Over at the Political State Report, an excellent note on Jim Saxton being given a chairmanship of the Armed Services subcommittee overseeing terrorism instead of House Resources. Saxton is strong on the environment, not perfect, but strong. The point of term limits for committee chairmanship is to open them up to new ideas–something the Resources Committee absolutely needs. The environment has been one of two major issues for Saxton over the years and he spends upwards of 40% of his time on such issues–but apparently ideological purity beat out actual reform.
Saxton would have been especially friendly to my pet cause and ‘radical idea’ that the users of federal land should pay market rates for the use of public lands instead of being subsidized. What a loopy idea.