From E&E News PM:

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) signaled his plans today to seek the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee from Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), according to Democratic sources on and off Capitol Hill.

Waxman telephoned Dingell this morning to tell him about the challenge, which if successful would have implications for energy and climate change legislation during the first term of President-elect Barack Obama. Waxman, who will be sworn in January to an 18th term, is seen as more aggressive on environmental issues than Dingell, the longest-serving House member and an outspoken proponent of the auto industry.

The prospect of Waxman heading the committee worries some lobbyists who prefer what they see as Dingell’s more industry-friendly approach. “This is a fight for all the marbles,” said one refining industry lobbyist. “If Henry gets this, my god, given the scope of jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee, all hell will break loose legislatively if Waxman chairs this thing.”

Well, actually, the goal is to prevent Hell and High Water from breaking loose, but what do you expect from an industry lobbyist? The story continues:

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Famed global warming denier and science-fiction author, Michael Crichton, has died in Los Angeles. He became famous as a pulse-pounding writer who helped create the techno-thriller genre with best-sellers (and hit movies) like Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain.

Then he used his fame in the most destructive way possible — to cast doubt on the overwhelming scientific understanding of global warming, to urge people not to take action against the gravest preventable threat to the health and well-being of future generations.

In 2004, he published State of Fear, a deeply flawed novel that attacks climate science and climate scientists. Although a work of fiction, the book had a clear political agenda, as evidenced by Crichton’s December 7, 2004 press release:

STATE OF FEAR raises critical questions about the facts we believe in, without question, on the strength of esteemed experts and the media. Although the story is fiction, Michael Crichton writes from a firm foundation of actual research challenging common assumptions about global warming.

The mistake-riddled book (see below) contains a gratuitous Appendix titled “Why Politicized Science Is Dangerous,” where Crichton draws a direct and lengthy analogy between climate science and eugenics and Soviet biology under Lysenko, where all dissent to the party line was crushed and some Soviet geneticists were executed. With no evidence whatsoever, he claims, that in climate science, “open and frank discussion of the data, and of the issues, is being suppressed.”

Sadly, Crichton chose to use his fame to smear the work of countless scientists who are trying to predict and prevent the unintended consequences of humanity’s dangerous experiment with unrestricted emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

In a 2006 New Republic interview, he articulated the twin credos of global warming denial and delay:

“If you just look at the science, I, at least, am underwhelmed. This may or may not be a problem, but it is far from the most serious problem. If you want to do something, [limiting emissions] is not what to do. We don’t at this moment have good technology to do this, if, in fact, it’s necessary to do it.”

Such is the road to ruin. Those who advance such a view deserve the strongest of labels, the strongest of condemnation.

Crichton spoke frequently against climate scientists and climate action, including public debates and testimony at a Senate hearing chaired by James Inhofe (R-OK), where Crichton took the opportunity to once again accuse the entire scientific community of fudging the science of climate change.

Crichton even helped persuade President Bush that he was wise to do nothing to address global warming. In 2006, Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, wrote of Bush’s opposition to the Kyoto global warming treaty:

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Dan Kammen, the director of the Renewable & Appropriate Energy Laboratory at UC Berkeley and a top adviser to President-elect Barack Obama (D-IL), has told E&E News that Obama may conduct a nationwide “listening tour” to allow his team to hit the ground running for a green recovery:

The incoming Obama team is considering a “listening tour” around the country on energy and environmental issues before Inauguration Day in an attempt to build momentum for its policies and legislative plans.

Last month, Obama told Time’s Joe Klein that an “Apollo project” for a “new energy economy” is his top priority:

That’s going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office.

In yesterday’s victory speech before a crowd of 125,000 in Chicago’s Grant Park, Obama indicated that listening to all people of this nation will be central to his administration:

There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way its been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

In the 75 days before Obama takes office, he will also have to weigh in on major events already on the calendar: Read more

CNN Money reports the story with the above headline:

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Under President-elect Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the fossil fuels industry may face “dark days ahead,” while alternative energy sectors are likely to flourish.

[Note to trillion-dollar fossil fuel industry: Waaaaah!]

Although it will take years to engineer and implement, an Obama administration energy and environment policy marks a tectonic shift for the nation. He would move the U.S. away from petroleum as its primary energy source and towards renewable energy, advanced biofuels, efficiency and low greenhouse-gas-emitting technologies.

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Roll Call just reported:

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) plans to challenge Rep John Dingell (D-Mich.) for chairmanship of the influential Energy and Commerce Committee, senior Democratic sources confirmed Wednesday.

The move marks a major showdown between two Democratic powerhouses, with implications for a host of major legislation next year from health care to global warming to renewable energy. Waxman currently chairs the Oversight and Government Reform panel.

I don’t think the fox will give up his position guarding the henhouse very easily, though.

UPDATE: Wonk Room compares and contrasts Waxman and Dingell’s record on global warming.

Related Posts:

• Dingell and Boucher draft climate bill: Likely no CO2 cut until near 2030
• Other reactions to the Dingell-Boucher
• Dingell: Climate bill’s chances in 2008 “verge on impossible”
• Dingell’s Absurd Poison-Pill Climate Plan
• The New Congress needs to Do MORE than just Debate Climate Change and Hold Hearings

John Dingell (D-MI) and Henry Waxman (D-CA)

Roll Call reports that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) plans to challenge Rep John Dingell (D-MI) “for chairmanship of the influential Energy and Commerce Committee.” The Committee has jurisdiction over a wide array of issues, including energy policy, health care, and interstate commerce.

In the 110th Congress, Dingell and Waxman took very different stances on global warming issues. In stark contrast, Dingell opposed California’s petition to set automotive emission standards for greenhouse gases, while Waxman led hearings to investigate why the EPA denied the California waiver.

The two also took different paths after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called in January, 2007, for rapid action on legislation that would limit greenhouse emissions. Waxman introduced the Safe Climate Act in March to reduce emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Dingell, a longtime defender of the auto industry, instead worked through a series of hearings and white papers on this complex issue to introduce draft legislation this October.

Dingell “put aside” the global warming legislation to push a provision in the 2007 energy bill that increased fuel economy standards for the first time in decades. When signed by President Bush in December, it marked a major achievement for the environment and the economy — but has since been used by the Bush administration for an excuse for inaction on mandatory global warming regulations.

As Roll Call writes, “The move marks a major showdown between two Democratic powerhouses.”

UPDATE: E&E News reports:

“This is a fight for all the marbles,” said one refining industry lobbyist. “If Henry gets this, my god, given the scope of jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee, all hell will break loose legislatively if Waxman chairs this thing.”

From E&E Daily:

Barack Obama cruised to a historic White House victory yesterday while winning larger Democratic majorities on both ends of Capitol Hill, opening the door to an environment and energy policy agenda sure to contrast with the last eight years under President Bush.

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Obama ran on clear and detailed energy and climate plans — see Obama’s excellent climate (and energy) plan and Breaking news — A real energy plan for America: Efficiency now, 10% renewables by 2012, and one million plug-in hybrids by 2015.

The election poses three over-arching questions :

1. ON SOLUTIONS: Does Obama have a clear mandate to enact his plans to transform our energy and climate policy?
2. ON SCIENCE: Will the transformation he is actually able to enact be sufficient to avert the worst climate impacts (and, relatedly, the worst peak oil impacts).
3. ON POLITICS: Will this transformation be bipartisan?

The answers are, I think, “yes,” “probably not,” and “almost certainly not.”

The answers are related, of course. If conservatives accepted the overwhelming evidence of the dire nature of the climate problem, then the policy measures that progressives could enact would be far stronger. And I’m including Democratic conservatives in that assertion (see “Moderate Senate Dems build ‘Gang of 16″² to influence cap-and-trade bill“).

On the first question, the NYT‘s lead editorial today explains a core reason Obama swept to victory:

His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world….

Climate change is a global threat, and after years of denial and inaction, this country must take the lead on addressing it. The nation must develop new, cleaner energy technologies, to reduce greenhouse gases and its dependence on foreign oil.

Traditional Republican conservatives, simply don’t get the nature of the problem or even the message of the election — and as a result they are likely to

1. Continue their obstructionists efforts that threaten the health and well-being of all humanity.
2. Be in the political wilderness for a long time.

If that wasn’t clear from the increasingly desperate embrace of coal and oil by the GOP, including one-time-climate-advocate John McCain (see “Revealing comments on coal from Obama — and even more revealing comments from McCain” and “Drill baby, drill”: The moment the Republic died), then it should be clear from the Op-Ed in today’s Post by conservative Jeff Flake (R-AZ), “A way out of the wilderness“:

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“Outspent 130 to 1, No on 10 Campaign Stops Oil Tycoon’s Money Grab.”

From PR Newswsire:

The No on Proposition 10 campaign claims an early landslide victory as election night results from throughout California indicate a lopsided defeat of T Boone Pickens’ ballot measure.

“California voters didn’t fall for a Texas oil tycoon’s $10 billion money grab, no matter how much he spent camouflaging it as green,” stated Richard Holober, spokesman for the No on Prop 10 campaign, and Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of California. “Proposition 10 is the ultimate example of a wealthy special interest abusing the ballot initiative process to enrich itself. We built a coalition of major environmental, consumer, business, labor, taxpayer and civic organizations that triumphed over Prop 10′s $23 million war chest. The defeat of Prop 10 sends a signal that California’s ballot initiative process is not for sale to the highest bidder.”

It also signals, you can’t fool all the people all the time (see “Memo to T. Boone Pickens: Your energy plan is half-brilliant, half-dumb“). More details on Prop 10′s failure below:

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TO: Journalists

FROM: Brent Blackwelder, President, Friends of the Earth Action — the First National Environmental Group to Endorse Obama

RE: Historic Mandate for Clean Energy

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“In Tough Economic Times, Voters Backed the Candidates Who Favor Big Action on Climate and Energy”

Statement of John Passacantando, Executive Director, Greenpeace USA on the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States:

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