E-Paper
India-friendly Senate panel
With President-elect Barack Obama announcing Hillary Clinton for secretary of state in Chicago, leadership of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee appears set to pass from one friend of India to another, reports V Krishna.
With President-elect Barack Obama announcing Hillary Clinton for secretary of state in Chicago on Monday, leadership of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee appears set to pass from one friend of India to another.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden is the current chairman of the committee. Committee chairmanships are usually determined by seniority, and next in line is Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who presided over hearings on the bill to approve the nuclear deal with India while Biden was campaigning.
But Dodd said he will stay on as chairman of the Banking Committee.
Next is Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the former presidential candidate. But the succession wasn’t clear because he was also in the running for the secretary of state’s job. Now it looks as though he will chair the committee. (Biden, Dodd and Kerry all voted for the bill, as did Obama and Hillary.)
There will be no change in the chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan retains the post.
At the Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for writing spending bills, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia is stepping down as chairman. Byrd, who turned 91 on November 20, had been under pressure for some time to give up the post because of his poor health. He will be replaced by Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who is 84.
Byrd holds the record for long service in the Senate, having been a member since 1959.
The House saw something unusual, a contest for chairmanship, at the Energy and Commerce Committee. Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, who has a reputation as a green, ousted longtime Michigan Congressman John D. Dingell, a champion of the auto industry, after a bitter fight.
The Washington Post said Waxman’s victory is likely to smooth passage of Obama’s energy agenda, which focuses on research for producing renewable fuels and plug-in hybrid cars. Dingell is 82 and Waxman 69.
