June 15, 2011 03:40 AM UTC

Colorado Republicans Abandon "Pickens Plan?"

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• by: Colorado Pols

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Important details added by the Fort Collins Coloradoan, who put together the probable bottom line here without much help from local Rep. Cory Gardner:

The bill is being carried by Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla., and has 188 co-sponsors from both parties. But its most prominent backer is energy magnate T. Boone Pickens, who has pushed the use of abundant domestic natural gas in vehicles as an alternative to importing foreign oil.

Conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity have criticized the bill as a subsidy aimed at picking winners and losers in energy choices.

The Coloradoan’s Bob Moore adds up some very simple math to explain this sudden change of heart, at least as far as Gardner is concerned–$300,000 spent by allies of oil-industry tycoons David and Charles Koch taking out Rep. Betsy Markey in 2010, and some $12,000 directly from the Koch’s PAC to Gardner. But of course, says Gardners’ spokesperson,

“No, those factors did not influence his decision,” she said.

No no, folks. Not Gardner’s decision, or Scott Tipton’s, or Mike Coffman’s. They all just, you know, decided to pull their names off this bill, all at once, on their own.

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An interesting story from The Hill–what do you suppose would have made three Colorado Republicans, Reps. Cory Gardner, Scott Tipton, and Mike Coffman, suddenly remove their names from the long list of sponsors of a bill promoting natural gas truck fleets yesterday?

Four more House Republicans on Monday withdrew their support for bipartisan legislation that would provide billions of dollars in tax credits to boost deployment of natural-gas-powered trucks.

The bill – which billionaire energy magnate T. Boone Pickens is promoting – is under attack from several conservative groups that allege it represents government meddling in energy markets.

Reps. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) and Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) yanked their sponsorship Monday, according to the legislative information page maintained by the Library of Congress. They join four other GOP members who have backed off the bill in recent weeks…

The plan’s principal sponsors – led by Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) – say the bill can help wean the country off reliance on oil imports by expanding use of domestic natural gas in vehicles.

Groups opposing the bill include Americans for Prosperity, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, the Club for Growth and the Heritage Foundation.

If it were simply a matter of them coming out in opposition to this bill, it would be one thing–having just watched the coal industry roust up some Republicans in the Colorado legislature in opposition to the “Clean Air, Clean Jobs” plan to convert coal-fired electricity generation along the Front Range to natural gas, we’ve heard a similar slate of arguments about not “subsidizing” one industry over another. And we watched most Republicans in the state legislature, led by Speaker Frank McNulty, reject them. But we could see them going either way.

No, what’s weird is how Gardner, Tipton and Coffman were originally co-sponsors of this legislation, and have now pulled out en masse. We’re not so foolish as to actually think they just now realized this bill “picks winners,” or didn’t know what they were sponsoring.

But we’d like to know more about who got to them, and why…