Andy Rowell, 1 December 2008

As President-elect Barack Obama finalises the top positions in his government, there is growing international concern that his Administration is not looking radical enough. As he confirms Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State today, too many of his appointees are looking like the old Clinton Administration.

But whilst the world’s attention has been focused on the top jobs in his administration, two other contests have recently been finalized that will have a significant bearing on the success of his Presidency. And here at least, there is reason to hope.

In the recent near-blanket coverage of the American Presidential election, it is easy to forget that there have been elections in the House of Representatives and Senate, the two different assemblies that make up Congress. For an Obama Presidency to succeed in pushing through legislation, he will need support from both Houses.

In the lower House of Representatives, the Democrats hold the majority of seats.  They therefore control the most important political positions such as the Speaker of the House and the chairmanship of influential committees that oversee the passage of legislation. One such committee is the extremely powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, which is one of the most influential in Washington.

The committee has sweeping and wide-ranging jurisdiction over energy policy, environmental issues and health care, which are all of great magnitude for an Obama Presidency. For example, the committee will play a pivotal role in scrutinizing any legislation on carbon dioxide through Congress and the chair of the committee is seen as hugely important.

Until last week, the current chair of the committee was eighty-two year old Michigan Democrat John Dingell, the longest-serving House member with over half a century in office.  Although it is rare for an incumbent Chair of a Congressional committee to be challenged, the position was contested by Henry Waxman, a Democratic congressman from California, who is a comparative youngster at sixty-nine  and who is seen as an avid environmentalist as well as consumer champion.

Seizing the mood of change sweeping Washington, Waxman argued that the political change that Obama was talking about could only be achieved with a change in the chair of the committee. “We are at a unique moment in history” he said. “We have an opportunity that maybe comes only once in a generation.”

You can see why Waxman was arguing that it was time for Dingell to step down. Dingell, who had been the top Democrat on the committee for nearly thirty years, comes from Michigan, the heart of America’s car industry. During this time he had been an avid supporter of America’s once mighty auto makers. The Financial Times, hardly a newspaper known for overstatement, describes Dingell as “the automobile industry’s most crucial ally on Capitol Hill, leading opposition to higher fuel-economy standards and resisting limits on carbon emissions.”

Dan Becker, the director of the Safe Climate Campaign, says Dingell was the single biggest obstacle for over thirty years to forcing major U.S. car companies to build more fuel-efficient cars. “Mr. Dingell,” Becker said, “is literally married to General Motors.”

If Dingell was married to General Motors he was not the only one in the family. Dingell's wife, Debbie Dingell, is Executive Director of Public Affairs and Community Relations for General Motors and Vice Chairman of General Motors Foundation. She was recently described as the company's “most familiar face in Washington”.

But the car lobby was not the only industry Dingell was close to. Dingell was also a recipient of large amounts of money from America’s coal and oil interests.  Since 2000, John Dingell had received an amazing 33 times more from the oil and coal industries than Henry Waxman has. 

Dingell’s friends in industry lobbied hard for him to keep the job. Frederick Palmer, the vice president of government relations for St. Louis-based Peabody Energy Corporation, the largest U.S. coal producer.  “Dingell is someone industry is very comfortable working with,” he said.

The Detroit Free Press, Dingell’s home newspaper, argued that  Dingell “is right where Michigan needs him. He’s right where the auto industry needs him and right where President-elect Barack Obama can best use him.”

Luckily for all those who care about climate change, the Democratic Caucus did not agree and Waxman won the vote by 137 to 122. Waxman’s victory was widely celebrated by America’s environmental movement. Frank O’Donnell from Clean Air Watch said “Waxman’s victory is a breath of fresh air – of clean air. It was a stunning defeat for the corporate lobbyists on K Street”. One blogger, writing for the influential Huffington Post, argued the victory was “as important, if not more so, than Obama’s cabinet appointments.”

Moreover just as important as Obama’s cabinet will be his ability to get legislation through America’s upper House, called the Senate, which has 100 Senators. Here the magical number needed is a 60 vote majority, which means the Democrats would be immune from Republican “filibustering” – an obstructive technique the political opposition uses to try and derail legislation.

After the November 4^th election, the Democrats held 57 seats, with three outstanding seats to be decided because they were so close. One of those has now been decided. Last week, the Alaskan senator Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in history and another huge force on Capitol Hill for decades, lost his re-election race to his Democratic rival, Mayor Mark Begich.

If the Democrats also win the two as yet undecided races in Minnesota and Georgia, then Obama will have the magic number of 60. But there are other reasons to celebrate the demise of Senator Stevens.

For those who worry about the corrupting influence of oil and money on politics, Stevens’ end could not come a moment too soon. He was one of the biggest defenders of the oil industry on Capitol Hill. As Newsweek pointed out last year: “Stevens was always close to the oil industry, perhaps too close”.

Moreover his career was marked by whiffs of corruption. For example, in 2003, the Los Angeles Times reported how in the late nineties Stevens “got serious about making money. And in almost no time, he too was a millionaire — thanks to investments with businessmen who received government contracts or other benefits with his help.”

Just days before the 2008 election, Stevens was convicted in a federal court of lying on disclosure forms in the Senate to conceal over $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from VECO, an oil field services company.  Veco was one of the main cleanup companies employed by the oil company Exxon after its tanker, the Exxon Valdez, poured 11 million gallons of oil into the pristine waters of Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989. 

The disaster was a culmination of years of broken promises by the oil industry and its supporters like Stevens. It was Stevens who had once promised  that “all the technology of the space program will be put into the doggone tankers and there will not be one drop of oil in Prince William Sound.” Nearly twenty years after the spill, the toxic legacy of the Exxon Valdez still pollutes beaches and wildlife.

Stevens repeatedly acted on behalf of his oil industry friends. In 2005, he prevented oil executives from being placed under oath when they spoke before a Senate committee hearing of which he was the Chairman.

For years the oil industry and its supporters have tried to gain access to America’s last pristine wilderness, called the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), for oil drilling. One year Stevens tried to attach pro-ANWR drilling language to the annual Defense Appropriations bill. In the debate, Stevens told fellow senators, “We know this Arctic. You don’t know the Arctic at all.”

In response to this, the Minority Leader Harry M. Reid, a Democrat from Nevada said: “Our military is being held hostage by this issue, Arctic drilling.” He called Steven’s  provision “another gift to special interests,” adding that ; “It’s time we said no to an abuse of power.” Stephens was trying to become the first convicted felon to win election to the American Senate, but he failed.

Obama fought for the Presidency on a ticket of change. His Presidency will be judged by whether he achieves that change. With Henry Waxman winning the Energy and Commerce chairmanship and with Senator Stevens thankfully retired to the history books, it will be easier for Obama to make that change. This is good news for the millions who want something radically different from an American President. Let’s hope he does not disappoint us.