Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) will seek the Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship if Rep. Joe Barton (Texas) — the panel’s senior Republican — is denied the role when the GOP takes control of the House next year, an aide said.

“Yes, he [Shimkus] will pursue the chairmanship if Mr. Barton does not receive a waiver,” said Shimkus spokesman Steve Tomaszewski on Thursday. “He has started reaching out to members of the Steering Committee and he will be contacting his colleagues shortly.”

Barton’s bid is complicated by House GOP caucus rules that prevent members from serving more than three consecutive terms — or six years — in a top committee slot.

Rep. Fred Upton is promising expanded oversight of the White House as he angles for a powerful committee chairmanship.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said a renewable-electricity standard could be an area of bipartisan energy cooperation now that President Obama has backed away from politically moribund bills to cap greenhouse-gas emissions.

“There's been bipartisan support and bipartisan proposals for things like the renewable-electricity standard, the renewable-energy portfolio, different efficiency standards as well,” Gibbs said Thursday at a White House briefing.

A renewable-electricity standard (RES) — long a pillar of Democratic energy plans — would force many utilities to supply increasing amounts of power from wind, solar and other renewable sources in coming years.

TransCanada is rejecting claims by Nebraska GOP Sen. Mike Johanns that the State Department needs to expand its review of the company’s proposed pipeline carrying crude oil from Alberta oil sands down to Texas, which Johanns has requested due to concern that the pipeline would be environmentally risky to the state’s water supply.



In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, TransCanada President and CEO Russell Girling argues a draft environmental impact analysis from the State Department of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline expansion already “fully takes into account all reasonable alternatives and satisfies the Department’s obligations and the public’s interests."



Girling is responding to a letter Johanns sent Clinton on Monday asking for the department to do a supplemental environmental impact analysis that looks into alternative routes for the pipeline.

Environmental groups want Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to recuse herself from deciding the fate of a proposed TransCanada oil-sands pipeline, arguing she is biased in favor of it.

Several groups on the environmental community’s far left — including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the Center for Biological Diversity — say Clinton is predisposed to approve the Keystone XL pipeline project based on comments she made last month that she is “inclined” to do so.

“Such statements are premature and appear prejudicial in regard to the duty of your agency to conduct a thorough assessment of the impacts this pipeline could have on the people and the environment prior to determining whether issuing a permit makes sense,” the groups wrote Clinton on Thursday.

Over at our Hillicon Valley tech blog, Sara Jerome flags post-election comments by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), who was toppled after nearly three decades by Republican Morgan Griffith.

"His campaign was all Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Rick Boucher. It was just tying me directly to the Democratic Party national leadership," Boucher said in an interview Wednesday with The Los Angeles Times.

"Democrats face a lot of headwinds here in normal times. In this particular election, I was really just facing hurricane winds," he said.

Boucher, an Energy and Commerce Committee member, negotiated for coal interests in the drafting of last year’s cap-and-trade bill and ultimately voted for the measure.

This morning, we noted that Tea Party-backed Senate candidates who doubt global warming had mixed results on election night.

But over at the Wonk Room blog, Brad Johnson provides a reminder that more broadly, GOP climate skeptics (he uses the phrase “climate zombies”) will heavily populate the incoming Congress.

“Analysis by the Wonk Room, with research by Daily Kos’s RL Miller, finds that 45 of 97 Republican freshmen and 85 of 166 reelected Republicans are confirmed climate zombies. There are no Republican freshmen, in the House or Senate, who admit the science is real. New members include William Marcy (MS-2) — who warns of ‘Global Warming Environmental Terrorists’ — and Kristi Noem (SD-AL) — who voted for a resolution that 'astrological' and ‘thermological’ dynamics ‘effect’ the weather,” he writes on the blog, affiliated with the liberal Center for American Progress.

Buck’s loss highlights split decision for Tea Party-backed climate skeptics

Tea Party favorite Ken Buck (R) lost a squeaker to incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet (D) in the Colorado race that featured a late tussle over climate science.

Buck said he doubts that humans are causing global warming. His defeat underscored the mixed results for Senate candidates — many of them backed by the Tea Party — who flew the skeptic flag.

The winners’ column includes GOP Senator-elect Ron Johnson, who beat incumbent Sen. Russ Feingold (D) in Wisconsin. Johnson made waves when claiming that climate change more likely stems from sunspots than human activity.

Senators-elect Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), among several others, have also expressed doubts about human-induced global warming.

Angle, Raese among the skeptics who lost

However, losers included Buck and Republican Sharron Angle, who failed to knock off the highly vulnerable Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) in Nevada.

Republican John Raese of West Virginia, who declared global warming a “myth,” lost to Sen.-elect Joe Manchin (D), although Manchin himself is no fan of carbon caps and ran away from White House climate policies.



Regardless of these results, legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions — which many Republicans alleged on the stump would batter the economy — will remain on ice in the next Congress. 

Still, the loss of several climate skeptics brought green groups some solace on what was otherwise a tough election night, one that ushered in a Congress that will be much more hostile territory for them.

Battle is raging over whether the 2009 passage of Democratic cap-and-trade legislation in the House contributed to the party’s drubbing at the ballot box.

Environmental groups released a poll Wednesday they touted as evidence that the GOP surge wasn't fueled by popular anger over cap-and-trade proposals.

Here’s a copy of the memo from the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.

A key finding:

“Members’ support for ACES did not contribute to their defeat. When voters who chose the Republican candidate were asked in an open-ended question to name their biggest concern about the Democrat, only 1 percent cited something related to energy or cap and trade. And when offered a list of six arguments Republicans made against Democrats, only 7 percent of voters selected the so-called ‘cap and trade energy tax.’ ”

(ACES is the American Clean Energy and Security Act — the title of the big cap-and-trade and energy bill the House approved in 2009. It stalled in the Senate.)

The Nov. 1-2 poll questioned 1,000 voters in 83 “battleground” districts. The pollsters also asked voters whether they support EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. Fifty-eight percent support regulation, while 36 percent oppose it.

The question, however, did not present anti-regulation arguments. Here’s how the pollsters phrased it:

“Now, let me ask about something different. Would you support or oppose the Environmental Protection Agency regulating the release of greenhouse gases from sources like power plants, cars and factories in an effort to reduce global warming?”

The poll comes as many Republicans and some centrist Democrats are pushing plans to block looming EPA rules.

Checking in on the energy ‘chunks’

Even before the election, President Obama admitted that a big, mothership climate and energy bill won’t fly in the new Congress. He said energy policy could move ahead in “chunks.”

On Wednesday, acknowledging the “shellacking” Democrats took, Obama suggested a few areas where the parties could come together. His list: Natural gas, electric cars, nuclear power and efficiency.

Cap-and-trade, he acknowledged, is on ice. “Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat, it was not the only way, it was a means, not an end, and I am going to be looking for other means to address this problem,” Obama said.

Carbon markets saw the writing on the wall Wednesday when President Obama said cap-and-trade legislation will stay on ice after the big GOP midterm gains. Obama pledged to find other ways to cut carbon, noting, “cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat.”

Bloomberg reports: “Futures contracts in the U.S. Northeast’s carbon market fell the most in more than four months after ... Obama backed away from the national cap- and-trade program he once sought.”

Their piece later adds: