Nov 20 2008
Waxman Replaces Dingell as Chair of House Committee on Climate-Change
Move over, John Dingell! There’s a new sheriff in town and he’s going after that bad boy they call global warming!
To the delight of environmentalists everywhere, Rep. Henry Waxman of Los Angeles has been chosen to serve as the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which deals with climate change, energy, and healthcare legislation. He will replace Michigan Congressman John Dingell.
Waxman defeated Dingell for the post by a vote of 137-122.
Waxman’s victory is seen as a major boost for President-elect Barack Obama, who has stressed the importance of combating global warming.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, Dingell was seen by many as an “obstacle” in this area. A Democrat from Dearborn, Dingell was “a staunch defender of the auto industry who blocked higher fuel-efficiency standards for years.”
The Mercury News also says that he “angered California Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, by opposing the state’s landmark initiative to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles.”
California senator Barbara Boxer, who serves as the chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, held a news conference earlier today with four of her Democratic colleagues from that committee. Calling Waxman “a strong ally,” Boxer expressed her immense pleasure at his ascendancy to the energy committee chair and promised to do everything in her power to pass climate-change legislation after the 111th Congress convenes in January.
“We were told for eight years, ‘Don’t you dare do this’”, she said. “Now we’re being challenged to get this legislation done.”
Well, I guess, even tho a Pres-elect has little or no statutory power, there is some power to set agendas up front. That is an important influence coming this early in the Transition.
Perhaps the solution to gas guzzling behemoths is for the US auto industry to close up shop and cease operations. Oh yeah, that appears to be happening. Congressman Waxman should be able to help this process along nicely. I am not a fan of bailouts, but I also do not find it appealing to tromp down hard on a struggling/failing industry.
Governmental loans with strong limitations and favorable rates of interest (favorable to the lender) could help the auto industry to survive its failures. The limitations need to be fairly explicit and include cessation of bonuses, pay in the form of cheap stock offerings, and other corporate inequities that screw stockholders.
We have a choice at this juncture of history. We can allow the free market to find its own bottom and subsequent recovery or we can have our government intervene by injecting funding and new controls. Neither of these alternatives is appetizing. However, I do not see much other. As a retiree, I hope that my investments and pension will survive the coming years. I do know that a recovery will come. But do not know when.
I’ve said it elsewhere, and I’ll say it again here.
The auto industry failed to entice us to give them money in exchange for their products when they failed to make products that we were willing to buy. Why the hell should we GIVE them free money now?
They are burning money at such a rate that if we gave them 25 Billion bucks now, they’d be broke again by April! And then they’d be back in Washington demanding more!
No, force them into Chapter 11, where they can shed unneeded obligations and come back out leaner and better able to compete, and perhaps they’d learn to make vehicles we’d actually be willing to exchange money for.
You know, reliable, so they’ll last 100,000 miles like the Japanese’ do?
Or perhaps smaller, with really good gas milage, or even alternate fuels so we aren’t sending money to people that hate us?
Hell, Apple Inc. is doing it, why can’t the car companies?