Forty years ago this week: Much to the chagrin of journalists and political gadflies, Representative Steve Durham, R-Colorado Springs, remained completely opaque about the nature of his two-week long trip to Washington DC where he had met several people whom he categorically refused to name. .

“Oh, I was just kind of there,” Durham said when a reporter from the Colorado Statesman asked for details. “Washington is really nice in the summer. “

It was well known that Durham was in the process of being selected as the Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, but few knew when or if his appointment would materialize. Durham said he was not “free to say anything” about his meetings and would not even do so if he could.

It appeared that Durham had stayed at the DC residence of U.S. Colorado Rep. Ken Kramer, CD5, for a few nights while he was there, a little detail was added for horseflies.

“I am as eager as anything to experience the work myself,” added Durham.

Meanwhile, U.S. Democratic Representative Tim Wirth, CD2, had a few carefully chosen words for the Reagan administration about a “golden opportunity to weaken OPEC’s grip on global oil markets and to maintain low world oil prices throughout the 1980s “.

Wirth told the American Petroleum Refiners Association in Durango during a speech to the group that for the first time since 1973, OPEC had lost control of the world oil market.

“The cartel made the mistake of raising oil prices so rapidly over the past two years,” said Wirth, “that US oil imports have fallen by nearly 20%, creating the glut current oil in the world “.

“Unless the United States, Europe and Japan act quickly to consolidate these gains,” Wirth continued, “lower world oil prices will stimulate increased imports, the glut will be consumed and the ‘OPEC will regain control of the market by 1982. “

Wirth argued that for the first time in the United States’ long struggle against OPEC, the country had gained the upper hand but was sacrificing it.

Twenty years ago: Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, alongside his wife Wilma, announced that a race for the US Senate was “not in our plans for 2002”.

Webb said his priority was and remains to run the city of Denver.

Separately, Colorado Democratic Council for Education director Jared Polis, owner of dot-com company ProFlowers, joined with Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, to work on a concept paper for the conservative think tank.

“I am doing a project on the privatization of the postal service,” Polis said in the explanation. “I have always been convinced that with the evolution of the competitive environment and the emergence of new technologies, the postal service is ripe for some competition. “

Polis argued that higher postal rates would only be more likely under the current system and that if private companies were allowed to compete, consumers would be better off.

Polis and Caldara had fought over Amendment 23 in the previous election, which sought to increase funding for education in Colorado by at least the rate of inflation plus a percentage point.

Polis said that while he and Caldara still disagreed on public funding for education, the Independence Institute addressed many topics that remained of vital importance to Coloradans, such as accountability personal, free trade and minimization of government interference in the economy.

“Stay tuned,” Caldara told Colorado Statesman. “Things could get interesting.”

Meanwhile, death row inmate LR Moore in Cañon City wrote to the Colorado Statesman, asserting his right to death by lethal injection. Domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh had previously secured his own lethal injection request, but had been sentenced to death and dropped all calls to speed up the death penalty. Moore had been sentenced to life in prison.

“Why is he entitled to a more human death than me?” Moore wrote. “We were in the same court. Why can’t a life sentence or prisoner who sincerely and freely request a lethal injection be granted in Colorado? Why is starvation the only means of self-relief accepted by the Colorado Department of Corrections? “

Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series, a graduate in political science and history from Colorado Mesa University, and a contributor to Colorado Politics and The Gazette.