The Dem vendetta against the apostates

Opinion Journal:

The champagne is barely off the ice and Democrats are already celebrating their new majorities by punishing a few heretical colleagues. In almost every sense, John Dingell and Joe Lieberman are loyal Democrats. But Mr. Dingell is holding down the party's right flank on energy, and Mr. Lieberman in foreign affairs. Now they're targets, and the retribution speaks volumes about the direction of liberal politics.

California Democrat Henry Waxman kicked things off the morning after Barack Obama's victory, with an announcement that he will seek the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. The post is currently held by Mr. Dingell, the bulldog Michigander who next year will become the longest-serving Member in U.S. history. In Congressional physics, seniority is gravity, which alone makes Mr. Waxman's challenge extraordinary.

It is even more so because it is a coup d'etat against a climate-change moderate. For environmentalists, Mr. Dingell is a wet blanket because his committee will write any global-warming legislation. The word on the Hill is that Mr. Waxman enjoys the tacit support of übergreen Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who dislikes Mr. Dingell's independence.

In media shorthand, Mr. Dingell's approach to climate change is called "industry friendly." Apparently, this is because his principles include words like "realistic" and "achievable" and "cost containment." An ally of the Detroit auto makers, he does not pretend that putting a price on carbon will be painless and fun. He also knows that well-to-do redoubts such as Mr. Waxman's Beverly Hills won't bear the heaviest burden. It will fall instead on blue-collar, middle-American regions that rely on manufacturing or coal-fired power.

Even so, Mr. Dingell's committee has held nearly 30 hearings on climate change since his party took power. In October, he released a cap-and-trade bill that aims to reduce emissions to 80% below 2005 levels by 2050. Incredibly enough, even that huge cut counts as a liberal heresy. The greens demand 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 -- a meaningless distinction considering that four decades is a political and technological eternity.

Then again, compared to Mr. Waxman, just about anyone could be mistaken for an Exxon executive. The Congressman has spent the last year trying to dragoon the Environmental Protection Agency into imposing an economy-wide carbon clampdown under current clean-air laws, an idea Mr. Obama also backs. But Mr. Dingell dares to point out that these laws -- passed in 1970, 1977 and 1990 -- were never written to include CO2. He should know. He wrote them.

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We are also seeing another aspect of the Democrats politics of fraud on energy. Remember how they gave up their opposition to offshore drilling before the election because 60 percent of voters favored offshore drilling? After the election they are acting like they have a mandate to stop drilling both offshore and on shore. In fact Obama is promising to reverse President Bush on his easing of restrictions on drilling.

The carbon phoebes of the Democrat party are energy haters. Having avoided the voters wrath on their restrictive policy, they are going right back to strangling energy production. For Republicans looking for an issue, this is one they should get back on right now.