Veteran House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell will be replaced by California Rep. Henry Waxman in that post in the new Congress.
The House Democratic Caucus today voted 137 to 122 to replace Rep. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who is the longest-serving member of the House, with Rep. Waxman, naming Rep. Dingell chairman emeritus.
The move again reshapes the outlook for media and advertising issues in the new Congress. Rep. Waxman didn’t immediately name chairmen of his panel’s committees and it wasn’t clear whether U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who has headed the committee’s panel that examines media issues, would remain in that post. Rep. Waxman declined to say.
The Energy and Commerce Committee is the main House panel dealing with telecommunications, health and energy issues.
Rep. Waxman is more activist than Rep. Dingell and has suggested that the committee should adopt a more activist approach in dealing with health and energy issues.
Today he declined to offer any immediate plans for dealing with media issues, saying instead he would rely on subcommittee chairmen for help in setting that agenda.
Rep. Waxman has been a House sponsor of legislation that would impose a moratorium on direct-to-consumer advertising of new drugs.
(8:40 a.m.: Updated throughout)