In an poorly sourced but widely quoted post-election analysis, Mark Ambinder wrote:
According to Newsweek (no link), the White House plans to aggressively enforce environmental regulations as they anticipate efforts from Republicans to strip authority from the EPA. Compromise on renewable energy standards is possible, but the posturing between Rep. Joe Barton, the chairman of the energy committee, and the administration, may make this terribly difficult. The GOP plans to hold high profile hearings examining the alleged “scientific fraud” behind global warming, a sleeper issue in this election that motivated the base quite a bit.
Actually, Joe “we’re being too mean to BP” Barton is not the chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee. Not yet, anyway.
Texas Rep. Joe Barton has taken a scorched earth approach to getting a waiver to become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the next Congress.
Barton, term-limited by GOP rules to six years as the top Republican on a committee, Thursday sent out letters to the incoming 60-and-counting Republican freshmen asking them for support. The House Energy and Commerce Committee minority press staff took the unusual step of publicizing the move by distributing a sample copy of the letter.“Over the past four years, as Ranking Member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, I have led the charge against radical cap-and-trade legislation, fought the new entitlements and mandates that are the rotten core of President Obama’s health care law, and consistently applied free market principles to legislative decisions,” wrote Barton. “It’s been an uphill battle, and I’m grateful that, thanks to your votes, the cavalry is riding to the rescue.”
Ambinder is probably on to something with his prediction that the Republicans are thinking about holding hearings in an effort to debunk the theory of climate change. And, while that might depend on whether or not Rep. Barton succeeds in his bid for the Energy chair, it’s worth noting that Karl Rove spent election day “celebrating with Pennsylvania’s growing drilling industry.”
Like other corporate sectors, the fossil industry is hoping that Republicans will be able to roll back regulations that limit their profit-seeking at the expense of people’s health and safety. Rove told the attendees of a shale-gas conference in Philadelphia that the incoming Republican House of Representatives “sure as heck” won’t pass legislation to limit greenhouse pollution from fossil fuels:
“Climate is gone,” said Rove, the keynote speaker on the opening day of a two-day shale-gas conference sponsored by Hart Energy Publishing L.L.P. And Rove told the trade show, “I don’t think you need to worry” the new Congress will consider proposed legislation to put the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing under federal rather than state regulation. The procedure, known as “fracking,” is responsible for the dramatic growth of shale-gas drilling in formations such as Pennsylvania’s vast Marcellus Shale.
“Climate is gone,” is one of those unintentionally accurate statements that tend to stick around in our national discourse. If House Republicans are bringing fake scientists to bear false witness before their committees, there’s not much hope for compromise on climate legislation, is there?