{"id":14071,"date":"2026-01-06T12:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T19:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-michael-bennet-reflects-on-year-in-congress\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:42:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:42:46","slug":"sen-michael-bennet-reflects-on-year-in-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/sen-michael-bennet-reflects-on-year-in-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Michael Bennet reflects on year in Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"U.S.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet listens about affordable housing in Durango on Friday during a discussion with community members after a tour of Residences at Durango, a workforce housing project in west Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

WASHINGTON \u2013 Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado reflected on his year in Congress in an interview last month with The Durango Herald<\/em>, emphasizing pushing back against President Donald Trump as one of the biggest battles.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of what I\u2019ve been doing this year has been standing up to and fighting the incoherent economic policies that the president has been leading, including his attack on the Affordable Care Act,\u201d Bennet said.<\/p>\n

Last year saw health care take center stage. A 43-day government shutdown over tax subsidy premiums left 1.4 million federal employees unpaid and countless Americans unsure of the future of their insurance status while Republicans and Democrats in Congress could not agree on appropriations legislation for 2026.<\/p>\n

Bennet reintroduced a bill in December to create a public insurance option for the health care system, the Medicare-X Choice Act, but said he doesn\u2019t expect it to go anywhere while Trump is president. It is still important to put it down as a marker for the future, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re leading the fight to try to get the tax credits reinstated for people all over Colorado and southwestern Colorado,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bennet said he has been \u201cpushing back hard\u201d on Trump\u2019s \u201cincoherent\u201d tariff policy that has raised prices for small businesses and consumers all over Colorado. He was one of six Democrats to join the bipartisan Trade Review Act of 2025, which would reestablish limits on the president\u2019s ability to impose unilateral tariffs without Congress\u2019 approval.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., questions U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer as he testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 8. (Mark Schiefelbein\/Associated Press file)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s global trade war, including against some of our closest allies like Canada and Japan, is already sowing chaos and uncertainty \u2013 and working Americans are paying the price,\u201d Bennet said in a news release. \u201cThis legislation will restore Congress\u2019 authority over trade policy, as dictated by the Constitution, to protect the American people from shortsighted and harmful tariffs like these.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Republican-led Big, Beautiful Bill was a significant and controversial piece of legislation passed into law earlier this year. It combined many policies, such as those related to tax cuts, reallocation of funds and changes to social programs such as SNAP and Medicaid. Democrats tried, though unsuccessful, to block it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe led the battle to try to stop the so-called Big, Beautiful Bill, but in doing that, we were able to stop Donald Trump\u2019s attacks on public lands and Mike Lee\u2019s attack on public lands and I think that was a very significant legislative achievement,\u201d Bennet said.<\/p>\n

Bennet sponsored a number of environmental bills this year, such as the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, which would protect 400,000 acres of public lands in the state, with more than 60,000 acres in the San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The bill) protects some of the most iconic parts of Colorado,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cThe thing that has been most difficult in Washington has been the inability of us to pass big public lands bills anymore because there are people in the Republican Party in Washington who just have an ideological opposition to public lands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another piece of environmental legislation that Bennet focused on this year was the Gold King Mine Spill Compensation Act, a bill he introduced in February to provide funding and authority for the Environmental Protection Agency to compensate individuals, businesses and communities harmed by the 2015 Gold King Mine spill.<\/p>\n

\"Democratic
Democratic U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper, left, and Michael Bennet at City Park in Denver on Aug. 9, 2022, at an event to draw attention to passage in Congress of the Inflation Reduction Act. (Hart Van Denburg\/CPR News file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Fellow Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper has helped lead the charge on the Fix Our Forests Act, which advanced out of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry committee in October. However, Bennet voted against the bill, stating that while he supported the premise, revisions needed to be made before he could offer his full support, such as increasing public and tribal input and judicial oversight.<\/p>\n

One of Bennet\u2019s main priorities throughout his time in Congress involves the child tax credit. He reintroduced the American Family Act in April to increase the value of the credit, provide monthly payments and ensure that low-income families will receive the same credit as middle-class families.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe expanded Child Tax Credit benefited 61 million American kids, helped cut childhood poverty nearly in half, and cut hunger by a quarter for families,\u201d he said in a news release. \u201cParents across Colorado told me it reduced their stress and made it easier for them to afford child care, rent, and school supplies. It was the best thing we\u2019ve done for kids and families in generations. Restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit is essential to ending childhood poverty in this country and closing the largest income inequality gap we have ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December, Bennet and other Senate Democrats passed a bill to finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a water pipeline project that will deliver clean drinking water from the Pueblo Reservoir to more than 50,000 families, producers and municipalities throughout 39 communities in the Lower Arkansas River Valley. He said it was \u201cvery exciting,\u201d especially for rural Colorado. He said the bill would ensure the federal government makes good on its promise to deliver a safe and reliable water supply. But President Trump vetoed the bill on Dec. 30.<\/p>\n

Bennet and Hickenlooper released a joint statement the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing says \u2018Make America Great Again\u2019 like denying 50,000 rural Coloradans access to clean, affordable drinking water,\u201d the statement read. \u201c\u2026 Trump\u2019s attacks on Southern Colorado are politics at its worst \u2013 putting personal and political grievances ahead of Americans. Southeastern Coloradans were promised the completion of the Arkansas Valley Conduit more than 60 years ago. With this veto, President Trump broke that promise and demonstrated exactly why so many Americans are fed up with Washington. We will keep fighting to make sure rural Coloradans get the clean drinking water they were promised.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., center, speaks to reporters outside the U.S. Capitol on April 23, 2024, in Washington. (Mariam Zuhaib\/Associated Press file)<\/span>dur-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Days ago, Trump captured the Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and declared that the Southern American country will be under U.S. control.<\/p>\n

Bennet posted on X that while he thinks Maduro is an \u201cillegitimate, brutal leader,\u201d he has seen \u201cno evidence\u201d justifying the administration acting without Congressional authorization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Venezuelan people deserve to thrive under a democratically elected government,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cBut the Trump administration\u2019s trampling of our Constitution and unauthorized military action serve only to weaken U.S. democracy and make the world more dangerous. Congress must reassert its role in these decisions to prevent the President from his continued irresponsible conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet is running for governor of Colorado in 2026. During his time in Congress in the new year, he said that fighting for health care will be a \u201ctop priority,\u201d as well as humane immigration policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe message is that we are going to keep fighting for health care and we\u2019re going to keep fighting for an economy that works for everybody, whether they\u2019re in rural Colorado or urban Colorado,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cWe are facing an affordability crisis in Colorado. \u2026 Donald Trump hasn\u2019t caused all those problems but a lot of his policies are exacerbating the challenges that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abigail Hatting is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a senior at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ahatting@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pushing back against President Trump has been big battle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,1565,994,25,1566],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-14071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-michael-bennet","tag-trueanthem","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet","tag-u-s-senate"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14071"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19311,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14071\/revisions\/19311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14071"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=14071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}