Lee, Heinrich get off to rocky start. Will it get worse?

By Josh Siegel | 01/23/2025 06:46 AM EST

Neither Mike Lee nor Martin Heinrich has led their party on a policy committee before, and they have starkly different political personas.

Martin Heinrich and Mike Lee sit side-by-side at a desk.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-N.M., left) and Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) during the confirmation hearing for Energy secretary nominee Chris Wright last week. Francis Chung/POLITICO

Early tensions between Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee and his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Martin Heinrich, are raising questions over whether the duo can work productively together leading a high profile panel known for bipartisan cooperation.

Utah’s Lee and Heinrich, from New Mexico, have been sniping at each other over how the chair handled last week’s confirmation hearing for Chris Wright to be Energy secretary, which was held less than a day after the release of the energy company CEO’s financial and ethics documents to the committee.

Heinrich blasted Lee’s decision to hold the hearing as “absurd,” saying members of the committee did not have time to review the documents. “It’s unfortunate that our first order of business involved breaking committee precedents,” he said last week.

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In an interview after the Thursday hearing, Heinrich told POLITICO he was focused on getting things accomplished in the committee, but added that “the lack of comity does worry me. It does send a very troubling message.”

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