Barton: Boehner promises 'open and fair' energy panel race

Barton argues that the House GOP rules are ambiguous enough that he can lead the panel.

House Energy and Commerce ranking member Joe Barton (R-Texas) said House Republican leader John Boehner (Ohio) has promised him an “open and fair process” in his bid to chair the panel in the next Congress.

“He’s obviously very interested in picking good committee chairmen, and he thinks I would be a good chairman but he has not committed to support me,” Barton told reporters after he met Tuesday with Boehner. “He says it’s going to be an open process in the steering committee and he thinks the steering committee will pick the best person which I think will be me.”
 
Barton said a decision on who will lead the energy panel will not occur until after Thanksgiving. A GOP task force examining any rule changes for the caucus will not make any recommendations until December, Barton said.
 
He is arguing that the House GOP rules are ambiguous enough to suggest he can continue to lead Republicans on the panel without receiving a term-limit waiver. House GOP leadership aides have said Barton does need a waiver and will not receive one.

Barton said he has not polled incoming Republican freshmen, “but I would think I have a lot of support given my conservative record.” He has asked to meet with some of the freshmen and will do so later this week.
 
He predicted victory in his bid.

“I think I’m going to be successful,” he said. “There are other people that want to be chairman, too. Every one of them is a good friend of mine. They are all good people.”
 
Some GOP sources say Barton is behind the effort to distribute opposition research undermining the conservative credentials of Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.), the favorite to replace him as lead Republican on the panel.
 
Barton has denied this. “I am not going to get into a contest disparaging them or anything about them. OK?” he said regarding Upton and other challengers to lead the panel, Reps. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.). “I like them. They’re my friends. They’re going to be my friends after this is over. This is a competition, and they have every right to put their best foot forward. I’ll put my best foot forward, and I’ll leave it up to the will of the steering committee and the conference to pick the best person. Period.”

He said he has no interest in chairing any other panels, including the Science and Technology Committee.

“I’m on leave from the science committee, but Ralph Hall is going to be the chairman of the science committee,” he said of his fellow Texas Republican.
 
Upton, meanwhile, got additional help from a leading conservative Tuesday in his bid to lead Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, wrote in a Tuesday blog that Upton is “especially well suited to be chairman” of the panel.
 
“I know Upton quite well. He’s not as conservative as I am,” Barnes wrote. But “on the issues the committee will take up, he is conservative.”
 
“Republicans shouldn’t let a silly light bulb bill kill him from becoming chairman,” he added. Barnes is referring to language that Upton and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) added to a 2007 energy bill that would ban incandescent light bulbs. “Upton has been faulted for voting for the light bulb bill that annoys so many people, including me,” Barnes wrote. But as chairman of the energy panel, Upton is “for reconsidering the light bulb law,” Barnes added.
 
Upton has also been “zinged for voting against drilling in Lake Michigan, as did the other House members whose districts border the lake,” Barnes wrote. “But that’s an insignificant matter, especially when compared to his support for oil drilling in ANWR in Alaska, in offshore areas in the Atlantic, in the tar sands in Canada, and in oil shale regions of the U.S.”
 
Upton indeed has taken pains through almost daily press releases and other published work to prove he has the conservative credentials to lead the panel. But Upton and his staff have been very shy about talking to reporters, essentially laying low given that the House GOP steering committee is not likely to grant Barton a term-limit waiver.