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Power Play Emerges On House Energy Panel (Dingell to go?)
Steven Mufson, Washington Post
In the first sign of Democratic intraparty strife since the election, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) has told colleagues that he plans to challenge the House’s most senior member, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), for the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Waxman, who is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is the No. 2 ranking member of Energy and Commerce and one of the most liberal members of the House. In three decades as a lawmaker, Waxman, 69, has been a leading supporter of universal health care, tobacco regulation and environmental protections.
… Dingell is an institution within an institution. He has served as a member of the House since 1955 when, at age 29, he filled the seat left vacant when his father died. He also supports national health insurance and environmental measures, but he may be best known as a defender of the nation’s ailing automobile industry.
… If Waxman replaces Dingell, he will almost certainly augur in a change in substance as well as style at a critical time for the committee.
(6 November 2008)
Science in a post-Bush world
Ki Mae Heussner, 6 ABC
After eight years of brawls with the Bush administration on issues including climate change, stem cell research and health care, scientists across the country aren’t just hungry for change they can believe in, but science they can trust.
While many a scientist has picked apart a science-based policy of President Bush, the underlying issue that has sparked outrage from across the scientific community is the politicization of the discipline.
“The idea of putting ideology into decisions about science — that has really denigrated the role of science,” said Martin Chalfie, a Columbia University geneticist who was awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry in early October.
… s Obama the senator becomes Obama the president, these scientists and throngs of others eagerly wait for him to gain the ground lost by his predecessor.
“The past eight years of denial and delay are over,” Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) President Kevin Knobloch said in a statement the morning after the election.
Particularly when it comes to policies related to global warming, the organization is looking for a fast and clean break from the approach of Bush that did not recognize man-made global warming, and obstructed international cooperation.
(6 November 2008)
Cheney’s day is done
Michael West, Sydney Morning Herald
The most spectacular, and indeed sinister, conflict of interest in the world of politics and business must surely be the relationship between US Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton Company.
Cheney had been chairman and CEO of the oil services and construction giant Halliburton from 1995 to August 2000 when he signed up with George W Bush’s election campaign. Halliburton stands to benefit every time an oil pipeline is blown up in Iraq or a meal is handed out to the troops, and Cheney still has stock options in the company.
To give the Vice President the benefit of the doubt – an exercise which counters every journalistic instinct apart from the need to report both sides of the story – his supporters say he donates the proceeds to charity.
… Thankfully, tomorrow’s US election will bring this breathtaking conflict of interest to an end – it is a issue which has been chronically under-reported in the US media – and Halliburton’s stock price is faring poorly. It dropped another 7.3% to $US18.36 overnight, well down on this year’s July highs of $US55 a share.
… If Barrack Obama gets up in tomorrow’s presidential election Halliburton is likely to come under pressure. The company and the administration have managed to kill a plethora of Federal probes.
(4 November 2008)
