Udall's campaign believes the timing couldn't be better for a man who has been talking about renewable energy for more than a decade. Between global warming, rising gas prices and Middle Eastern wars, "green energy" is the theme of the moment, and Udall is one of its top proponents in Congress.
Before launching his Senate campaign, Bob Schaffer spent five years traveling the world as an executive for an energy company, and he won't concede the territory of energy policy lightly. He talks easily about the intricacies of seismic technology and global regulatory frameworks and uses that knowledge to recast an old debate in new terms: The country can get at more energy within its shores and do it without sacrificing the environment. In fact, our very national security depends on it.
As much as this campaign will be about the economy or the war, it will also be about energy: How the U.S. should secure it; the West's role in producing it...
Images of wind turbines and hybrid cars have already become mainstay campaign symbols for both men. Negative ads have tossed accusations of misplaced energy priorities like daggers. At the same time, this is one of those unique moments where a policy coalition that has lasted for decades is beginning to fracture. Congressional Republicans buy Priuses. Environmentalists embrace nuclear energy. If Democrats sense new potential for political success in the West, that's partly because they see the old Republican coalition in the region breaking apart, with ranchers, outfitters and rural entrepreneurs angry at the way the region's galloping energy economy is damaging resources on which their livelihoods depend. Add to that the fact that extraction of the state's vast natural gas reserves is already transforming local economies. And that the 800 billion barrels of shale-trapped oil -- if it can ever be efficiently extracted -- has the potential to secure a multigenerational revenue stream for the state that could lower voters' taxes while paying for roads, schools, and parks. Energy is "so important now to so many constituencies. You can bring in agriculture, you can bring in environmentalists. And, obviously, suburbanites with SUVs," said Floyd Ciruli, a Denver-based pollster...
Among environmentalists, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the outer continental shelf off Florida are considered lines in the sand, places too precious to drill, and Schaffer advocates drilling in both. He lambastes Udall for proposing a bill that would allow U.S. companies to explore for oil off Cuba -- potentially propping up a Communist regime with royalties -- while the Democrat draws a line around potentially significant domestic reserves in Alaska...
The one place where he and Udall come close to agreeing is their backing of Gov. Bill Ritter's go-slow approach to drilling on the Roan Plateau, although the plateau's natural gas would have little impact on petroleum supplies. Certainly Schaffer believes renewable energy is part of the key (he mentions it almost constantly now), but he also believes that quickly evolving technology like the kind that gives Aspect a competitive advantage also creates enormous opportunities to drill more with less environmental risk. "Seismic technology is better this year than last. The number of missed targets is dropping like a rock," Schaffer said. "Where their answer is 'no because we said so,' a better long-term answer for the country should be 'yes, if we achieve certain high standards.' "[...]
If there is a technological bet to be made in securing the country's energy future, for Udall it's a very different one. Twelve years ago, in his first session as a state legislator, he introduced three bills. They all had to do with renewable energy -- and none passed. Undeterred, Udall has since made it the policy focus that has most dominated his career. He toured the state in a motorhome with Republican State House Speaker Lola Spradley in 2004 to stump for Amendment 37, a breakthrough measure which required 10 percent of the state's electricity to be generated by renewable sources by 2015. In Congress, he sponsored a federal version which passed last year in the House but lost by one vote in the Senate. "You wonder why I'm motivated to run for the Senate. If there is one thing that gets me going every day, it's that one vote," Udall said. But if the past decade has marked as much failure as success, it's also given Udall a wonkish command over the arcane details of energy policy and the hurdles involved. He spices his vocabulary with phrases like "transition fuels," "carbon-free electrons" and "smart utility grids" and often deploys the metaphor of addiction: Depending less on petroleum will hurt but it's the only way forward. Udall concedes that renewable energy has to be seen as part of a portfolio, one that also must include clean coal (it's too abundant to ignore) and nuclear power, which he is now giving a second look after years of opposition. And he's done a little political repositioning of his own. Udall's sponsorship of last year's Cuban drilling bill is hard to explain except as a move to show he's not broadly opposed to oil and gas drilling...
If Schaffer talks about Colorado's chance to play a key role in the nation's energy independence, Udall talks about preventing the state from becoming "a national sacrifice" to the country's voracious appetite for fossil fuel. Oil shale may offer this country a Holy Grail of fossil fuel reserves, but much of the latest technology is still experimental and may pose risks to the region's water supply. (The latest plan requires the improbable-sounding combination of an underground ice barrier and giant underground heaters.) With so much at stake, slow is better, Udall said. "We are placing too big a bet on a resource that is finite and increasingly expensive. I think the country is ready for leadership that isn't just oriented so strongly to oil and gas," Udall said...
While $4-a-gallon gas may push many to run out and buy a hybrid, Republicans believe it is likely to convince many others that the more oil and gas we can find within our own borders now, the better. "All those cars out there in the parking lot are not running on ethanol or solar energy. They're running on gas. And they aren't all going to be traded in for hybrids tomorrow," said Sean Tonner, a Republican strategist who ran Pete Coors Senate campaign in 2004. "If Schaffer can push Udall into defending $4-a-gallon gas, I wouldn't want to be Udall out there saying it's for the polar bears," he said.
