Republican leadership voted to recommend Fred Upton of Michigan for the chairmanship of the powerful US House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday, ending a long-shot bid by the conservative Joe Barton of Texas (Bloomberg).
Upton is a more moderate Republican who has endorsed the science of global warming and frequently supported environmental legislation. His political views weren’t necessarily an advantage, however, and in fact were used against him by competitors. But he has seniority on the committee and was in line for the chairmanship (for additional background, see our election analysis here).
Barton chaired the committee before Democrats took control four years ago but needed a waiver from Republican leadership due to Republican term limits. He famously headed a congressional inquiry into the “hockey stick” graph depicting temperatures over the past thousand years (for the latest on that – a plagiarism claim against Barton’s chief witness – check here). Barton also had an independent streak that made leadership uncomfortable.
Republican leaders gave the nod to Ralph Hall of Texas for the chairmanship of the House Committee on Science and Technology. Hall recently made it clear that he will take a hard line on global warming and any attempts by the administration of Barack Obama to regulate greenhouse gases (see our coverage of the last climate hearing under Democrats).
Darrel Issa of California, who has adopted an equally aggressive posture toward climate scientists in the wake of the past year’s climate scandals, will head the Oversight Government Reform Committee, and Doc Hastings of Washington will lead the House Natural Resources Committee. Hastings has mounted an unlikely bid to take jurisdiction of energy issues away from the Energy and Commerce Committee.
For a complete listing of the Republican Steering Committee’s recommendations, see this list compiled by Reuters. The full GOP conference is scheduled to vote on Wednesday, although normally members vote with leadership on such appointments.