CLOVIS, NM (By Clovis News Journal) August 20, 2010 — Sen. Jeff Bingaman is in his sixth term as New Mexico senator. He is the senior member from New Mexico and chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He visited the Freedom New Mexico offices Wednesday as part of a series of visits with New Mexico cities while Congress is on recess.

Q: You’re on recess until Sept. 13. What are some things you want to work on when you get back?

A: Well, we've got a lot that we should get done when we get back into session. I hope we're able to. There's been a lot of polarization and partisanship in the Senate in recent weeks and months. It's been difficult. One item is a small business tax package that is intended to help small businesses, also provide some tax incentives for accelerated depreciation of items they purchased, for example. It increases the amounts the Small Business Administration can guarantee in loans to small businesses. There are $30 billion taken from the stimulus package that then is made available to healthy community banks on the condition they loan that out in order to stimulate more lending to small business. That's one package that needs to be done, I'm hoping we're able to do it.

Obviously, we also have to pass the appropriations bills to keep the federal government operating. I hope we can do that when we come back in September. If not, it will be something we'll have to deal with in the so-called lame duck session which is expected to happen after the election occurs.

Q: How frustrating has it been to pass legislation when it seems you need 60 votes in the Senate to do everything? For instance, there was energy and oil spill legislation you weren't able to get to.

A: It's been frustrating, there's no question about that. Some of opposition may be based on the merits of the legislation being put forward. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the opposition does really amount to obstruction in the sense there's a desire to not see additional legislation pass or to not see the president sign any more legislation of consequence between now and the election. Whatever motivations are, it's been very difficult to get agreement in the Senate.

Q: How much of the gridlock is Republican opposition, and how much of it is lack of unity within the Democratic Party? On that legislation I just mentioned, two Democratic senators, Mark Begich (of Alaska) and Mary Landrieu (of Louisiana) had opposed liability cap change. President George W. Bush never had more than 55 Senators, and he never seemed to have problems getting legislation through.

A: I'm sure you'll get a different answer, depending on who you ask. From my perspective, to take the one specific you asked about, there were two Democratic senators who had problems with the elimination of cap on liability that Sen. Reid proposed, but they have worked on a way to change it so it would be acceptable to them .. and acceptable to most members, as far as I know. That was not the real opposition; the real opposition was a generic unwillingness to move ahead with energy legislation in this stage of the congressional calendar. I think there has been fairly entrenched opposition by the Republican minority to a lot of what needed to be done. I was listening yesterday to an interview on the radio with our ambassador to Iraq, Chris Hill. It reminded me of how many months we had to struggle for Republicans to let us bring up the confirmation of Chris Hill as our ambassador. He's about to retire in another month. He is a very respected foreign service officer, he's had a very distinguished career in the state department, through Democratic and Republican administrations, had been our ambassador to Korea. There was no reason in the world he shouldn't have been approved readily to be our ambassador to Iraq once the president nominated him.

Q: Sen. Tom Udall, also of New Mexico, wants to amend the Senate rules next year to allow for simple majority votes? Are you for this change in Senate procedure?

A: I think he has not gotten into the weeds as far as the details of what he wants brought about, but I would certainly support changing some of the rules that we operate under. Right now, you need to have 60 votes to not only pass a bill. You have to have 60 votes to proceed to a bill, then you need 60 votes to cut off debate and pass a bill. I don't see why we need 60 votes to consider legislation. It seems to me it would be much better if we could make a change to that rule, as an example.

Q: How do you get others on board? Sen. Scott Brown holds a lot of power for being the Republican to end a filibuster threat. Same with Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and Democrats like Ben Nelson can gain a lot being a holdout.

A: Of course, the fall election will reshuffle the cards. We'll have a very different membership coming to the Senate that we started in January. This idea we've got these two or three Senators who are swing votes, that may not be the case in the new Congress.

Q: You rode a wave election in 2006 to an easy victory. Tom Udall did the same in 2008. Are you glad to not be running this year, where it’s the tendency for a first-term president to lose members of his own party in Congress?

A: No question. I'm glad I'm not running this year. I think anyone who's in this office feels the same way if they're not on the ballot this fall.

Q: What's your advice to people who are?

A: My advice is to do what they can to make the case for the direction the country needs to be moving in. I think we've got a strong case to make that we've been taking actions to move the country in the right direction. The biggest issue weighing on our upcoming election is the economy. People are very frustrated and upset about the high unemployment, the slow growth in our economy. Clovis has been saved from much of that due to the growth at Cannon Air Force Base. It's been a very good thing for the economy in this part of the state. Many parts of our state and many parts of our country have not been as fortunate and until we can get the economy moving again and until we can create significant numbers of jobs each month, there's going to be frustration and anxiety, and it's understandable.

Q: We ask you every time you’re in Clovis ... what’s the status of the Ute Water Project? What type of appropriation are you looking

A: We've got, I believe, $10 million set aside for the Ute Water Project to go ahead with the rest of the design, and I think that's a step in the right direction. There is going to be a need for us to appropriate significant funds each year for the next several years once we get into construction of that project, but I think we're moving in the right direction and the fact we're able to get that $10 million was good. The administration will send us a new budget in January, and they will specify how much they'd like to see us appropriate. I hope it is at least the $10 million we'd like to see appropriated.

I believe the $10 million would be rolled into an omnibus bill, if we're able to do that.

Q: One item that didn’t require a filibuster, as it was tweaked to fit within reconciliation rules, was the health care bill. What were the positives and negatives of that legislation?

A: I think overall, it's a very substantial positive for the country, and particular for us in New Mexico, because I do think it will get us started on containing the growth in costs of health care. It doesn't do everything we should do there, but it does begin to help us in that regard. It extends the solvency of Medicare by an extra 12 years, according to the trustees of the Medicare system. A lot of insurance reforms, which were very much overdue in my opinion, where an insurance company cannot rescind a policy when somebody gets sick or gets cancer. It requires there be coverage even if somebody has a pre-existing condition. We've had this perverse system in our country for a long time now where insurance companies essentially can cherry-pick who's going to be eligible to buy their insurance. If you're sick, you don't qualify and you don't get insurance. Also, it expands coverage to a lot of folks. There are a lot of working families in this country who make to much to get coverage through Medicaid who are not able to afford the costs of insurance. Under this medical reform, we provide an assistance to people based on their ability to buy that insurance so people can get that insurance. Many of those reforms don't start until 2014, but many of them start this year.

Q: Any fears that 2012 comes around, employment is still in double figures, it takes down Barack Obama’s presidency, and the Republican challenger runs no a campaign of repeal and replace?

A: Well, I don't think that's likely. First, I think President Obama will be re-elected. With the health care legislation. The more people understand it, the more they’ll oppose repealing it. A lot of people are running for office around the country who are running on the platform that they'll get into office and repeal the health reform bill. I think the more informed they get about some of the benefits their constituents are receiving, the less likely Congress would consider a repeal or a president would seriously consider a repeal.

Q: And if Obama remains in office, a repeal would require a two-thirds majority to override a veto.

A: I'm certain he would not support any kind of repeal. Even if he were not there, I think the Congress would most likely not support it either.