A Michigan Republican seeking to chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee is pressing White House energy czar Carol Browner for information about controversial changes her office made to a May Interior Department report on offshore drilling safety.

In a letter to Browner Monday, Rep. Fred Upton asked about recent findings by Interior’s inspector general, who concluded that the White House edits left the impression that outside experts consulted on the report had endorsed a six-month ban on deepwater drilling. 

They hadn’t. And now Upton – who had already signaled that Browner is in his crosshairs – wants to know more about the rationale for the edits.

Interior Department officials are emphasizing the inspector general’s conclusion that they did not intentionally seek to mislead.

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Top Energy and Commerce Committee Democrat Henry Waxman Monday said he expects a stalemate on the panel in the next Congress under Republican rule.



“I have a sense, and I hope to be disappointed, that the Republicans in the House are going to roll over the Democrats on committee and in the House,” said the California Democrat, who will continue to lead his party on the panel during the next two years.


“Right now, my expectations are the Republican leadership will find it hard to reach compromises in the House because they have a lot of pretty hard-lined Republicans in their ranks who didn’t come here to compromise.”

Waxman said any GOP attempts to stonewall Democrats in the House will face resistance in a tight Democratic majority in the Senate.



“They will find that that will not get them a change in the law because those efforts will be stopped in the Senate,” Waxman told reporters in the Capitol Monday evening. “If we wanted to try to work together in the House, perhaps we could find ways to encourage the Senate to get the votes they’ll need to pass something, and as well to encourage the president to sign a bill. But otherwise I can see two years of a lot of stalemate.”

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Global warming skeptics eager to see ascendant House Republicans put climate science under the microscope might be disappointed in Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

Issa – the likely chairman the Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the next Congress – signaled to reporters Monday that his interest in probing “climate-gate” has waned.

“I will have limited resources and limited time. I am looking at things that fall between the cracks, but also I am looking for the largest dollars of waste, and although this is a significant issue, it may not be the issue that first comes to my committee, and we are willing to realize that I only have so many resources and so much time,” he told reporters in the Capitol Monday evening.

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Sen. Jay Rockefeller will sit down with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Tuesday about holding a vote this year on Rockefeller's plan to suspend Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations by two years, the West Virginia Democrat said Monday.
 
Rockefeller still expects Reid to give his two-year delay plan a vote in a lame-duck session that began Monday despite a lengthy list of legislative options in the post-election session. “He said he would and I think he will,” Rockefeller told reporters in the Capitol Building Monday. “But the question lies not so much in him but in the word ‘opportunity.’”
 
Rockefeller said he is not even sure whether the lame-duck session will extend into December due to Republican posturing over extending unemployment insurance.

“The question is, is there going to be a lame duck?” he said. “Will they extend [UI]? That’ll be the first test of who the Republicans are going to be.”

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Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Monday defiantly said she would retain the top Republican spot on the panel in the next Congress if reelected in her write-in campaign.

“I don’t lose anything; I didn’t switch my party affiliation; I’m still a Republican, still a member of that caucus, still have that seniority that I have accrued,” Murkowski told reporters in the Capitol Building Monday. “And I am the most senior member so I will be the ranking member.”

Senate Republican leaders, however, do not appear to have decided to back Murkowski’s seniority status and may end up supporting Sen. Richard Burr’s (R-N.C.) bid to head the panel instead.

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Two senior Democrats say that expanded support for deployment of electric vehicles is an area ripe for bipartisan support in the divided Congress over the next two years.

“Of all the things that I think we can pull out of the bubbling, boiling cauldron of controversy that could be the Congress over the next two years, I think that this could be at the top of the list,” said Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “I think this is something we could work with in a non-ideological way.”

Markey spoke Monday at a forum hosted by the Electrification Coalition, a group that promotes the technology as a way to curb oil imports that includes FedEx, Nissan, the power company NRG Energy, and others.

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Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) declined to answer a question about his 2012 presidential intentions during an interview on NBC's "Today Show" Monday morning.

Jindal, who is up for reelection in 2011, said his gubernatorial campaign is his priority.

"I'm running for reelection next year. You'll have a lot of Republicans in Iowa. I'm sure I'll be in Louisiana," he said.

Taking the opportunity to tout his work as governor, he said: "I do think there are things we've done in Louisiana. We have cut taxes. We were talking before, our economy is outperforming the national economy. Portfolio.com said we had the second best economic performance during the recession. There are a whole list of numbers. Our unemployment rate's been below the southern and national averages."

Asked if he was trying to raise his national profile, Jindal said: "I want folks across the country to see what we've done in Louisiana. I think they can learn from those experiences. I think if the federal government would do what we did — cut spending, cut taxes — we'd have more, better paying jobs in the private sector for our children and grandchildren."

Jindal told the New Orleans Times-Picayune, however, that he's not running.

"I know there's been speculation since almost the first day I took this office about my plans," he said. "There was speculation even in the last presidential cycle. I've made it very clear: I've got the job I want. I'm running for re-election next year. I'm not running for president."

The governor was on the "Today Show" to promote his book "Leadership and Crisis," which goes on sale today.

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Green and labor groups Monday offered up a seven-item wish list for Congress to pass in the lame-duck session beginning this week. The list includes familiar items aimed at renewable energy and efficiency standards as well as energy industry worker health and safety.

The provisions — including a renewable electricity production standard, loans and tax credits boosting advanced vehicles and manufacturing, residential and building efficiency codes and new worker safety and health standards — have bipartisan support and have been well vetted, the groups argue.

“This lame-duck session doesn’t have to be lame,” Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said on a conference call with reporters. “In fact, it could be wise, productive and responsive.”

Other leaders from the BlueGreen Alliance green and labor coalition say the provisions would create jobs, mitigate climate change and reduce dependence on imported oil.

“I think if they spend their time on other foolishness, then that will be a clear statement,” said United Steelworkers International President Leo Gerard.

“There’s nothing controversial here,” he added. If lawmakers do not act on the seven items in this post-election session this year, “I would certainly be concerned about what would happen in the next session,” he said.

But there will likely be many items left on the cutting-room floor. Democratic leaders have a sizable list of possible items to consider in an approximately month-long post-election session before Republicans take over the House and tighten Democratic control of the Senate in the next Congress.

Republicans, for example, have called for a lengthy debate on a renewable-electricity standard (RES) proposed by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) that will likely lead to a shelving of that proposal this year.

Bingaman and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) last week talked about the possibility of bringing up the RES — which would require 15 percent of electricity to be produced from renewable energy sources by 2021, with a quarter of that mandate able to be met with energy-efficiency measures. But there has been no public commitment made by Reid to bring it up for a debate this year.

Aside from the RES, the other six provisions from the BlueGreen Alliance are:

a $6 billion set of Home Star rebates for homeowners and home builders to install energy-efficient materials;

a Building Star program that aims to boost commercial energy efficiency improvements;

extension of an advanced manufacturing tax credit and federal grants providing payments for specified energy property in lieu of tax credits;

miner-safety and health legislation named after the late-Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) that also would address standards for refinery and other energy industry workers;

extension of direct loans for retooling manufacturing facilities that can produce advanced vehicles; and

federal loans for the construction of wastewater, drinking water and water efficiency and other clean-water projects.

The chairman of the GOP transition team said he does not expect Republicans to alter their rules.

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