Beck and FreedomWorks campaign against Fred Upton: “Light bulbs are just the beginning”

A war is brewing among the right wing over the chairmanship of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over health care, climate policy, and energy policy.  Brad Johnson has the story in this TP repost.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) is the leading contender, but Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) is seeking a waiver from Republican leadership to retake the gavel, while Reps. John Shimkus (R-IN) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL) are also in the hunt. Although the candidates are lockstep in opposition to the Obama agenda and in their intention to launch witch hunts against climate science, Upton is a relative moderate, having admitted in the past that greenhouse emissions should be reduced. In contrast, Barton — who famously apologized to BP this summer — is fully aligned with the oil and gas industry, with $ 1,482,630 in lifetime contributions.

Now this internal fight has exploded into a Tea Party battle royale.

FreedomWorks, run by veteran GOP lobbyist Dick Armey, has launched Down With Upton, a website attacking “Big Government Republican Fred Upton” for a record “full of votes for more regulation, more spending, and more taxes.” In an email announcing the campaign, FreedomWorks cited Glenn Beck’s warning that “light bulbs are just the beginning”:

Fred Upton, currently considered the front-runner for chairmanship of the critical House Energy and Commerce committee, is far out of step with the Tea Party movement, the GOP and the American people as a whole. You may have heard Glenn Beck talking about Fred Upton introducing a bill to ban incandescent light bulbs in favor of so-called “environmentally-friendly” alternatives. The truth is, Fred Upton has a Big Government record a mile long, and light bulbs are just the beginning.

Upton has already reneged his position on light-bulb efficiency, telling Politico “he’s not afraid to go back after an issue he once supported but that has come under withering assault on the conservative airwaves, including on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck’s talk shows.”

There was, in fact, no bill to ban incandescent light bulbs. Because of the advanced light-bulb standards Upton helped pass in 2007, “the incandescent bulb is turning into a case study of the way government mandates can spur innovation,” the New York Times reported last year. “There have been more incandescent innovations in the last three years than in the last two decades.”

The Tea Party movement is increasingly attacking American innovation and 21st-century jobs on all fronts: Rush Limbaugh is leading the charge against the breakthrough Chevy Volt, Republican governors are killing high-speed rail, Glenn Beck is cooking up conspiracy theories about smart grid technology, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is trying to kill the wind industry, and the entire right-wing movement is convinced green jobs are going to destroy the United States economy.

Climate Progress

Beck And FreedomWorks Campaign Against Fred Upton: ‘Light Bulbs Are Just The Beginning’

A war is brewing among the right wing over the chairmanship of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over health care, climate policy, and energy policy. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) is the leading contender, but Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) is seeking a waiver from Republican leadership to retake the gavel, while Reps. John Shimkus (R-IN) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL) are also in the hunt. Although the candidates are lockstep in opposition to the Obama agenda and in their intention to launch witch hunts against climate science, Upton is a relative moderate, having admitted in the past that greenhouse emissions should be reduced. In contrast, Barton — who famously apologized to BP this summer — is fully aligned with the oil and gas industry, with $ 1,482,630 in lifetime contributions.

Now this internal fight has exploded into a Tea Party battle royale. FreedomWorks, run by veteran GOP lobbyist Dick Armey, has launched Down With Upton, a website attacking “Big Government Republican Fred Upton” for a record “full of votes for more regulation, more spending, and more taxes.” In an email announcing the campaign, FreedomWorks cited Glenn Beck’s warning that “light bulbs are just the beginning”:

Fred Upton, currently considered the front-runner for chairmanship of the critical House Energy and Commerce committee, is far out of step with the Tea Party movement, the GOP and the American people as a whole. You may have heard Glenn Beck talking about Fred Upton introducing a bill to ban incandescent light bulbs in favor of so-called “environmentally-friendly” alternatives. The truth is, Fred Upton has a Big Government record a mile long, and light bulbs are just the beginning.

Upton has already reneged his position on light-bulb efficiency, telling Politico “he’s not afraid to go back after an issue he once supported but that has come under withering assault on the conservative airwaves, including on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck’s talk shows.”

There was, in fact, no bill to ban incandescent light bulbs. Because of the advanced light-bulb standards Upton helped pass in 2007, “the incandescent bulb is turning into a case study of the way government mandates can spur innovation,” the New York Times reported last year. “There have been more incandescent innovations in the last three years than in the last two decades.”

The Tea Party movement is increasingly attacking American innovation and 21st-century jobs on all fronts: Rush Limbaugh is leading the charge against the breakthrough Chevy Volt, Republican governors are killing high-speed rail, Glenn Beck is cooking up conspiracy theories about smart grid technology, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is trying to kill the wind industry, and the entire right-wing movement is convinced green jobs are going to destroy the United States economy.

ThinkProgress

Conservative leaders attack Browner, Administration and Upton on climate science and clean energy

Senior Fellow Daniel J. Weiss is CAPAF’s Director of Climate Strategy.

The incoming House Republican majority includes many climate science deniers.  They have already begun their attacks on promoters of policies to reduce energy use, save families money, and cut global warming pollution.  This includes an attack on Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), a leading candidate to become Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

He is under fire for his efforts to require more energy efficient light bulbs.  But he has also joined the global warming witch hunt by hurling misleading charges about Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Carol Browner in an attempt to discredit her long record of basing energy policies on sound science.  This attack is the beginning of efforts to undo the Obama Administration’s successes at creating clean energy jobs, saving families money, and reducing oil use and pollution.

The attack on Upton sprung from the effort by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) to become Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (E&C).  House Republican term limit rules restrict their members to three Congresses (six years) as chair and/or ranking minority member of a committee.   Barton seeks a waiver to allow him to become Chair of E&C in 2011 even though he already served as chair for two years and ranking member for four years.  Without a waiver, the next most senior Republican – Upton – should become chair.

Despite Upton’s life time American Conservative Union record of 72 percent, many on the far right believe he is not conservative enoughto oversee federal energy, communications, and health care policy.  Politico reported on this anti-Upton campaign.

They’re pointing to Upton’s support for phasing out some incandescent light bulbs in favor of greener alternatives.

Right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh cited Upton’s promotion of eco-friendly light bulbs evidence that he shouldn’t take the Energy and Commerce gavel.

“This would be a tone-deaf disaster if the Republican leadership lets Fred Upton ascend to the chairmanship of the House energy committee,” Limbaugh said this week. “This is exactly the kind of nannyism, statism, what have you, that was voted against and was defeated last week. No Republican complicit in nannyism, statism, can be rewarded this way.”

Upton (R-Mich.) teamed up with California Democratic Rep. Jane Harman on 2007 legislation aimed at phasing out the use of incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy efficient bulbs. That language eventually became law as part of a larger energy bill.

The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy notes that incandescent bulbs that use only 10 percent of their energy for light – the rest is waste heat.  More efficient compact fluorescent bulbs

use less energy and last longer, [so consumers] will save up to several times their purchase price each year through reduced electricity bills and fewer replacement bulbs.

Upton’s light bulb efficiency provision was part of the Energy Independence and Security Act that President George W. Bush signed into law in 2007.

The bill sets lamp efficiency standards for common light bulbs, requiring them to use about 20-30% less energy than present incandescent bulbs by 2012-2014 (phasing in over several years) and requiring a DOE rulemaking to set standards that will reduce energy use to no more than about 65% of current lamp use by 2020.

The attack on Upton’s leadership to require light bulbs to waste less energy and save more money is an example of the right’s broad attack on science and clean energy technology.

After the assault he promptly dimmed his support for energy efficiency and consumer savings.  Politico reports

Hoping to counter attacks from his right, Rep. Fred Upton is promising to reexamine a controversial ban on incandescent light bulbs if he becomes chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

After the right’s attack on Upton, he followed in their footsteps by launching a similar misplaced attack on Carol Browner.  On November 15, he sent a letter questioning her actions on the Department of Interior moratorium on deep water drilling in the wake of the nation’s worst oil disaster.  It focuses on the disproved charge that her office modified the DOI report so that it appeared that the moratorium decision was peer reviewed by scientists when it was not.

This question was fully examined by the Inspector General at the Department of Interior, and it found no wrong doing.

While the 30-Day Report’s Executive Summary could have been more clearly worded, the Department has not definitively violated the IQA [Information Quality Act, which guides the federal government’s use of information]. For example, the recommendation for a moratorium is not contained in the safety report itself. Furthermore, the Executive Summary does not indicate that the peer reviewers approved any of the Report’s recommendations. The Department also appears to have adequately remedied the IQA concerns by communicating directly with the experts, offering a formal apology, and publicly clarifying the nature of the peer review.

Upton’s letter is like issuing a speeding ticket to a car traveling at 25.1 miles per hour in a 25 MPH zone, even after the radar gun demonstrated there was no violation.

Interestingly, we could find no record of Upton raising similar concerns about the Bush administration’s frequent editing of documents to remove descriptions of climate science.  The New York Times revealed that

A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

Upton’s misleading attack on Browner is his attempt to demonstrate his right wing, anti-science bona fides during the mud wrestling to win the coveted E&C chair.  However, this false attack is not an isolated incident, but instead part of the incoming House majority’s effort to attack climate science and scientists, as well as the administration’s successful clean energy policies.

As chair, Upton plans to conduct hearings designed to undermine EPA rules to protect public health and the environment from toxic coal ash, smog, mercury and other toxic chemicals, and global warming pollution.  All of these safeguards will be based upon the best medical and scientific evidence available in order to protect children, seniors, and others from these harmful, controllable contaminants.

Upton’s attacks are the rule, rather than the exception, among the new majority.  His colleagues plan a host of similar efforts to conduct witch hunts in the name of oversight.  This could include efforts to overturn or delay the implementation of President Obama’s new fuel economy standards that would reduce oil use by 1.8 billion barrels, save consumers $ 3000 or more over the life of their car, and cut nearly a billion tons of greenhouse gas pollution.  Bloomberg reports,

Tea Party-backed candidates who won seats in the House by campaigning against federal regulation and spending, including the GM and Chrysler bailouts, may lead opposition to increasing fuel-economy standards, said Russ Harding, senior environmental policy analyst at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality from 1995 to 2002 [under Republican Governor John Engler, now head of the National Association of Manufacturers].

Incoming Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Darrell Issa (R-CA) plans to interrogate the administration over some of its other successes.

With their new majority in the House, Republicans are expected to waste no time in flexing their oversight authority. The ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government reform panel confirmed that the GOP-led committee will investigate polices like the stimulus, the health care bill, and the bank bailout.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a.k.a. the “stimulus”) has had a real success creating clean energy jobs, investing in renewable technologies, and reducing families’ energy bills via efficiency.

Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), the likely chair of the House Science Committee, has already announced his future assault on climate science.

The likely next chairman of the House Science Committee says “reasonable people have serious questions” about the science connecting manmade greenhouse gas emissions to global warming.

Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas) on Wednesday vowed to investigate the Obama administration’s climate policies if he becomes chairman.

Fred Upton is on the receiving end of the kind of assault that he has levied on Carol Browner.  Many more similar attacks are likely after his colleagues take control of the House of Representatives on January 5, 2011.  The objective of these attacks is to defeat or delay health and science based policies that protect and benefit society as whole even if they reduce profits for big oil, dirty coal or other special interests.

Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC), defeated by a Tea Party candidate in his primary, alerted his Republican colleagues that their assault on science and clean energy policies would harm Americans.  At a House Science Committee hearing on global warming science he warned,

I would also suggest to my Free Enterprise colleagues — especially conservatives here — whether you think it’s all a bunch of hooey, what we’ve talked about in this committee, the Chinese don’t. And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century. They plan on innovating around these problems, and selling to us, and the rest of the world, the technology that’ll lead the 21st century. So we may just press the pause button here for several years, but China is pressing the fast-forward button.

What we’ll find is we’re way behind those Chinese folks…They plan on leading the future. So whether you — if you’re a free enterprise conservative here — just think: it’s a bunch of hooey, this science is a bunch of hooey. But if you miss the commercial opportunity, you’ve really missed something.

Former House Science Committee Chair Sherry Boehlert (R-NY) also counseled his compatriots against this attack on science.

The new Congress should have a policy debate to address facts rather than a debate featuring unsubstantiated attacks on science. We shouldn’t stand by while the reputations of scientists are dragged through the mud in order to win a political argument. And no member of any party should look the other way when the basic operating parameters of scientific inquiry — the need to question, express doubt, replicate research and encourage curiosity — are exploited for the sake of political expediency. My fellow Republicans should understand that wholesale, ideologically based or special-interest-driven rejection of science is bad policy. And that in the long run, it’s also bad politics.

Inglis and Boehlert are urging Republican leaders to reject the unfair, anti-science attacks aimed at Fred Upton and his common sense light bulb efficiency legislation.  Hopefully, he and his colleagues will refrain from hurling such false, destructive charges at Carol Browner, scientists or other administration officials.  If not, they will demonstrate the same ignorance, selfishness, and economic obliviousness shown by Upton’s attackers.

- Daniel J. Weiss is Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy, Center for American Progress Action Fund

Climate Progress

Madison Weeps: Neither Barton nor Upton Should Chair Energy and Commerce Committee

To paraphrase an old saying, you can learn a lot about a man by seeing how he acts when no one is paying attention. A corollary to this works for Congressmen. In any given year there are, at most, three or four “big” issues that dominate Congressional debate and culminate in dramatic floor votes that will define future reelection campaigns. For example, the current Congress can be distilled to essentially four votes; stimulus, cap and trade, Obamacare and the bank bailout. The next Congress will likely be defined by tax policy, federal spending and repeal of parts of Obamacare and the banking bill.

How a Congressman votes on these “big” issues will tell you a lot about his basic philosophy of government. But, it is an imperfect snapshot. The overwhelming majority of lawmakers will line up with their parties on the “big” votes. These few votes don’t tell you a lot about the individual lawmaker’s comprehensive philosophy nor their specific views on the powers and limitations of their office. For that, you have to look at their work on the thousands of bills that wind their way through the legislative process every year and, more importantly, their own specific legislative proposals.  In other words, we have to look at the work they do when no one else is looking.

It is on this that the bids of both Rep. Joe Barton and Rep. Fred Upton to chair the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee fail. Each has promoted specific and personal legislative proposals which are impossible to square with any belief in restrained, limited government. Worse, their initiatives betray the absence of what is perhaps the most important quality in a lawmaker, humility. Not personal humility, but rather an appreciation that there are limits to what Congress or the federal government can or should do. Both Barton and Upton seem convinced that absolutely every problem, perceived problem or general annoyance can, and should, be addressed by Congress.

This should disqualify them from the Chairman’s gavel. Should either of them be entrusted by their colleagues with the gavel, then the meaning of the midterms will be greatly diminished. The great tea party wave will have finally crashed on the rocks of the go-along-get-along DC GOP establishment.

The case against Joe Barton and Fred Upton is very, very simple. It comes down to exactly one data point against each. Joe Barton believes that Congress should regulate how a certain group of America’s colleges select a ‘national champion’ in football. Fred Upton’s most recent legislative ‘victory’ was securing the power of Congress to mandate which lightbulbs Americans can purchase to light their homes.

Admittedly, I’m not a close follower of college football’s BCS system. I know there is a lot of controversy over how the NCAA selects teams for individual bowl games and dictates which two teams will play for the National Champion title. I understand that there are whole acres of the Internet devoted solely to arguing over this issue. I get that feelings are often hurt and egos bruised. I also get that this has absolutely nothing to do with Congress or the federal government.

Imagine you are shivering in the cold at Valley Forge, fighting for your country’s freedom. An angel from the future appears and reassures you, “Hang in there. If you win this fight, in just a couple hundred years, your heirs will be able to absolutely determine which bunch of 18 and 20 years olds playing a game can authoritatively state that they are ‘national champions.’ Booyah!”

By some philosophy of government that I can’t imagine, Joe Barton thinks Congress should regulate college football. In fact, he is the leading proponent of this in Congress.  Last year, he wrote this in an op-ed:

The one thing that can never be forgotten in this debate is that college football is more than a game; it’s a multibillion-dollar industry. That makes it interstate commerce and a legitimate candidate for congressional oversight. And let’s not forget that many of the schools getting shut out of the bowl cash bonanza are taxpayer-funded institutions.

An interpretation of the interstate commerce clause that includes regulating a college game can regulate absolutely anything. And, Barton’s crusade shows no sign of abating.

In October of this year, just a month before the midterms, Barton sent a letter to the IRS, urging them to go after certain college bowl organizations. Again, because he doesn’t like how they run a certain tournament. It is impossible to argue you are a limited government conservative if you are willing to leverage your office to release the hounds of the IRS on a private organization with whom you have a disagreement. About…a…game…played…by…teenagers.

What’s next for Barton? Which genre of music Miley Cirus sings? What Justin Bieber tweets? In Barton’s world, those are clearly issues of interstate commerce, right?

Aside from this silliness, Barton’s bid to chair the Committee faces a more serious, existential problem; it violates House GOP rules. Barton spent one term as Chair of the Committee and two terms as ranking member. Three terms as either Chairman or ranking member.

In the wake of the 1994 GOP takeover, the House GOP caucus passed the following rule, which is still in effect:

No individual shall serve more than three consecutive terms as Chairman or ranking member of a standing, select, joint, or ad hoc Committee or Subcommittee

Barton and his supporters claim the rule is “ambiguous.” I’ve never met that definition of ambiguous. If Barton can interpret that simple language in a way that benefits him, there is no telling what he can do with actual ambiguous language.

The Energy and Commerce Committee is one of the more powerful in Congress. But for the humility of its members, it has the ability to regulate everything in our lives. The only defense we have against its intervention is the restraint of its Chairman and members that certain issues are beyond the authority of Congress.

Barton thinks the committee can do whatever Barton wants. He may vote “right” on “big” issues, but he has lost his way on the issues that really matter, the issues that give you a measure of the man. He is disqualified.

Tomorrow, I will address Rep. Upton’s bid. As a preview, he is also disqualified and Rep. Barton makes a cameo appearance.

Big Government

Fred Upton Saying All The Right Things About Energy

You remember Fred, right? He’s the Republican that pushed through legislation to ban most incandescent light bulbs. Now, though

Rep. Fred Upton told E2 Thursday that he would not steer a sweeping energy measure through the panel if he becomes chairman. ??That would be a sharp contrast to current Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who moved a nearly 1,100-page climate and energy bill through the committee in 2009, a measure that narrowly passed the House but died in the Senate.

“You are never going to see a 1,000 page bill,” Upton said as he departed the Capitol building. “You are never going to see cap-and-trade or a carbon tax.”?? He said the country is “ill-prepared” to meet projections of rising electricity demand.

Upton – while insisting that “I’m not measuring the drapes” – said he would seek to meet demand by boosting nuclear power, “safe drilling,” “clean” coal, renewable energy, and natural gas.?? “The whole portfolio,” he said. ??“I envision lots of bills that will have bipartisan support to help meet the challenge,” he said. “I want there to be no reason for folks to vote ‘no’. . . . No one will have an excuse not to have the time to read the bill.”

You can start by repealing that idiotic CFL legislation, Fred. BTW, I’m still awaiting a response from him or his staff as to whether he has replaced all his own lightbulbs in his office and home with CFLs. Not holding my breath, but, I will be happy to visit his Washington, D.C. office next time I am in town, to ask some pointed questions.

Deeper into the article, we learn that Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) is being coy on whether or not he will challenge Princess Lisa to lead Republicans on the powerful Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach. sit back and Relax. we’ll dRive!

Stop The ACLU

Exclusive: Rep. Upton Vows to Fight for Tea Party Principles

The powerful Energy and Commerce Committee chairmanship is up for grabs.  Former Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) is seeking a waiver to regain the post.  As supporters of term-limits, we believe new blood and new leadership is essential for democracy.

Upton Memo - E_C Chairman Pledge

Barton is being challenged by more moderate Fred Upton (R-MI).  Rep. Upton has had some questionable votes in his past, but Big Government has obtained a memo that Upton is circulating to his colleagues that makes it clear he has received the message of the election of 2010 and has pledged to govern the Committee with a conservative reform agenda that is sorely needed.

The memo in part states:

1. I pledge to protect the sanctity of life through the vigorous oversight and by passing Rep. Pitts’ Protect Life Act and Rep. Chris Smith’s No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act to ensure that no taxpayer dollars every go to abortion.
2. I will reveal, repeal and replace ObamaCare.
3. I will exert tireless oversight of the EPA and stop implementation of a carbon regulation scheme and other job killing regulations.
4. I will immediately adopt new committee rules to foster spending cuts and eliminate government spending programs.
5. I will prevent the FCC from regulating the Internet.
6. I will ensure all of the Committee’s legislation is consistent with traditional family values.

It seems clear that our message is being heard with Fred Upton.

Big Government

The matter of Fred Upton

(Paul)

Fred Barnes presents “the case for Fred Upton for Chairman of House Energy and Commerce Committee.” Barnes finds that Upton “is especially well suited to be chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.” But instead of presenting evidence of Upton’s special fitness for the position, Barnes devotes his column to downplaying the objections conservatives have raised against Upton’s elevation.

These objections include Upton’s support for the TARP bailout (this, Barnes points out, is outside the jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee), his opposition to drilling for oil in Lake Michigan (small potatoes), and his sponsorship, with Democrat Jane Harmon, of a bill banning incandescent light bulbs (no one on the committee objected at the time).

I find this “gulity with an explanation” defense unpersuasive. What’s at stake here is the chairmanship of perhaps the most important House committee that deals with domestic legislation. Surely, conservatives have a right to expect more from that chairman than a series on non-conservative positions he can explain or that, with this much power at stake, he’s willing to walk away from.

Barnes says that “on spending, taxes, and energy issues [Upton] is on the same page as conservatives.” However, as I spelled out here, Upton was one of only three Republicans to oppose extending the Bush tax cuts, and he voted with the Democrats in their effort to make future tax cuts harder to pass. In addition, Upton opposed Republican amendments to the stimulus bill that would have substituted tax cuts for stimulus money, and voted against an amendment to cut $ 355 billion out of the stimulus legislation.

By the same token, Upton voted in favor of the Democrats’ $ 409 billion Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, which increased federal spending by 8.4 percent and gave President Obama $ 19 billion more than he had requested. Twenty Democrats voted against this Act, but Upton supported it.

With respect to energy policy, Upton’s non-conservative tendencies are not confined to issues involving his home state of Michigan. He has voted consistently to place more federal land off limits to domestic energy production. He voted for a bill to eliminate 1.2 million acres from mineral leasing and energy exploration in Wyoming, thereby withdrawing an estimated 331 million barrels of recoverable oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from domestic energy supply. In addition, Upton helped Democrats pass an omnibus energy bill that imposed new regluations on energy companies and created dozens of new government energy programs.

On the question of climate change, Upton is no skeptic. “Right or wrong,” he proclaimed in February 2009, “the debate over the modeling and science appears to be over.” One might have thought that the merits of such an important debate, not just its posture, matter.

The controversy over Upton’s bid to chair the Energy and Commerce Committee goes to the heart of question of whether House Republicans intend to do business as usual or, instead, are serious about conservative governance. A vote for TARP, almost by itself, was enough to cost Sen. Bennett re-election in the face of Tea Party opposition. Yet, the Washington establishment seems to be rallying around an insider candidate for a major chairmanship whose vote for TARP is only the tip of the non-conservative iceberg.

I’ve tended to downplay claims that there is a fundamental clash between Tea Party conservatives and establishment Washington conservatives. If I wanted to argue to the contrary, I’d probably point first to the matter of Fred Upton.

Power Line

Upton wants quick approval for Keystone XL pipeline

Michigan Messenger

Fred Upton on Climategate: “We do need hearings”

In previously unreported remarks, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), the top candidate for the chairmanship of the House energy committee, questioned the science of man-made global warming and called for Congressional hearings to investigate climate scientists.  Brad Johnson has the story.

On January 14, 2010, Upton participated in a panel challenging the scientific consensus that fossil pollution is destabilizing the climate, arranged by Detroit News in conjunction with the 2010 North American International Auto Show. Moderated by global warming denier and right-wing radio host Frank Beckmann, “Are Green Auto Rules Based On Flawed Science?” also featured industry deniers Pat Michaels and Myron Ebell. When asked if “the emails from East Anglia University that seem to show a pattern of concealment at the least, deception at the extreme” should “affect climate policy here in the United States,” Upton claimed that there is “no real science” that supports climate policy and then called for Climategate hearings:

All of the steps Americans were going to take, businesses and individuals, the added costs that we were going to incur — Consumers Energy told us just because of cap-and-trade, energy costs would rise in Michigan by almost 40 percent by 2020. Are any of those incurred costs actually going to impact the rising temperature of debate? The answer was no. No matter what we did between now and 2050, it, it, there was no real science to verify that it would reduce the temperature rise that some predicted. And that’s why we do need hearings.

Watch it:

In fact, the threat of global warming pollution has been understood since the 1950s. The Environmental Protection Agency has found that the enactment of U.S. climate legislation would greatly impact rising temperatures, reducing the risk of warming by 2 C from 99 percent to 25 percent, and the risk of 4 C warming from 32 percent to practically zero. That is why the National Academies of Science recommended in May that the United States “act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Upton is just one of several top House Republicans who have called for a witch hunt against practicing climate scientists. After Upton’s remarks in January, the scientists have been repeatedly exonerated of the unfounded charges of conspiracy and corruption laid against them by the right wing. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), in line to take over the oversight committee, has repeatedly called for hearings, and Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) hopes to use the global warming committee to investigate scientists. Upton’s challenger, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), also wants to launch McCarthyite show trials on climate science.

Upton enjoys a reputation as a “moderate on environmental issues,” but he has become as extreme as the rest of his Tea Party colleagues on global warming and other environmental rules.

The Wonk Room previously reported that Upton was “the only candidate to take over the House Committee on Energy and Commerce who doesn’t explicitly question the science of manmade global warming.” We regret the error.

- Brad Johnson, in a Wonk Room cross-post.

Climate Progress

Limbaugh accuses Upton of “nannyism” over light bulb bill

Rush Limbaugh says that Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph) should not become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee because he co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to phase out incandescent light bulbs.

On his show yesterday Limbaugh said:

Now, this would be a tone deaf disaster if the Republican leadership lets Fred Upton ascend to the chairmanship of the House energy committee. This is exactly the kind of nannyism, statism, what have you, that was voted against and was defeated last week. No Republican complicit in nannyism, statism, can be rewarded this way. But seniority may rule the day.

In 2007 Upton, together with Jane Harman (D-CA) sponsored a bill to phase out the 100 watt incandescent light bulb by 2012, ban all incandescents by 2014, and require that light bulbs be at least three times as efficient as today’s 100-watt incandescent bulb by 2020. This measure became part of the Energy Independence and Security Act.

A release from Harman’s office estimated that the light bulb legislation will prevent the emission of 100 million tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2030.

“We must continue to put the spotlight on energy savings,” Upton said this spring as he and Harman introduced a bill to extend efficiency standards to outdoor lighting, “As our nation’s energy needs are expected to jump significantly over the next two decades, it is imperative that we take advantage of burgeoning efficient technologies. With American industry taking the lead, we will help create jobs here at home and save communities billions of dollars each year in their energy bills.”

Limbaugh predicted widespread resistance to energy-saving compact fluorescent lighting.

Upton’s competition for the chairmanship comes from Joe Barton (R-TX) — who apologized to BP for having to compensate victims of the Gulf oil spill — and Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) who rejected concerns about climate change on the grounds that the earth will end only when God decides it will be over.

Michigan Messenger

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