Energy Republicans mobilize against push for energy oversight

House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans hope to quickly crush a proposal that would strip the panel’s jurisdiction over energy policy and move it to the Natural Resources Committee.

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the incoming chairman of Natural Resources, is pitching a plan to consolidate energy jurisdiction under his panel, which would be renamed the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

But all the returning GOP member of the Energy and Commerce panel co-signed a letter to Republican leadership Thursday that bashes the plan and warns that they will “vote against a rules package that includes any diminution in our Committee’s jurisdiction.”

“With respect, the worst possible way to answer the American people’s cry for transparency and responsibility would be to cut an inside-Washington deal that ferrets jurisdiction away from committees that have proven their moxie and sends it to committees that haven’t experienced a true partisan fight in the past two years,” says the letter to Speaker-designate John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who will be majority leader when Republicans take over the House next year.

“Transferring historic … jurisdiction away from the Committee that knows it and does it best is irresponsible and breaks trust with the people who gave us a second chance earlier this month,” the letter adds, a reference to the midterm elections that handed the House majority back to the GOP.

The letter argues that Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans last year wounded the Democratic climate change bill when it went through committee. While it cleared the panel and narrowly passed the House, “it went nowhere in the Senate, largely in part to the hard work of our Committee.”

“Our tactical, competent opposition sent resounding messages to the American people — and they sent a resounding message back. They like what we’ve done to prevent the expansion of government and to prevent the loss of additional jobs. They like what we’ve done to stand up to Nancy Pelosi’s liberal agenda,” the letter says.