Colorado: California

WASHINGTON — In one of her earliest appearances before the Senate Natural Resources Committee, Gale Norton, President George W. Bush's first interior secretary, proclaimed in 2001 the need to "explore the entire smorgasbord of different options" when it came to domestic energy production.

But what was actually on the buffet was telling: Drilling off the coast of Florida, coal extraction in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah and exploring for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Now fast forward eight years, to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's first appearance before the same Senate committee last week.

He laid out maps that showed wind-energy potential across the West; talked about tapping geothermal energy underlying states including Idaho and Colorado; and evoked the vision of a high-tech "super- electron highway" that will connect "renewable-energy zones" on public lands to homes in California or New Jersey.

Concluding yesterday's discussion of certain extremely ill-timed statements by certain Democratic congressional leaders, indicating they were "starting work" on a second stimulus package:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said a second U.S. economic stimulus plan isn't "in the cards" for now and that she would first like to see the $787-billion package signed into law by President Barack Obama "play out."

"I really would like to focus on the first one," Pelosi, a California Democrat, told reporters yesterday at her weekly news conference in Washington. [Pols emphasis]

Earlier this week, Pelosi said she was keeping the "door open" to another massive spending bill to jump-start the economy.

Awash in the sound and fury of today’s anti-tax crusaders — the refusenik governors, the tea party attendees, the screamers of “socialism,” the Ayn Rand-loving libertarians “going Galt,” the op-ed writing de facto leaders of the Republican party, the just plain fools — you would think there was significant disagreement among the U.S. population on the big tax-spending stimulus package.

There’s not.

All of the racket generated in the days since this surprising piece was published by Republican pollster Frank Luntz at the end of January drowned out what polls have demonstrated: Americans agree the government should spend whopping amounts of tax dollars in order to get people working again and spending money in order to get more people working and spending money.

The proposed skier vanity plate and supporters, from left to right: Ari Stiller-Shulman, Sen. Dan Gibbs, Ski Country CEO Melanie Mills, and Brent Lessing (Hertz Corporation's Soutwest Region General Fleet Manager).

More people ski more days in Colorado than any other state, but there’s no clue of that out on the open road, unless you’re stuck in weekend skier traffic on Interstate 70.

The proposed skier vanity plate and supporters, from left to right: Ari Stiller-Shulman, Sen. Dan Gibbs, Ski Country CEO Melanie Mills, and Brent Lessing (Hertz Corporation's Soutwest Region General Fleet Manager).

A pair of ski-town lawmakers are out to change that with a ski-themed license plate that comes with the added bonus of earning about $50,000 a year in transportation funding to fix decrepit roads and bridges.