At a gathering of high-gear Western-state legislators late last month in Jackson Hole, one of Wyoming's few folks in Washington wrapped himself in the flag as his response to all the talk about alternative energy: He's in favor of "green" jobs, said Republican Sen. John Barrasso, but he's also in favor of "the red, white and blue jobs that we have right now in the Rocky Mountains." His rousing references to our national colors left no doubt where he stands: on the huge lump of coal that is most of his state.

Maybe he hasn't counted bodies out at the strip mines, but coal-digging jobs aren't nearly as plentiful as they were a century ago — nor as dangerous, gracias a diós. But coal-field work, like that in the Oil Patch of our state and its neighbors, has certain dead-end aspects to it: There may be some jobs now, but fossil fuels are finite. Why not conserve them for, say, manufacturing — and supplement them with renewable energy?

As for jobs, Barrasso ought to talk with his fellow windy-state senator, Democrat Tom Udall of New Mexico. Udall is a strong supporter of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act drafted by colleagues John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California. This bill, and other energy reform, have gone relatively unnoticed during the tumult over health care.

Like Wyoming, Texas, California and other parts of the country, New Mexico is the scene of proliferating wind farms — and our state is showing progress on the solar front.

As Udall noted during a conversation last week, alternative energy was making its presence felt wherever he looked around our state during the congressional recess. He's encouraged not only by the wind generators and solar-energy installations, but also by what he hears of sweeping energy reform: renewables, of course, but also conservation — notably New Mexico colleague Jeff Bingaman's energy-efficiency standards — as well as advances on the nuclear front, efforts toward clean coal and the potential for extraction of gas from deep shale beds — which, it appears, might be done without watershed damage.

In many of those efforts lie possibilities for jobs Sen. Barrasso seeks for his state and the rest of the country — but especially in renewable energy: Putting up, maintaining and improving wind turbines and photovoltaic panels is work demanding engineering, scientific and technical education. It deals with high-cost material and should be well paid.

Environmentalists, citing a survey by the Pew Charitable Trusts, say job growth in New Mexico's emerging clean-energy economy has been 26 times faster than the rest of our state's economy. That might not be saying much in these recessionary times, but it's an indication that this is where the action is. Economists figure that a $150 billion investment in clean energy could create 1.7 million good jobs — and they calculate that New Mexico might be in for 11,000 of those positions. That's far more than conventional industry — what there is of it — can hold out these days.

This should be promising news for the fossil-fuel folks — or would be, if they'd diversify into renewables while they keep the country going on finite-supply fuel. Instead, they're ginning up grass-rootsy-sounding pleas that Congress vote down such sensible legislation as the Kerry-Boxer bill and a few others that will need melding into it.

In response to our question about certain goofy advertisements, Udall wryly responded that no one from the carbon-dioxide-is-good-for-you campaign has actually said that to his face — so it's clear that the coal-and-oil comerciantes hope America's more gullible constituents will advance that message on Capitol Hill.

The Senate, with Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman leading the charge, should, once health care reform clears Congress, lose little time seeing clean energy as the versatile step it would be — against global warming, for clean skies and for tomorrow's jobs.

We're delighted with Sen. Udall's enthusiasm for the Clean Energy Jobs bill — and look forward to a less-distracted Sen. Bingaman's teamwork toward turning clean energy from a pioneering field to a well-trod one.