Waxman Is A Wise Choice Over Dingell

No one can deny that this year is a year for change. Americans desired it and they voted for it, overwhelmingly, with more than twenty additional seats going to Democrats in the House and between six and nine in the Senate. Oh and then there's the next President on top of that. Looking below those numbers though, it is important to see which Democrats won over incumbents and in bad news for those believers that America is "center-right," huge gains were made specifically for the progressive caucus. So what does that mean for the House, well for starters lets take a look at the contest for Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee between the liberal Henry Waxman and the more centrist John Dingell.

From RawStory:

Henry Waxman, a long-serving, outspoken, progressive California Democrat, has launched a bid to take control of perhaps the most powerful committee in the House of Representatives.

The move has many moderate Democrats worried about what they see as a takeover from the party's left flank.

What worries the moderates is their positions of authority in the House. Many conservative and blue-dog Democrats would rather hold onto their small feudal plots of power than try to enact the change everyone wants to see. The problem has been an aversion to progressive legislation that may anger certain elected officials' favorite industries.

Dingell's sympathy for the auto industry has contributed to a lack of action on climate change legislation, frustrating environmentalists.

President-elect Barack Obama said during the campaign that he wanted quick action on legislation to cap carbon emissions and require polluters to purchase emission credits on an open market. The Senate failed to pass a cap and trade bill over the summer, and Dingell belatedly introduced his own cap and trade proposal last month.

Environmentalists believe Waxman would be more aggressive in pursuing such legislation.

Waxman's history in the House has shown his tenacity but for a long time the gruesome hearings he holds do not carry past a largely apathetic Congress, unwilling to strike at hearts of Corporate America. As Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, he would have great reign to enact the environmental standards that the auto industry among others have been slow to adhere to. The truth is Dingell is too attached to the old Detroit, while Waxman is ready to remake the Motor City into a 21st century center for green technology and a leader in clean energy.