Change You Can Believe In

By Ron Beasley

The auto industry is in trouble in part because it has spent millions of dollars trying to block the very innovation that would have made them commpetitive.  They were enabled by longtime Energy and Commerce Chairman, Democrat John Dingell. 

Waxman dethrones Dingell as chairman

California Rep. Henry A. Waxman on Thursday officially dethroned longtime Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, upending a seniority system that has governed Democratic politics in the House for decades. 

In a secret ballot vote in the Cannon Caucus Room, House Democrats ratified an earlier decision by the Steering and Policy Committee to replace the 82-year-old Dingell with his 69-year-old rival. The vote was 137-122 in favor of Waxman. 

The ascension of Waxman, a wily environmentalist, recasts a committee that Dingell has chaired since 1981 with an eye toward protecting the domestic auto industry in his native Michigan. The Energy and Commerce Committee has principal jurisdiction over many of President-elect Barack Obama's top legislative priorities, including energy, the environment and health care. 

"Seniority is important, but it should not be a grant of property rights to be chairman for three decades or more,” Waxman said after emerging from the caucus meeting. 

Waxman’s win is a big victory for environmentalists who want a more aggressive stance on global warming from the committee, and the vote showed the powerful hand of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Waxman ally, even though she officially remained neutral in the race. 

This is a pleasant surprise. It's important to remember that not all the road blocks to energy and envronmental changes are Republicans.