Henry Waxman is fighting to take over he chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee from John Dingell. Dingell has been pretty pitiful over the last years, especially when he cut the fuel efficiency standards out of a 2007 energy bill. He’s also quite old, having been elected to the house before my father was born, but Waxman isn’t too new on the scene either. This affairs bothers me because although I disagree heartily with Dingell on a lot of envirioment issues, and he too often sides with his hometown Detroit, what does it say that we let Lieberman keep his chairmanship after what he did and might boot Dingell.

Either way, Waxman needed to get 14 out of 46 votes to be nominated for the position in front of the entire Caucus. Waxman won the vote today 25-22! Dingell was expected to get a majority if not stop Waxman from even getting the requisite 14, but it looks like his days as Chairman might be numbered.