Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) last Thursday was approved by unanimous consent as the new chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, succeeding Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-LA) who relinquished the top spot in mid-February.

The House Republican Conference unanimously approved Barton’s nomination as chairman last Wednesday, and the House followed suit one day later. “This is a big new job…I will work hard to be true to both where I come from and where the committee must go” in the future, said Barton, who was seen as the likely heir-apparent for the job.

He is expected to announce this week that Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) will succeed him as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s energy and air quality subcommittee. He also will name new members to the full committee in officer roles, according to Barton spokeswoman Samantha Jordan.

The new chairman is likely to outline his agenda as well. Barton has said his first priority as chairman will be to work with President Bush and the Senate to obtain the two additional votes that are needed to pass the conference report on the broad energy bill (HR 6) in the Senate. The conference report cleared the House in November, but it stalled in the Senate when Democrats filibustered it. HR 6 has an estimated price tag of $31 billion.

Barton opposes the pared-down energy bill (S. 2095) introduced by Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last month. The revised bill, which Domenici estimates has a net cost of $14 billion, strips out financial incentives, pushes back the effective dates of certain incentives, and eliminates the liability waiver for producers of a gasoline additive, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE). Both Barton and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) support the MTBE safe-harbor provision.

“I know that Majority Leader [Tom] Frist and Chairman Domenici…are trying to facilitate action [in the Senate], but from the House perspective it seems most practical and expedient at this point for Senate Republicans to be working toward getting the two more votes needed” to bring the conference report to the floor for consideration, Barton said recently. “Why recreate the wheel when consideration of the existing conference report is only two votes away?”

The Bush administration wants Senate leaders to make even deeper cuts in the energy bill, limiting the tax breaks for the energy industry to $7-$8 billion over 10 years, the Congressional Green Sheets reported last week.

A member of the House since 1984, Barton is well steeped in the issues affecting the natural gas, crude oil and electricity industries. The Center for Responsive Politics predicts that he will be an “even more loyal friend” to these industries than Tauzin.

The group estimates that Barton has received $1.6 million in campaign contributions from the energy sector since 1989, more than any other member of the House. His top contributor in the 2004 election cycle so far is Anadarko Petroleum, one of the nation’s largest independent oil and gas producers, it noted.

In addition to stepping down as chairman, Tauzin announced in February that he would not seek re-election later this year after serving nearly 24 years on Capitol Hill. He had been negotiating to become the chief lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association in Washington, DC, upon his retirement.

But he broke off talks with the group last week in an effort to plug up the growing controversy over whether his dealings with the pharmaceutical group coincided with his involvement in the Medicare prescription drug bill, which Congress passed last year, The Washington Post said on Friday. Tauzin’s move, however, does not completely shut the door on the pharmaceutical post, it noted.

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