Bada-Bingaman!

One of the incumbent U. S. Senators who came from DC for Gaylord Nelson's memorial service was New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman, a friend of the Nelsons. This, from Grist, the online environmental magazine, helps explain the connection:

New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D) is a mild-mannered moderate, but he's emerging as one of the Senate's more outspoken advocates for action on global warming. That's not saying much -- as Bingaman readily admits, Congress is woefully behind cities and states when it comes to innovation on stabilizing the climate. Still, he's chipper about some successes with the Senate energy bill, including an amendment he sponsored that would require utilities to produce 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Now the test is whether that and a few other sunny provisions actually make it into law, he tells Amanda Griscom Little in an interview.