Barton's final pitch for chairmanship trumpets tea party support

It's judgment day for Rep. Joe Barton and his quest to be chair of the powerful House energy committee. The Republican Steering Committee, a panel of 34 GOP House members, will vote on committee chairmanships today, and an announcement is expected around 4 p.m. CST.

Barton made his closing argument yesterday, in the form of a 140-page questionnaire filed to GOP leadership (a PDF, obtained by The Hill, can be found here). In it, he positions himself as the choice of the tea party movement.

"No one can ignore the earthquake that the Tea Party just sent through the foundations of government," Barton writes.

"The Republicans who are prospering most today are the ones who were capable of both talking to this new constituency and listening to what they had to tell us. I have excellent contacts with the Tea Party both regionally and nationally, and last week I addressed several thousand Tea Party participants who have their boots on the ground all over America," he adds. "I've told people that I was Tea Party before the Tea Party was cool."

Barton has been dogged in his outreach to tea party groups. Last week, he and fellow chair candidate Rep. Cliff Stearns of Fla. participated in a conference call with the Tea Party Patriots. In a text message poll after the call, Barton got 53 percent of the activists' vote; frontrunner Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, who did not participate in the call, got three percent.

He's also garnered the support of Reps. Steve King, of Iowa, and Michele Bachmann, of Minnesota--two favorites of the tea party.

In the questionnaire, Barton delineates his priorities for the committee, starting with immediate efforts to repeal the health care reform law passed last March. He also takes aim at the Environmental Protection Agency and its rapidly-approaching regulation of greenhouse gases.

"The Environmental Protection Agency's economy strangling regulations are our foremost concern," he writes. He calls for bringing EPA administrator Lisa Jackson in for hearings during the first month of the new Congress.

Source: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/12/bartons-final-pitch-for-chairm.html

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