Barton will seek rule waiver, run again for Energy panel post

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is ready to run for chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, he told The Hill.

Barton, who made waves when he apologized to the head of BP for enduring a "shake-down" by the White House during the Gulf Coast oil spill, said he's prepared to challenge a nearly decade old rule to go for the top spot on the energy panel.

Under current House GOP rules, a lawmaker can serve only three consecutive terms atop a committee. Barton served one term as Energy and Commerce chairman before assuming the role of ranking member, when Democrats won control of the House in 2006. He served two terms in that position but says his time as ranking member shouldn't count against him in his quest to regain the gavel.

He says he will seek a waiver of that rule, adopted in 1993, for the 112th Congress under what is expected to be a GOP majority.

Barton's outburst during a summertime hearing, for which the senior Texan was reprimanded by leadership, including Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner, seemed to doom his goal of reclaiming the gavel.

But since the time he apologized for making the outburst, Barton has raised a lot of money for GOP candidates and intends to appeal to the GOP Steering Committee for a waiver.

He will face a growing field of senior House GOP lawmakers with their sights set on serving atop the powerful Energy and Commerce panel, including Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.)

Barton had said in a recent op-ed that if Republicans won the House he would "ask my colleagues for the privilege of serving as chairman of the committee I love."