Renaming the Resources Committee to the Natural Resources Committee.
Rahall isn’t my first choice amongst Dems, but I think we can say he’ll take up mine safety at least. On top of it, while Young will be ranking minority member—Pombo got tossed–Saxton will be fairly senior and he’s got a decent environmental record. There’ll be a good group to move environmental legislation through the committee.
Other good news is that Colin Petersen is taking over ag meaning a strong position on alternative energy and rural development. While he’s big on the ethanol kick (you can actually find ethanol at most stations in his District), but he also has lots of wind power.
The bad news–Dingell is back at Energy and Commerce. He’s an improvement over Barton, but that’s not saying much. He’ll bottle any CAFE standard changes up. The only leverage Democrats have there is to get the UAW and Auto Companies to get on board–we may be close to doing that.
Archie, How can we encourage the UAW and Detroit along re CAFE?