{"id":37644,"date":"2022-10-26T17:49:31","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T23:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bennet-odea-spar-on-climate-energy-issues-in-grand-junction-debate\/"},"modified":"2022-10-26T23:49:31","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T23:49:31","slug":"bennet-odea-spar-on-climate-energy-issues-in-grand-junction-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bennet-odea-spar-on-climate-energy-issues-in-grand-junction-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Bennet, O\u2019Dea spar on climate, energy issues in Grand Junction debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Michael Bennet, left, and Joe O\u2019Dea, right. (Bennet: Chase Woodruff\/Colorado Newsline O\u2019Dea: Courtesy of Sage Naumann\/O\u2019Dea campaign)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The race for Colorado\u2019s U.S. Senate seat returned on Tuesday to the Western Slope, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican challenger Joe O\u2019Dea debated the issues in a region significantly impacted by both the clean-energy transition and a historic megadrought fueled by climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Dea, a first-time candidate and Denver construction CEO, returned again and again to a central theme of his campaign, stressing the need to reverse course on what he called a \u201cwar on energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

High inflation rates won\u2019t subside until \u201cwe move the energy costs down,\u201d O\u2019Dea said during Tuesday\u2019s debate, held at Colorado Mesa University and hosted by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel<\/em> and Colorado Public Radio.<\/p>\n

The race for Colorado\u2019s U.S. Senate seat returned on Tuesday to the Western Slope, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet and Republican challenger Joe O\u2019Dea debated the issues in a region significantly impacted by both the clean-energy transition and a historic megadrought fueled by climate change.<\/p>\n

Responding to a question on accommodating asylum seekers from Afghanistan, he told moderators, \u201cWe\u2019ve got a foreign policy right now that doesn\u2019t involve our energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when asked by moderator and CMU student Halima Behroz how the United States should help promote access to education for women and girls in developing countries, O\u2019Dea pivoted again to the \u201cprice of diesel at over $5.50 a gallon,\u201d which he said prevents the U.S. from helping \u201cother countries with their issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last answer drew a rebuke from Bennet, who is seeking a third full term in the Senate in a challenging midterm election year for Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis answer for everything is fossil fuels, fossil fuels, fossil fuels,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cEven a question that\u2019s asked by Halima about what our obligation is to women around the world. I don\u2019t think fossil fuels, fossil fuels, fossil fuels is the answer to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the first of two televised debates ahead of the Nov. 8 election, both candidates cast themselves as pragmatic moderates who would reach across the aisle and represent Coloradans of all political stripes, including those rural parts of the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would put my record of bipartisanship and of civility up against any other member of the Senate,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cAnd if you send me back there, I\u2019ll continue to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a state that has trended increasingly Democratic in recent election years, Bennet has led O\u2019Dea in polling by an average of more than 8 percentage points, according to elections analysis website FiveThirtyEight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In his effort to pull off an upset win, O\u2019Dea has pitched himself to voters as a moderate on social issues. He captured the GOP nomination in June<\/a> with 55% of the vote in a head-to-head primary battle with far-right state Rep. Ron Hanks, who has repeatedly spread false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that the party system we have here in the United States is broken \u2013 I think Sen. Bennet and I probably agree on that,\u201d O\u2019Dea said. \u201cI won\u2019t vote the party line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Climate issues in spotlight<\/div>\n

Bennet and O\u2019Dea noted their common ground on a range of issues, including support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children and other immigration reforms, as well as changes aimed at streamlining federal permitting for energy projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do need to get the permitting out of the way so we can raise wind, solar, we can raise nuclear, get all of those energies online so we can begin to replace fossil fuels,\u201d O\u2019Dea said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not going to happen tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Bennet repeatedly criticized O\u2019Dea\u2019s opposition to the Inflation Reduction Act, the $750 billion package of clean-energy spending and health care measures passed by congressional Democrats earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just passed the most important renewables bill in the history of the United States of America, and frankly on planet Earth,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cAnd Joe O\u2019Dea has said over and over again that if he had been in Washington, he would\u2019ve voted against that bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the future of the energy industry on the Western Slope, where much of Colorado\u2019s natural gas extraction takes place, Bennet promised \u201cbright days ahead\u201d and pledged continued support for gas production and export infrastructure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis country is going to lead the transition to renewable energy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get to net-zero by 2050 \u2013 and even when we get there, we\u2019re still going to be using fossil fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fueled by climate change, a \u201cmegadrought\u201d that has impacted the Colorado River Basin since 2000 has shattered records to become the region\u2019s worst dry spell in at least 1,200 years<\/a>. Rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses have warmed much of the Western Slope by more than 4 degrees<\/a> Fahrenheit above preindustrial averages.<\/p>\n

Responding to a question about the renegotiation of the Colorado River Compact<\/a>, the 1922 interstate agreement that governs use of water across the West, O\u2019Dea said that further conservation efforts should be shouldered primarily by Lower Basin states like California.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done our job, but the lower states have not,\u201d O\u2019Dea said. \u201cWe need to push back on California. We need a leader in there that\u2019s going to hold California accountable and say, \u2018Look, the water that you\u2019re claiming as a right doesn\u2019t exist.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet again faulted O\u2019Dea\u2019s opposition to Democrats\u2019 climate bill, which contained $4 billion for Western drought resiliency projects, and emphasized the need for a \u201cfederal backstop\u201d of funding to support local conservation and storage efforts across the river basin.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons I really want to go back to the Senate is to help lead the negotiations between the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cThe fate of the American West depends on our ability to do that. Our entire way of life, from agriculture to our ski resorts to our entire economy, depends on our getting this right.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado\u2019s U.S. Senate seat returns to drought-stricken Western Slope<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[266,28,1509,25,1566],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-state-elections","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\/37644","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=37644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37644"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}