By Mark Tapscott - washingtonexaminer.com
Updated! With Boehner Rationale!!
A Hill source tells us it looks like the House Republican Steering Committee has selected Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky as chairman of the Appropriations Committee and Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
These are the two worst picks House Speaker-to-be John Boehner could make as Rogers is an earmark-happy Old Bull and Upton is an moderate liberal - aka RINO. It appears House GOP leaders still have not learned that talking the talk but not walking it stopped working in 2006.
The steering committees recommendations must be approved by the full House GOP caucus. Normally that would be a formality. Perhaps with a bunch of Tea Partiers elected as freshmen last month we will see Boehners first leadership crisis if the new blood rebels as they should.
More details here as they become available. For why Rogers and Upton are the wrong choices go here.
UPDATE: Politico reporting Rogers Upton too
Go here and here.
Also Rep. Cliff Stearns R-FL who was the choice of many conservatives including the editorial page of this newspaper has issued a statement promising to work with Upton:
I thank the Republican Leadership and the members of the Republican Steering Committee for considering me to chair the House Energy & Commerce Committee. I believe that my background in creating jobs by building my own business along with my conservative record and experience in chairing a subcommittee would have made me an effective leader. We have an ambitious agenda to complete promoting job growth and increasing economic opportunities. I look forward to working with Chairman Upton in the new Congress in making the Energy & Commerce Committee a dynamic force for improving our economy and expanding employment."
UPDATE II: Boehner wanted experience trusts Rogers Upton to get with the Right program
Heres the explanation you will be hearing from those around House Speaker-to-be John Boehner for the Republican Steering Committees choices: On Appropriations Rep. Jerry Lewis of California was term-limited. Next in line was Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky who has long experience on the panel in fighting Democrats on spending issues. There were too many questions regarding Rep. Jack Kingstons political management skills.
On Upton oversight of EPA is the primary issue for the Energy and Commerce Committee and Boehner has more confidence in the Michigan representative to carry out such oversight aggressively than would anybody else who was seeking the chairmanship. Like Lewis Rep. Joe Barton of Texas the previous GOP chairman was term-limited.
The Boehner camp is also confident that measures like the earmark moratorium already adopted by the GOP caucus and the committment to seek to reduce federal spending to 2008 levels will suffice to contain any thoughts of a return to the pre-2006 mentality among House Republicans.
This was not said but the latter point may be the most important because the power of the Speakers position has been significantly enhanced relative to that of committee chairmen in the past decade that Boehner may be assuming he can keep Rogers and Upton and any other committee chairmen for that matter in line with his directives.
That may well prove true but it also means more than ever that Boehner will be held responsible if Rogers has an earmark relapse or Upton succumbs to the pleas of liberals in Congress and the media to be responsible and look the other way as EPA completes its regulatory dismantling of whats left of the free enterprise system in this country.
