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From fracking in Colorado to climate change in New Hampshire, energy is cropping up in midterm elections throughout the country. And energy isn’t just an issue on the campaign trail. Whichever party wins the Senate will have a shot at tackling major energy questions over the next two years – from Keystone XL to crude oil exports to renewable fuel standards.
Control of the Senate hinges on the outcome of elections in states like New Hampshire, Colorado, Louisiana, Iowa, and Kentucky. Republicans need to net six seats to gain the majority in the Senate, and one top Democrat thinks Iowa could be the bellwether.
If Republicans win – which political prognosticators say is increasingly likely – they’ll team up with the GOP-led House to work on expanding the US’s domestic oil and gas boom. A Republican congressional agenda would likely include expanding offshore drilling, sending more natural gas overseas, and lifting the decades-old ban on crude oil exports. Pushing the approval of Keystone XL, a controversial pipeline proposal that would carry heavy crude oil from Canada to Texas refineries, would also be high on the GOP’s to-do list.
But even if Republicans gain control of the Senate, some observers point out that they’ll have a difficult time getting much done. The 50-seat majority they’ll need to control the chamber is far short of the 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority Republicans would need to pass most legislation through the Senate.
Environmental groups are pumping millions into hotly-contested Senate races, in hopes the GOP remains in the minority. A Democratic-held upper chamber could maintain the “firewall” that has stymied Republican attempts to overturn Obama’s climate and energy agenda.
If Democrats manage to eke out a slim majority, the Senate will likely bolster Obama’s efforts to rein in carbon emissions from coal plants – a major contributor to human-induced climate change. A Democratic Senate would take a more cautious approach to oil development, but would likely embrace a rise in output that has buoyed a shaky US economy.
Here are five competitive Senate races where energy matters, and where the victor could determine who controls Congress:
Brennan Li/AP
Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, left, and his opponent US Rep. Cory Gardner, right, flip a coin to see who gets first question during their final pre-election televised debate in Denver. The race is one of the closest in the country, and could help determine control of the US Senate.
Colorado has become one of the closest races in the country – a headache for the national Democratic party, which had counted on Sen. Mark Udall’s (D) seat being safe.
Sen. Udall’s hesitance on fracking and Keystone XL have him caught between a pro-fracking challenger Rep. Cory Gardner on the right, and environmentalists who oppose the drilling technique on the left. Gardner is pro-Keystone and pro-drilling, and touts his support for wind energy in campaign ads.
Earlier this summer, Udall and Governor John Hickenlooper (D) seemed to buoy their chances at staying in office when they crafted a deal that removed anti-fracking initiatives from the ballot. The two Democratic incumbents feared the anti-fracking measures would attract millions in oil and gas industry spending in the election, which would likely help their enthusiastically pro-fracking Republican challengers.
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
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Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.
