Waxman Supplants Dingell for Energy Chair
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Congress, Democrats, Energy
Yesterday, the Democratic House Caucus removed the House’s longest serving member, John Dingell of Michigan, from the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee. He was replaced by Henry Waxman of California. In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal explains what this means for the Democrats.
Of significance, Dingell represents Detroit and has been an opponent of fuel efficiency standards and carbon regulations, arguing the burden of those laws fall on the people of the Midwest and would kill jobs and ways of life. Waxman, on the other hand, represents Beverly Hills and is lockstep in line with the modern liberal agenda.
The Journal, unsurprisingly, sees the ouster of Dingell as a disaster that portends an era of liberal overreach and pay-for-play corruption. But all the Waxman ascendancy really reveals — at least at this juncture — is that Democrats will undoubtedly make climate-change legislation a top agenda item. They didn’t want one of their own obstructing efforts the party has been actively supporting and promoting for the last few election cycles.
Whether or not the climate change regulations do more harm than good, remains to be seen. And while Waxman is a bitter partisan and by no means my favorite representative, I’m unaware of any evidence that he is any more or less corrupt than any other politician.
Right now, the only thing we can be sure of is that we’ll be hearing Waxman’s name a lot more in the coming years — and Dingell’s name a lot less.
This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 and is filed under Congress, Democrats, Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 21st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Justin, have you been practicing your cold comfort points these days? I can’t imagine taking less solace from the appointment of a bitter partisan than I got from your one-off that, at a glance, he doesn’t see to be especially corrupt.
I am hoping that Obama appoints the party’s biggest partisans in areas where he has no intention of making them a major priority. That’s the best place for token appointments. So yeah, let’s appoint Waxman the king of global warming fixes. Then don’t answer his phone calls. Tell him you want him to go on tour across the country and preach to college students or something. Tell him to do studies and collect good ideas, and write a really, really, really long report. That ought to eat up 8 years. Perfect.
November 21st, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Kranky — it’s me with the cold comfort points, not Justin.
I guess I went the cold comfort route because I don’t condemn on speculation. I’ll let the guy actually do something as chairman before I writhe around.