Rep. Barton: Term-limit waiver didn’t come up in Steering Committee

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said the question of a term-limit waiver enabling him to serve as Energy and Commerce Committee chairman in the next Congress didn’t come up when he made his case Tuesday to the GOP Steering Committee.

The GOP caucus rule that limits members to six years atop a committee doesn’t appear to be a factor in the contest to run the powerful panel, Barton told reporters in the Capitol after his appearance before the Steering Committee.

“I was prepared to address it, but it didn’t come up,” Barton said. “What I am told is, if I win, then it [the waiver] is automatically given. Now that was not explicitly stated in there, but that’s the assumption that I am operating under.”

Asked who told him this, Barton replied, “a number of people in that room.”

The Steering Committee is vetting Barton and three other Republicans vying to lead the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Barton served one term as committee chairman before Democrats reclaimed the House in the 2006 elections, and has been the ranking Republican on the panel since then.

 He contends that the House GOP rules are ambiguous and should not bar him from another stint as chairman when Republicans take over next year.

The Energy and Commerce Committee will play a central role in GOP efforts to chip away at the Democratic healthcare law and attack Environmental Protection Agency rules.

“I asked them to let me have this gavel for real and to give me a chance to prove that a new conservative majority can deliver for America,” Barton said, brandishing the chairman’s gavel that he used as a prop in his presentation.

“I have it on loan,” he joked to reporters about the chairman’s gavel. “I borrowed it last night.” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is the current committee chairman.

The Steering Committee — which is closely aligned with GOP leadership — is not expected to make a decision on committee

chairs until next week, a decision that the GOP conference would then ratify.

Barton’s rivals for the Energy and Commerce Committee perch are Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who is considered the frontrunner, Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.).

Barton also said oil giant BP didn’t come up. Barton appeared to badly damage himself politically when he apologized to BP’s

then-CEO Tony Hayward in June over White House pressure on the company to create a $20 billion claims fund for oil spill victims.

Barton quickly retracted the comment under pressure from GOP leaders, but it was nonetheless a political gift to Democrats.

He told reporters Tuesday that the questioning by lawmakers on the Steering Committee was “tough but fair” and addressed issues including entitlement reform and “how to jumpstart the economy.”

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