Markey caught in wrangling on global warming
WASHINGTON -- Representative Edward J. Markey of Malden is in the middle of a high-profile battle between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some of the chamber's most powerful committee chairmen, with Pelosi turning to Markey to head a newly created committee on climate change that will focus on curbing the production of greenhouse gases.
The creation of a special committee to confront global warming signals a desire by Pelosi to control greenhouse gases by imposing tougher regulations on auto emissions and on industries that deplete the ozone. The move follows six years in which President Bush and the Republican-led Congress did little to address global warming.
Pelosi's views on global warming are shared by most House Democrats and some Republicans. But the creation of the new committee, which was announced yesterday, is opposed by several senior Democratic House members, who argue that it would duplicate and even complicate ongoing efforts to explore the same subjects, and curtail the power of committee chairmen who have decades of expertise in their areas.
The member of Congress with the most to lose under the new arrangement is Representative John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who has been a longtime champion of Detroit automakers and who has consistently resisted forcing them to boost the fuel economy of their vehicles.
Dingell, the chairman of the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the longest-serving member of the House, greeted the news of the new committee with anger. He told the Associated Press that the new committee would serve as little more than an excuse for members of Congress to take exotic trips.
"We should probably name it the Committee on World Travel and Junkets," Dingell said. "We're just empowering a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs to go around and make speeches and make commitments that will be very difficult to honor. . . . They're going to get under the feet of and interfere with those who are trying to do a decent job of legislating."
The new Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is charged with probing climate change and developing approaches to slowing the pace of global warming. Markey, the 16-term Democrat who is expected to be named chairman today, would almost certainly bring a more aggressive approach to the issue than Dingell and some of the other current committee chairmen.
Markey has been an outspoken advocate of boosting fuel-efficiency standards of automobiles, and of instituting mandatory emissions caps on US industry to rein in the production of greenhouse gases. He declined to comment yesterday.
The 60-year-old Markey has served with Dingell on the Energy and Commerce Committee for all of his 30-plus years in the House. He has been widely considered a protégé of the 80-year-old Dingell, who seldom breaks publicly with the chairman. Markey aides said the speaker approached him about taking on the new task.
Creating a new committee requires the approval of the full House, though several House Democrats said rank-and-file members are unlikely to buck Pelosi on the House floor, despite lobbying by Dingell and his allies.
Dingell had announced hearings on global warming before Pelosi moved to create the new committee, though environmentalists regard him with deep skepticism because of his ties to the auto industry. His wife, Deborah, is a top lobbyist for
"The chairman has for many years been strongly opposed to increases in [fuel-economy] standards, though there is pretty clearly a majority in the Democratic caucus who favor higher standards," said Philip E. Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust.
Clapp called it a "gutsy move" by Pelosi to try to overcome the "balkanized" committee process by putting Markey in charge of shepherding a vital policy area.
"You really have to have a central coordinating function," Clapp said. "It's very clear that Speaker Pelosi has made acting on global warming a top priority in the House."
In announcing the new committee yesterday, Pelosi said the panel would hold hearings and recommend ways to reduce greenhouse gases that most scientists say contribute to global warming. She said she hoped to approve legislation by July 4 to address climate change and move the nation toward energy independence.
"The future of our country, indeed our entire planet, is at stake," said Pelosi, a California Democrat.
In a nod to Dingell and other committee chairman, Pelosi agreed that the new committee would not have the power to draft legislation, and instead gave it purely oversight and investigatory functions. That means any concepts Markey and his colleagues want to pursue as bills must navigate the regular House committees, including, in some cases, Dingell's.
Still, Pelosi's move puts her in direct conflict with committee chairmen, who have traditionally had vast discretion to pursue their own legislative agendas. At least six House committees have laid claim to some aspect of policy connected to global warming, and while most of them share Pelosi's views on global warming, they say that there is no need to add an additional layer of oversight.
"The legislative committees can carry out their responsibilities on this matter responsibly and expeditiously," said House Government Reform Committee chairman Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat who has expressed interest in holding global-warming hearings in his committee.
House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charles Rangel of New York has expressed skepticism about Pelosi's idea but said he has not decided whether to support it.
The move to bypass some of her party's senior members sends a signal that Pelosi won't allow her committee chairmen to slow or stop her agenda on global warming or other issues, said Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee.
"It's a message that personal feelings and jurisdictional disputes are not going to get in the way," Frank said.
Frank said creating a committee to handle global warming makes sense given the breadth of the issue and the potential for the existing committees to work at cross-purposes. He said his fellow chairmen should realize that they'll have plenty to do even if another committee handles climate change.
"I don't understand what their problem is," Frank said. "There's a mistaken view that 'this is my turf.' We're talking about public policy here. We're in this together."
Dingell has invited former vice president Al Gore, a leading voice on the need to curb global warming, to testify before his committee. Yet he has continued to express skepticism about hybrid technologies and has said he wants to move carefully to ensure that any steps Congress takes won't destroy the US auto industry.
"I gotta help my country," Dingell told environmental journalist Amanda Griscom Little last month. "But in a like fashion, I've gotta help my own constituents and people."
Pelosi's announcement came amid heightened attention in Washington to ways to confront global warming.
The president is expected to use his State of the Union address on Tuesday to lay out his administration's plans for controlling emissions, though aides have said he will not budge on his opposition to mandatory caps on emissions of pollutants.
With Democrats in control of Congress for the first time in 12 years, a raft of bills have been filed in recent days touting a variety of approaches to confronting global warming.
