Denver Business Journal: In Colorado US Senate race, Bennet and O'Dea disagree on regulations and future of Space Command HQ

This article appeared in Denver Business Journal.

In their closely watched race for Colorado’s U.S. Senate seat, Michael Bennetand Joe O’Dea present a distinct contrast in opinions about how active the federal government should be in boosting oil and gas production, fighting inflation and rolling back business regulations.

Bennet, a Democrat who has held the seat for 14 years, said the biggest business issues likely to face the body in the coming years are big-picture issues that need to be solved over the long term. Those include the ability to onshore supply chains for American companies, the need for a more robust workforce-development program to match labor with the needs of business and the need to address what he called a broken immigration system.

O’Dea, a Republican first-time candidate who has owned and operated Denver construction firm Concrete Express for 34 years, said he believes the Senate can take more immediate actions to bring down inflation, cut regulations and reinvigorate the oil and gas industry. He vowed during a Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce forum moderated by Denver Business Journal to have a “laser focus” on regulatory rollbacks and extending the tax breaks offered by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Space command

An issue exemplifying the different approaches the candidates vow to take is the effort to keep U.S. Space Command in El Paso County and stop its planned move to Alabama that Donald Trump authorized in the waning days of his presidency in 2021. Both men agreed that keeping command headquarters in state is vital to the economy and national defense, but they suggested different ways to do it.

O’Dea criticized Bennet for not using his status as a potential swing vote on any bill in the evenly split Senate to demand that President Joe Biden place the permanent Space Command headquarters in Colorado to secure Bennet’s backing. O’Dea, who would not have such leverage if elected, said just that he would “show up for Colorado” and lobby for the move.

“All he has to do is tell Joe Biden, ‘Guess what? I’m not going to be with you on this appointment, I’m not going to be with you on this vote,’” O’Dea said. “He’s got one vote, and it counts. He’s the 50th vote. And he should use that for the benefit of Colorado.”

Bennet countered that playing such a heavy hand is the wrong way to go about securing the long-term future of the vital base. He said he has spoken with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and military leaders and presented fact-based evidence of why the command must be in Colorado, and he will continue to do that, believing it eventually will win the day.

RECOMMENDED

RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE

32-acre Main Line estate sells for nearly $19M below original asking price

MEDIA & MARKETING

NBC10 hires former Miss New Jersey as its newest reporter

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

Sources: Apple taking 70,000 square feet at the Assembly

“The last thing I think we should do, given the fact that (the choice of Alabama for headquarters) was done incorrectly and politically to begin with, is to make it a political football ourselves,” Bennet said in an interview taped for the same forum. “If it stays here, it’s going to stay here on the merits, not because of politics … Somebody could just come and hold up the next bill.”

O’Dea said he decided to challenge Bennet because he believes there needs to be more business acumen — the ability to make decisions focused on keeping companies running and employees working — than there is now. Bennet said he’s seeking a third full term, in part, because he believes Congress needs to work to close the income gap in America and return faith to people that if they work hard, they will be rewarded in life.

Bolstering the economy

That’s why the incumbent said he worked hard to pass a bill earlier this year that puts $50 billion toward onshoring semiconductor production, 95% of which worldwide is being done now in Taiwan. A 50-year policy of offshoring jobs to save money has made the country dependent on foreign powers like China, and Bennet said he’ll look for other ways to make supply chains more self-sufficient.

O’Dea argued that bolstering production of oil and especially of natural gas is key to that aim, and he said he will seek reform and expansion of the federal drilling permitting system so that America could flood Europe with natural gas and offset Russian influence. Bennet did not espouse any significant changes to U.S. energy policy, saying the planned transition from traditional fuels to more climate-friendly fuel sources is a 25-year process that must continue in order to improve the environment.

O’Dea and Bennet both criticized the federal reserve for its slow actions to curb inflation, but Bennet said the right thing to do now is to allow the interest-rate hikes that have been put into place to run their course, saying this is the best solution to a “challenging” situation. O’Dea, however, said that Congress needs to cut its spending to stop pumping so much money into the economy, arguing that cutting federal workforces in departments like the IRS would do that.

O’Dea also said he would, if elected, focus on reforming the National Environmental Policy Act permitting process that can require more than a decade of study before contractors like his company could get to work on transportation or other infrastructure projects. Bennet more broadly said he would support regulatory reform that could lead to the faster construction of workforce housing and energy infrastructure, though he didn’t cite specific needed actions.

Infrastructure

Whoever is elected will be a primary advocate for the state to get money from the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill signed by Biden last year, and both men said they would be up for the role. O’Dea, however, said that he specifically would work to bring more money to the state for highway expansion projects rather than the transit and roadway-electrification projects that the bill also will fund.

“Right now, Coloradans still like their cars,” O’Dea explained. “We need to make sure that funding goes to roads and bridges and doesn’t go to other forms of transportation that won’t benefit the whole state of Colorado.”

The winner of the race will work with Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, who was elected in 2020, and will represent a state where the largest bloc of voters is unaffiliated. O’Dea said it’s important that whoever fills that role is more willing to buck their parties and vote independently than the current duo, while Bennet said it’s more important just to consider how each vote will impact the state.

“I think probably less interesting to people is a percentage of a voting record (for and against each party) than the votes I’ve taken,” Bennet said.