Just say no to Fred Upton

The voters have spoken. Obama's agenda to "utterly transform America" has been rejected.

Then why would the new Republican majority in the House elevate the architect of the incandescent light bulb ban to chair the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee where the fights on energy policy will take place next year?

In 2007, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., co-sponsored with Rep. Jane Harmon, D-Calif., legislation to ban the incandescent light bulb, requiring consumers to buy instead the compact fluorescent lamp, or CFL, bulb. The ban became part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. CFL mandates are in effect, or are being debated, in every G-20 nation, part of the worldwide environmentalist agenda to combat global warming and save energy.

A 19th century technology, CFLs last longer but deteriorate faster than incandescent bulbs, cost much more and are hazardous if broken due to the mercury vapor in the bulb.

But the politics behind the light bulb ban stink worse than the public debate about the irrational environmentalist agenda.

GE and Philips (the two major makers of incandescent bulbs) were the lobbying force behind the Upton/Harmon ban. These manufacturers wanted to close their U.S. plants and replace them with new plants in China to more cheaply make the new international CFL bulbs. GE got enviro cred and higher profits when the Upton ban passed.

How's that "green economy" thing workin' for ya? Fred Upton's federal law banning incandescent light bulbs caused thousands of jobs to be lost here and sent to China while jacking up the cost of lighting to U.S. consumers. The last GE light bulb plant in Winchester, Va., closed last month, laying off 200 workers.

And now Fred Upton will chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee? Is enviro wackiness what voters really wanted?

Ah, but there's more.

In the early 1980s, Fred Upton was an employee of the federal Office of Management and Budget and a protégé of OMB Director David Stockman. Upton was elected to the House in 1986 from Michigan's 6th District, a seat previously held by Stockman. Stockman was famous for his dissent on Reagan economic policy, arguing against tax cuts and ultimately resigning to become a perennial critic of supply side economics and a darling of the bigger government is better crowd.

A famously moderate Republican, Upton has supported gun control measures and stem cell research. His legislation moved back the start of daylight saving time. In 1995, he harshly criticized Speaker Newt Gingrich for failure to compromise with Bill Clinton in the budget standoff that year. He joined Christie Todd Whitman's IMP-PAC (It's My Party Too), a liberal Republican political action committee.

In short, Fred Upton is Democrat-lite. He believes in the big government nanny state's right to regulate your life.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, is the conservative alternative to chair the committee. In fact, he was the chair of this committee when the Republicans last had the majority. Republican term limit rules on how long chairs of committees can serve bar Burton from resuming the chair automatically.

Upton is next in line. He has seniority and the rules going for him. He has a record and a philosophy going against him and squarely contradictory to the tea-party movement, which propelled the Republicans back into the majority.

What's it going to be, John Boehner? An enviro, nanny-state liberal or a drill-and-build-in-the-U.S. conservative? Boehner will make the call. But you may pay the price if the call is not right.

Many Americans are on to the failure of the U.S. Department of "Energy." A federal agency that failed its own "energy audit," the DOE is a bloated, wasteful $65 billion a year scandal. The original 1977 mission of the DOE was to reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign sources of oil. Today, we are more dependent on foreign sources of oil than ever.

Any effort to abolish or refocus the DOE will go through the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Selecting who chairs that committee for the majority matters.

The tea-party movement wasn't just about changing the players in Washington, D.C. It was about changing the culture of "go along to get along." Fred Upton is the kind of business-as-usual pick to chair this committee that this country can no longer afford.