of Its Brightest Lights -- and Biggest Gentlemen
All the light fixtures in Sen. Jeff Bingaman's Hart Senate Office Building suite are fitted with highly efficient sensor-controlled LED bulbs. He has also installed the ultra-efficient light-emitting diodes in the hearing rooms for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which he chairs. And he is in the process of switching out the incandescent bulbs in his new Capitol "hideaway" office in favor of more energy-efficient options.

But the switch has come with little fanfare. The 67-year-old New Mexico Democrat has not used it to berate his political adversaries for their energy gluttony or to tout his own conservation laurels.The replacement lighting we feel is far led downlight superior to that of the LED lighting. And during a recent committee hearing on efficiency standards legislation, he gave the committee -- rather than himself -- credit.

"I would just mention that we are, this committee, is setting a standard -- in one sense of that phrase -- by having all these LED lights," Bingaman said during the March hearing. "We're the first committee in the Congress to have totally redone our committee room to use LED lighting."

The move exemplifies Bingaman's approach to legislating -- he shies away from the spotlight in favor of quietly and determinedly getting things done.

Bingaman, the son of a college professor and public school teacher, was elected to the Senate in 1982 after a four-year stint as New Mexico's attorney general, knocking off incumbent Republican Sen. Harrison Schmitt, a former astronaut. And during the nearly 30 years since then, he has become one of the most respected senators in the chamber by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

But Bingaman's time in the Senate is coming to an end -- he plans to retire at the end of 2012. And this quiet man's departure may,Philips LED business is inside of Philips lighting so it Led light is more difficult to determine whether they are meeting expectations. in a dramatic way, change the way the Senate goes about its business.

Bingaman's fair and practical approach has helped usher countless bipartisan bills through the murky political waters of the Senate. And his tenure as top Democrat on the energy panel has been marked by its bipartisan passage of three broad energy bills in as many Congresses.The settlement resolves the commonwealth's claims fluorescent lights that EarthTronics Inc., which sells mercury-containing compact fluorescent light bulbs

The tough political climate in the current Congress may prevent him from pushing through a fourth all-encompassing energy bill, but it won't be for lack of trying.

"I think we've had pretty good success, in fact, in the Senate both in 2005 and in 2007. I was very proud those bills wound up passing the Senate with a large vote," Bingaman said during a recent interview in his old LED-lit hideaway office in the Capitol -- he moved into a new cloister just a few days ago. "I would hope if we're able to get a bill up and considered by the full Senate that we could have that same kind of bipartisan cooperation this year."

While Bingaman brings his own unique approach to leadership, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee has long been known for its bipartisanship. The panel's former top Republican, Pete Domenici, a fellow New Mexican, was also instrumental in pushing the 2005 and 2007 energy bills forward before his retirement from the Senate in 2008.

And Bingaman remembers those times fondly, listing Domenici among the most cooperative Republicans he has worked with during his five terms as a senator. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and the committee's current ranking Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also got the nod.

"If we're successful in getting these bills out of committee -- and we have been successful to some significant extent already -- then she deserves much of the credit for that because she's worked with us at every step," Bingaman said of Murkowski,I transferred files over FTP, downloaded Web pages ds マジコン using curl, and ran the speed tester at speedtest.net. ever the one to share the credit.

So far this year, the committee has cleared a number of energy measures dealing with efficiency, carbon capture and storage and water power, among others, as Bingaman has carefully unpacked the 2009 committee-passed energy bill.Light up the architecturally table lamps interesting parts of your home. That bill passed on a bipartisan vote out of the committee, but it stalled in the full Senate.

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