11-11-08 by dugan
A big catfight among two top liberals in the House of Representatives? Sheesh, can’t they get along for a few months while the president-elect gets a grip? It’s not like most people are even aware of the bid by Rep. Henry Waxman of California to take over the House Energy and Commerce Committee from aging Michigan Rep. John Dingell. But for anyone who cares about tens of billions of taxpayer dollars being forked over to Detroit automakers, Dingell is the guy who catered to the industry’s dinosaur views on carmaking and helped make GM, Ford and Chrysler today’s public beggars. He and his supporters in the fight with Waxman are also six-to-one favorites of oil and coal money.
The Energy and Commerce Committee will be the key stop for most of the health reform and energy policy bills in the new administration. Dingell’s weak point has always been energy–for three decades and more he has resisted airbags, auto emission cuts and higher miles-per-gallon requirements, on behalf of Detroit automakers. He has lately proposed a broad carbon tax to cut global emissions, but his history makes even that a little suspect–is he proposing the biggest global warming solution because he knows it’s dead on arrival?
Photo left, L-R, Bill Ford of Ford, Rep. Dingell, Rick Wagoner of GM, and Tom LaSorda of Chrysler in May 2006. credit: CalCars
Here, from the NY Times story, is a concise reading of Dingell’s history with the automakers:
"It’s fair to say that during Mr. Dingell’s 52 years in the House of
Representatives, he has often been the congressman representing the
American automobile industry. He helped win a bailout for Chrysler in
1979, and he has fought nearly every regulation you can imagine, be it
on air bags, tailpipe emissions or gas mileage. Back in the 1980s, when
a senator from Nevada tried to raise fuel economy standards, Mr.
Dingell responded by introducing a bill to create a giant new nuclear
waste dump in Nevada."
But what pushes me over the edge is who’s in Dingell’s corner for the fight with Waxman. From a roundup on the website Gristmill:
Industry leaders are coming out in support of Dingell and against
Waxman. "Dingell really has a very good understanding of the industry,"
David Cole, chair of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor,
Mich., told Bloomberg. Cole said a Waxman chairmanship would be "very unfortunate."Luke Popovich, a spokesperson for the National Mining Association,
tells Bloomberg that Waxman would be "a very slow learner on the
importance of coal for affordable energy … It would have been
problematic in the best of times to have Mr. Waxman’s views prevail."
Yes, Michigan is a coal state as well as an auto state. Coal and petroleum have put their dollars behind Dingell. There’s a great follow-the-money analysis from the Wonk Room at Think Progress, with the help of OilChange International.
The money trail, in a nutshell:
The oil and coal industries
have overwhelmingly [contributed to] Dingell’s team, and the members’ voting
records reflect that. On average, Dingell and his supporters have
received nearly six times as much money from Big Oil as Waxman’s team,
and nine times as much money from King Coal. Dingell’s supporters have
voted with Big Oil’s agenda 2.7 times as often as Waxman’s people…
In Washington, you’re defined by who your "friends" are. Changing course on energy is about as urgent an issue as the U.S. faces, and Dingell’s friends are the ones whose heel-dragging has put deep grooves in the Capitol lawn.