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https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/michael-bennet

In the ensuing decades, Pendley and the MSLF continued to push for increased industrial development on public lands, and even the transfer of federally owned land to private entities or the states.In 2016, Pendley authored an opinion piece in the National Review headlined “The Federal Government Should Follow the Constitution and Sell Its Western Lands,” in which he argued that after chronic mismanagement of public lands by Democrats in Washington, “westerners know that only getting title to much of the land in the West will bring real change."

While Pendley's history of climate denial was well known upon his appointment to the BLM, additional reporting from CNN earlier this week uncovered a 1992 lecture Pendley gave at the conservative Heritage Foundation, in which he denied the existence of a hole in the ozone layer, and a 2007 fundraising letter from the MSLF in which Pendley compared undocumented immigrants to cancer.

At Friday's SEJ panel, Rico Moore, a freelance Colorado journalist, asked Pendley if he stood by his past statements about undocumented immigrants.

“My personal opinions are irrelevant," Pendley replied. "I have a new job now. I'm a zealous advocate for my client, my client is the American people, and my boss is the President of the United States and Secretary Bernhardt. What I thought, what I wrote, what I did in the past is irrelevant. I have orders, I have laws to obey, and I intend to do that."

Pendley's reluctance to offer his personal opinions seemed to be selective, however. During the panel, he criticized a lawsuit known as Juliana v. United States, in which a group of youth plaintiffs have sued the federal government over its failure to stop climate change, and called plans by many Democratic presidential candidates to stop drilling for oil and gas on public lands "absolutely insane."

As acting BLM director, Pendley is overseeing the agency’s planned “reorganization,” a proposal to relocate 27 of its top staffers to a new headquarters in Grand Junction and scatter hundreds of others across field offices in the West. Congressional Democrats and environmental groups have denounced the proposal as a veiled attempt to dismantle the agency and weaken or circumvent critical environmental review processes.

“I think what it’s going to do is allow us to be closer to the people, closer to the ground,” Pendley said Friday. The agency announced last month that it had leased office space for its new headquarters in a building that also houses several oil and gas companies.

Last month, a group of twelve Senate Democrats, including Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, sent a letter to Bernhardt demanding that Pendley be removed from his post; instead, the Interior Secretary signed an order extending Pendley’s tenure as acting director until January. Pendley is the fourth acting BLM director to serve under President Donald Trump, who has not yet nominated a permanent director to lead the agency.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bennet

Michael Farrand Bennet (born November 28, 1964) is an American businessman, lawyer, and politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Colorado since 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he was appointed to the seat when Senator Ken Salazar became Secretary of the Interior. Bennet previously worked as a managing director for the Anschutz Investment Company, chief of staff to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, and Superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

Bennet is the son of Douglas J. Bennet, a former State Department official and president of Wesleyan University. Early in his career, Bennet worked for Ohio Governor Richard Celeste. He went on to receive his Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School, after which he worked as a law clerk and later as Counsel to the U.S. Deputy Attorney General in the Bill Clinton Administration.

Bennet became superintendent of the Denver public school system in July 2005. In late 2008 he was speculated to be a candidate for Obama's United States Secretary of Education. He was appointed by Governor Bill Ritter to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Ken Salazar when Salazar became Secretary of the Interior in January 2009.Bennet was elected in the 2010 Senate election, defeating Republican Ken Buck.He chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) for the 2014 cycle[1] and was reelected to the Senate in 2016.[2]

On May 2, 2019, Bennet announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

Early life and education:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Bennet was born in New Delhi, India, the son of Susanne Christine (née Klejman)[3] and Douglas J. Bennet. His father, who was born in New Jersey, served as an aide to Chester Bowles, then the U.S. ambassador to India.[4] Bennet's father was Christian. Bennet's mother is a Jewish[5] Holocaust survivor who was born in 1938 in Warsaw, Poland and immigrated to the United States with her family in 1950.[6] Her parents survived imprisonment in the Warsaw Ghetto.[4][7]

Bennet's father ran the United States Agency for International Development under President Jimmy Carter,[8] served as President and CEO of National Public Radio (1983–93), and Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs in the Clinton Administration (1993–95). His grandfather Douglas Bennet was an economic adviser in Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration.[8] Bennet's mother is a retired elementary school librarian.[4][9][10]

Bennet grew up in Washington, D.C. as his father served as an aide to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, among others. Bennet was held back in second grade because of his dyslexia.[4][11][12] He was enrolled at St. Albans School, an elite all-boys preparatory school, and served as a page on Capitol Hill.[13]

In 1987, Bennet earned his Bachelor of Arts in history from Wesleyan University,[14] the alma mater of his father and grandfather.[15] At Wesleyan he was a member of Beta Theta Pi. Bennet earned his J.D. degree from Yale Law School, where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal.[16]

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From 1988 until 1990, when he left to attend Yale, he served as an aide to Ohio Governor Richard Celeste.[15] After law school he served as a law clerk for the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals[17] and as an associate to Washington, D.C. attorney Lloyd Cutler.[15] He then served as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General during the Bill Clinton administration.[18] Douglas Bennet worked in the Clinton White House as well, as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. Following a stint as an assistant to the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, Bennet left the legal world and moved West.[15] After briefly living in Montana, he moved with his fiancé to Colorado in 1997.[15][19] Bennet worked for six years in Denver as Managing Director for the Anschutz Investment Company, where he led the reorganization of an oil company and helped consolidate three movie theater chains into the Regal Entertainment Group.[20][21]

While working for Anschutz, Bennet befriended fellow Wesleyan alumnus John Hickenlooper, informally advising the latter's successful campaign for mayor of Denver.[19] Moving back into public service, Bennet served for two years as Hickenlooper's Chief of Staff.

The Denver Board of Education selected Bennet as superintendent of Denver Public Schools on June 27, 2005, and he took office on July 1. He had no experience as a school administrator.[15] Under Bennet's leadership, the Denver Public School system grew student enrollment, decreased dropout rates, and improved graduation rates and college enrollment. Those trends have continued since Bennet left the office.[22] Bennet collaborated with educators and community members to develop the Denver Plan, a commitment to increase student success by focusing on higher expectations, better professional learning opportunities for educators, and deeper engagement with the community and stakeholders.[23] Bennet and the City of Denver also partnered with private philanthropists to increase college enrollment and affordability for DPS graduates.[24][25] The Denver Post said of his tenure, “Bennet has been a force—pushing reforms and steering the state's second-largest district to a culture of success.”[26]

In 2008 Bennet persuaded the Denver Board of Education to enter into a 30-year, $750 million financial bond transaction with variable interest rates designed to fluctuate as economic conditions changed. According to The New York Times, "In short order, the transaction went awry because of stress in the credit markets, problems with the bond insurer and plummeting interest rates." As of 2010 the school system had paid $115 million in interest and other fees, at least $25 million more than it originally anticipated.[27]

Bennet was among the many officials whose names were circulated for United States Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration, a position eventually filled by Arne Duncan.[28] Bennet and his wife were early Obama supporters during the 2008 Democratic primaries,[29] and he was among those who advised Obama on education issues.[30]

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On January 3, 2009, he was named by Colorado Governor Bill Ritter to fill the seat in the United States Senate vacated by United States Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar on January 20.[17] Ritter chose Bennet after interviewing several prominent Colorado Democrats, and Bennet took the job with the blessing of Hickenlooper.[15] Upon taking office on January 21, 2009, he stated that he would seek election at the end of his term in 2010.[31][failed verification]

In his January 2011 article in Time titled "Shaking Schools Up in an Already Tumultuous Year," Andrew J. Rotherham said of Bennet: "If the federal No Child Left Behind Act is modified this year, or if anything else of significance happens in Washington on education policy, this Colorado Democrat will be at the center of it."[32]

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County results of the 2010 race

Main article:2010 United States Senate election in Colorado

Bennet ran for election for a full term as Senator from Colorado in the 2010 election.[33] On September 16, 2009, former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff announced his campaign to challenge Bennet for the Democratic nomination.[34] Bennet received endorsements from President Obama, U.S. Senator Mark Udall, and U.S. Representatives Betsy Markey, Jared Polis, and John Salazar of the Colorado congressional delegation.[33] He raised $7 million and had a four-to-one cash advantage over Romanoff.[35]

On August 10, 2010, Bennet defeated Romanoff in the primary and won his party's nomination,[36] facing Republican candidate Ken Buck. The campaign became one of the most expensive in the country, with the candidates spending a reported $15 million combined, and outside groups another $30 million. Bennet portrayed Buck as an extremist conservative opposed to abortion and direct election of Senators, while Buck and the groups supporting him characterized Bennet as a big-spending liberal.[37]

On November 3, the day after polls closed, Bennet was declared the winner and Buck conceded. Bennet won by 851,590 votes (48.1%) to 822,731 (46.4%). He subsequently returned to Washington, D.C. in January 2011 to start a full six-year term. After the election, Obama said Bennet "perfectly reflects the qualities of the ruggedly independent state he has been chosen to serve."[38]

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County results of the 2016 race

Main article:2016 United States Senate election in Colorado

Bennet was reelected to a second term on November 8, 2016, defeating the Republican nominee, El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn. Bennet received 1.36 million votes, 156,248 more than Glenn. He received 31,780 more votes in Colorado than Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who won the state in the presidential election. Bennet received more votes than any other Democrat in a statewide race in Colorado history. He also won more votes in Colorado's rural counties than any other statewide Democrat in state history.

Following the election, Obama said Bennet was one of the "gifted Democratic politicians" who could lead the party in the future.[39][40]

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Bennet sits on the following committees and subcommittees in the 115th United States Congress (2017–19).

Source: United States Senate[41]

Political position

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In 2009 Bennet co-sponsored the Solar Manufacturing Jobs Creation Act, legislation that would have provided a tax credit to support solar manufacturing in the U.S.[69] The legislation was not enacted.[70]

He was one of the handful of Democratic Senators who have supported construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, voting for it in 2013,[71] 2014,[72] and 2015.[73]

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In October 2017 Bennet was one of 19 senators to sign a letter to Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt questioning Pruitt's decision to repeal the Clean Power Plan, asserting that Pruitt used "mathematical sleights of hand to overstate the costs of industry compliance with the 2015 Rule and understate the benefits that will be lost if the 2017 repeal is finalized", and that science denial and math tricks fail to "satisfy the requirements of the law, nor will it slow the increase in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, the inexorable rise in sea levels, or the other dire effects of global warming that our planet is already experiencing."[74]

In November 2018 Bennet was one of 25 Democratic senators to cosponsor a resolution in response to findings of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change report and National Climate Assessment. The resolution affirmed the senators' acceptance of the findings and their support for bold action to address climate change.[75]

In April 2019 Bennet was one of 12 senators to sign a bipartisan letter to top senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development advocating that the Energy Department be granted maximum funding for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS), arguing that American job growth could be stimulated by investment in capturing carbon emissions and expressing disagreement with President Trump's 2020 budget request to combine the two federal programs that do carbon capture research.[76]

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