Waxman, Markey agree to additional climate change hearing on May 1

Democratic leaders of the US House Energy and Commerce Committee agreed to hold another hearing on climate change legislation on May 1, but said their record in working with the minority is better than their Republican predecessors'.

"Our extensive hearings and the many accommodations we have provided to the minority far surpass the process you provided Democrats when you and your Republican predecessors controlled the committee," Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said on Apr. 27.

Dozens of energy and climate change policy hearings since Democrats regained control of the committee at the beginning of 2007 informed the development of their working draft on climate legislation currently before the committee, they said in response to an Apr. 24 letter from Reps. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), the full committee's ranking minority member, and Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who holds that position on the Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

The Republicans asserted House Rule XI as they asked to call more witnesses at another hearing. The committee heard from 54 Democrats and 14 Republicans in hearings April 22-24, they said.

"It is our intention to use the opportunity you are providing us this Friday to carefully examine the one element of the legislation that has so far escaped examination in 38 hearings stretching over 40 days, its cost," the two GOP committee members said.

They said they would call witnesses "who can professionally examine this element just as soon as we are able to provide them the specific and final language of emissions permit allocations that [Democrats] plan on marking up in a business meeting."

'In stark contrast'

Waxman and Markey said that their approach on the climate change bill "stands in stark contrast to the approach you and your Republican predecessors adopted in previous Congresses on legislation that affected millions of Americans and involved expenditure of substantial taxpayer dollars."

They cited five bills, two of which dealt with refining. They said that no hearings were held on HR 3893 in 2005, which codified New Source Review regulations and provided for the outlay of hundreds of millions of dollars for petroleum and other energy supply programs. Instead, the bill was released at 10 p.m. on Friday, giving Democrats the weekend and two full working days before its scheduled markup the following Wednesday, Waxman and Markey said.

They said that HR 5254, which Republicans introduced in 2006, would have directed then-US President George W. Bush to designate at least three closed military bases suitable for new refinery construction and would have required states to meet a federal schedule for issuing refinery permits.

Republicans placed the bill under suspension and brought up on the House floor one day after its May 2 introduction without hearings or markup by the committee. "One month later, still without having held any legislative hearings or markup on this bill, the committee brought HR 5254 back to the House floor under a rule that permitted no amendments," the two Democrats said.

"These are just a few of many examples of how Republicans abdicated regular order when they controlled this committee. This track record makes it particularly difficult to see any reasonable basis for committee Republican complaints about the thorough, fair, and deliberated process we are employing," they added.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected]