Rep. Waxman

Looks like Waxman came out on top in his fight against John Dingell for chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee. That's good news for anyone looking for strong, progressive policy on energy and climate change.

From what I'm hearing, some youth groups did make a few phone calls on Waxman's behalf (I don't have permission to say which ones). I'm not saying we were decisive, or even all that influential. That's a tough thing to know at this point without sources in Congressional offices. But we did have some skin in the game, which I think is a good thing long term.

Politico is reporting that Rep. Waxman is "looking to youth" to help him in his fight against Rep. Dingell (Congressman, General Motors) for control of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The results of this fight will likely dictate just how progressive energy legislation coming out of the House will be in the next session.

I wish I could say that Waxman is looking for help from young voters and youth climate groups, but that's not what Politico is talking about. No, this is shaping up as a fight with moderates and the old guard who have been in congress for quite some time on one side, and more progressive legislators on the other. To increase his support, Waxman is wooing new legislators recently elected to congress to join his coalition:

This week’s showdown between Reps. John Dingell and Henry A. Waxman could come down to the votes of members too young to remember Dingell’s glory days — votes Waxman has been courting with a series of well-timed campaign contributions.

Dingell outraised Waxman by a sizable margin over the past two years, and he’s been more generous with his money, giving nearly five times what Waxman gave to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dingell has also given substantially more than Waxman to the Frontline program for Democrats in the most competitive districts.

But Waxman, whose district includes Beverly Hills and other wealthy Los Angeles suburbs, has been extraordinarily deliberate in his campaign giving, spending liberally on the party’s best pickup possibilities just before Election Day — and hence, just before the time when members will vote on whether Waxman replaces Dingell as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In October alone, Waxman cut $2,000 checks to 19 Democratic candidates. Some fell short. Most won. Among the winners: Kathy Dahlkemper in Pennsylvania, Steve Driehaus in Ohio and Larry Kissell in North Carolina, each of whom knocked off an incumbent Republican to add a seat to the Democratic Caucus, and Gerry Connolly, who won the seat Rep. Tom Davis is vacating in Virginia.

Waxman has done this before and could win, but I'm sure he needs all the help he can get. Credo Action is running a petition in support of Waxman, and I can't help but think that a quiet effort on the part of youth climate groups would be beneficial as well.

I say quiet because no one wants to destroy their political capital before the new administration has even started, and I'm sure that many student/youth green groups are worried about coming down on the wrong side of this fight and getting locked out of any access to the legislative process next year.

Yet at the same time, we shouldn't be too afraid to fight for what we want. Young people voted in record numbers this year or Democrats, creating a mandate for real progressive change. High on that agenda was smart energy legislation to prevent climate change, and the creation of a green jobs economy. I'm no expert on how things work on the Hill, but everything I'm reading suggests that the outcome of this fight could radically affect the quality of legislation coming out of the house on this issue in the coming congressional session.

That seems like a big enough deal for youth climate leaders to - if not launch a full-blown campaign - at least be making phone calls to new legislators and use their new power at the ballot box to exert some under-the-radar pressure on behalf of Waxman.

At Open Left, Matt Stoller outlines a fight for power over the House Energy and Commerce Committee:

In terms of personnel moves in the administration, it's a bit opaque as to what's going on. But in terms of committees and Congress, the personnel changes translate directly into policy, which makes the fight between progressive Henry Waxman and the union conservative John Dingell over the Chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce committee so consequential.

The E&C committee is one of the big three committees in the House - the Ways and Means committee, which handles tax issues, and the Appropriations Committee, which handles spending, are the others. E&C regulates health care, the internet and telecom (including net neutrality), trade, media policy, energy, consumer protections, and climate change, and is sort of the honeypot for corporate interests and lobbying. Waxman is making a major play to take the committee leadership away from Dingell because Dingell, who is from Michigan and represents the auto industry, is basically refusing to get serious on climate change legislation.

John Dingell, as per the usual rules of seniority, is the Chairman of the committee. Though he has recently admitted climate change exists, he's done so grudgingly, and put forward wholly inadequate plans to cap greenhouse gas emissions along with his coal-state colleague, Rick Boucher. Pelosi considers climate change a national emergency, and so tried to undermine Dingell in 2006 by creating a select committee on global warming without legislative authority headed by his former protege, Ed Markey of Massachusetts. Dingell had a number of unkind words about that committee, like "We should probably name it the committee on world travel and junkets", ""We're just empowering a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs to go around and make speeches and make commitments that will be very difficult to honor", and "I'm unaware of anything they will do that will be of any value."

It was a gutsy move by Pelosi, but she didn't have enough votes to make it stick. But there are 20 more Democrats in the House now, 6-9 more Senators, a clean energy President, and fewer and fewer denialist oil patch Democrats, so the move to clean energy is increasingly political important. The second most senior member on the committee, Henry Waxman, is trying to take over and modernize the leadership of the policy-making body. Waxman is a progressive green jobs kind of legislator, who shepherded the Clean Air Act through in the early 1990s, and is now sponsoring the Safe Climate Act to cut greenhouse gas emissions qutie aggressively. This is actually the renewal of an old fight; Dingell cut out Waxman in 1992, when Waxman first tried to get a climate bill through Congress.

As Matt outlines in his post, Dingell is the chair due to his seniority, but Pelosi, a proponent of strong action on climate change, tried to do an end-run around Dingell in 2006 through a subcommittee devoted specifically to addressing climate change, but lacked the votes. BUT, we now have a number of incoming freshman who can be strong progressive allies on climate change, and a President who will likely look favorably on strong green energy legislation.

My question is this: can Power Vote - which compiled a list of almost 350,000 young people voting in favor of a green energy economy, wield the power of that list to help out Waxman and Pelosi and Obama against Dingell and other centrists who want to tread water on the issue?

Maybe someone with more Capitol Hill experience can chime in on the possibility of influencing the outcome of a fight for committee chairmanship, or devise a strategy to influence committee members to support Waxman's legislative proposals over Dingell's in the next session?

After reading Matt's post, I get the overwhelming impression that decisions are now being made that will affect the quality of legislation we see come out of the next Congress. How can we leverage our turnout in 2008 to influence these decisions and set the most favorable playing field for our issues running into 2009 and 2010?