Colorado: Obama

Gov. Bill Ritter plans to sign nine education bills during a ceremony Thursday in Denver.

One would set up a statewide system to track the performance of teachers and principals to help close the so-called "teacher gap," where less experienced teachers tend to work in low-income schools.

Another provides more options for overhauling low performing schools.

The Obama administration is offering more than $4 billion to a select group of states willing to push school reforms. Closing the teacher gap and turning around struggling schools are among the goals of that "Race to the Top" program.

Colorado stands to win about $400 million if it's among the eight to 10 states that are selected.

Democratic Sen. Jim Isgar has applied for a regional agricultural job in the Obama administration, setting the stage for the biggest game of legislative musical chairs in recent history.

Isgar would resign if he got the job of state rural business-development director for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But he said he would like to finish the session, which must end by May 6.

"I don't know if I'll get it," Isgar said. "But I think (the appointment) could happen in the next few weeks."

Isgar, of Hesperus could be the fourth Democrat to exit this year. Rep. Anne McGihon has resigned, and Democratic Sens.

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.

Colorado’s two freshman senators, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, are part of a self-described centrist group of 15 Democrats meeting regularly “seeking to restrain the influence of party liberals in the White House and on Capitol Hill,” according to an account in Roll Call (subscription required).

The group has a “shared commitment to pursue moderate, mainstream and fiscally sustainable policies across a range of issues, such as health care reform, the housing crisis, educational reform, and energy policy,” according to a statement issued Wednesday by the group.

Sen. Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, announced the group’s formation on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program Wednesday morning but