Redstate

By RS Insider Posted in Congress — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Not usually one for understatement, Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times declared in a recent column that Speaker Pelosi is having "some trouble" with the reigning chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. It seems that Chairman John Dingell of Michigan - who came to the House during Eisenhower's first-term and was sworn in by Sam Rayburn when he got here - has a different view of energy policy than the distinguished speaker and her opposite number in the Senate: Whereas the former has arrived at the understanding that jamming burdensome regulations and unrealistic fuel efficiency numbers down the throat of the American economy isn't done in a vacuum, the latter two either don't share that particular understanding or, in the very least, don't act according to it.

Yesterday we saw Chairman Dingell is all too willing to bend to the speaker, who just happens to be 13 years his junior. He's already acquiesced on major provisions of his committee's energy bill - one relating to corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards (let's not forget he's from Michigan), and the other imposing a national standard for regulating emissions from tailpipes. Add to it that Mr. Dingell isn't exactly a shrinking violet when the topic of coal is brought up either - even allowing one of his subcommittee chairmen to offer a bill to incent the clean production of American coal - and you start to sense that the preeminent authorizing committee of the House has seen calmer days.

Yesterday's markup didn't produce a whole lot of fireworks, owing to the fact that most of the titles the committee has considered thus far don't lend themselves to controversy. However, as today kicks off day two of this scrum, we should expect the coal provisions to be front-and-center giving Dingell one last chance to decide whether he can live with the monkeys on his back, or whether he needs to give them a banana and escort them on their way.