Former Republican Congressman Joe Barton Proudly Explains How He And His Cronies Helped Destroy Planet Earth

Joe Barton (Villain-TX)

Republican former Congressman Joe Barton is a 70 year old energy lobbyist now. Once he was the all-powerful chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as the dean of the Texas congressional delegation. His dream was the deregulation of electric and gas-- and everything else. Barton, one of Congress' most corrupt members, was the ultimate climate change denier. After a trove of pornographic selfies of Barton surfaced in 2017, he announced he would not seek reelection in 2018. On Sunday, Barton wrote a long column, I knew my bill to lift the ban on U.S. oil exports was important. I hardly expected it to change the world for the Dallas Morning News. He has hardly reformed his views but the column condemns himself and his congressional cronies who seems to have set out to make global warming even worse.

To this day, the only person to serve in the House who solicited and accepted more bribes from the Energy Sector than Joe Barton ($4,626,327) was former Speaker John Boehner ($4,909,902). In 2014, his donors wanted one thing really badly-- and Barton delivered for them. In his own words: "I started hearing from oil companies about a new idea, to lift an old ban on oil exports... I agreed to try. As a longtime member of Congress, I knew this would be a long and difficult road that would require bipartisan cooperation, and I couldn’t guarantee success. At the time, I hardly understood how lifting this one rule could change the world."

Repeal was not initially popular, as many environmental groups wanted to restrict oil and gas production, not create new markets for it. Undaunted, several companies and individuals decided it was a job that needed to be done.

On Dec. 9, 2014, I introduced the bill. It had seven co-sponsors, all Republicans, including one Texan, Mike Conaway of Midland.

...On Feb. 4, 2015, I introduced HR 666. My staff immediately demanded I reintroduce the bill to get a better number. So I hurried back to the House floor and reintroduced the identical bill, but with a new number. HR 702 had 37 original co-sponsors, all Republicans.

Having only Republican sponsors was a big problem. In 2015, the Republicans had a comfortable majority in the House, but the bill would have to pass in the Senate and gain President Barack Obama’s signature. Obama was opposed to another energy issue of the time, the Keystone oil pipeline, and would later veto that bill when it came to his desk.

I needed Democratic support. Not just nominal support, but active participation in the effort to pass the bill. One of the seldom-discussed truths about Congress is that while most of the media attention goes to the bomb-throwers on both sides of the aisle, the way to actually pass law that improves the lives of everyday Americans is work together. Ideally, my Democratic leader should be a member of the Energy and Commerce committee, which had primary jurisdiction over the bill.

I asked Gene Green, from Houston, to be my primary Democrat sponsor. He was interested, but numerous refineries in his district were opposed to the bill, and he also was concerned about creating a totally open market for crude exports. My bill was only two pages long, and expressly prohibited any federal agency or official from imposing permits or restrictions on crude oil exports. The president would retain his emergency power to stop exports in an emergency.

So Green said no, as did Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas agreed to co-sponsor, but she didn’t want to be the lead Democrat. I turned to Henry Cuellar of Laredo, a member of the powerful appropriations committee with a history of working across the aisle. Plus, the Eagle Ford Shale was in his South Texas district. He needed time to consider the bill and communicate with people in his district. After about a month, he agreed to be the lead Democrat.

Of the 137 co-sponsors, 15 were scummy crooked Democrats, starting with Texas Blue Dog Henry Cuellar. He was followed by Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Ed Perlmutter (New Dem-CO), Marc Veasey (New Dem-TX), Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA), David Scott (Blue Dog-GA), Tim Ryan (D-OH), Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN), Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ), Kurt Schrader (Blue Dog-OR), Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA), Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX), Tony Cárdenas (D-CA) and Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL). It passed on October 9, 2015, 261-159. 6 Republicans and 153 Democrats voted against it. 26 Democrats voted in favor, the co-sponsors and a batch of other corrupt, easily bought whores including-- Lacy Clay (D-MO), Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Ann Kirkpatrick (New Dem-AZ), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), Beto O'Rourke (New Dem-TX), Cedric Richmond (New Dem-LA), Albio Sires (D-NJ), Stephen Lynch (New Dem-MA) and Filemon Vela (Blue Dog-TX).

Milwaukie, Oregon's progressive mayor, Mark Gamba, is running for the seat held by Kurt Schrader, who backed Barton's efforts to repeal the export ban. "This," he told us today, "is a prime example of why blue dog, 'moderate democrats', are in some ways more dangerous than Republicans. This bill would not have passed without their capitulation. Billions of gallons of American Oil would not currently be filling our atmosphere with carbon and other pollutants. Please note also, this bill kept the price of crude oil down worldwide when the Iranians attacked the Saudi oil fields! That is exactly the opposite of what is called for if we hope to curb the worst effects of the looming climate catastrophe! This is a perfect example of the lies that Kurt Schrader tells when he pretends to care about climate change. Stopping this one bill would have made a world of difference and passing it did nothing to benefit his district and most certainly sped up the climate chaos. Keep in mind that he is the leader of the blue dog caucus, his decision to support this bill undoubtedly brought many more democrats in line with the republican’s wishes. When I get into office, one of my top priorities will be to reinstate the ban. It’s really unfortunate that real Democrats have to work to fix problems that supposed Democrats caused in the first place."

Boston conservative New Dem Stephen Lynch, a longtime Climate Crisis denier, voted with Barton as well. His progressive primary opponent, Brianna Wu," sees a pattern in Lynch's conservatism. "Even though Stephen Lynch was against impeachment from the beginning, I'm sure a part of him is glad the hearings are finally happening.  He's one of those conservative establishment Democrats who want to silence the majority of us who want a more progressive agenda.  The differences between Lynch and myself are probably too many to mention, but I'll try.  I was for impeachment since before the Mueller Report; Lynch said we hadn't "made the case" and we would get Trump re-elected.  I support a Green New Deal; Lynch says it's too aspirational and we have 100 years to address climate change.  I support Medicare For All; Lynch says he isn't convinced it will work.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  Take a look at Lynch's donors and you'll see why he is beholden to the establishment and is not going to waiver. Lynch actually had the audacity to run for chair of the House Oversight Committee after being against impeachment until the very end.  My campaign launched an effort to tell Congress to say no to Lynch, and we won.  We will defeat Lynch in 2020.  Whether the establishment wants to admit it or not, the progressive movement is alive and well, and we will win in 2020 and beyond."

HR 702 had a reasonable number of co-sponsors, and it was bipartisan. So far, so good. But, to become law, it needed much, much, more. It needed a Senate companion bill with bipartisan Senate leadership. It needed to be blessed, or at least not opposed, by House and Senate party leadership. It needed to be passed by at least one of the congressional chambers as a stand-alone bill. It needed support from as many outside groups as possible and, conversely, to be opposed by as few outside groups as possible.

Last, but not least, it would be very helpful if the president supported it, because it would take a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate to override his veto. What we needed, in short, was a coordinated, organized strategy and a plan to implement that strategy.

The first order of business was to get Fred Upton, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee, on board. He agreed to support the bill. House Speaker John Boehner didn’t promise active support, but he thought the bill was a good idea and should be given a chance. In a similar fashion, the republican majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, gave his approval.

On the Democrat side, Cuellar and I both knew we couldn’t get the support of Democratic House leadership, but we hoped we could persuade them to be neutral. Nancy Pelosi, minority leader at the time, and assistant minority leader Steny Hoyer both agreed to let the bill, if it came to the floor, be a “free” vote. What this meant was while they would vote against the bill, they wouldn’t ask the Democratic whip to recommend a “no” vote or the House Democratic caucus to make it a binding “no” vote. Persuading the House Democratic leadership to take a hands-off approach was a major tactical and strategic victory. It would not have happened without Cuellar’s active leadership.

Meanwhile, I met with my Texas senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and obtained their support. I also asked for and received the support of the chairwoman of the Senate energy committee, Lisa Murkowski.

Murkowski was trying to move a comprehensive energy bill through the Senate, and she felt adding the export ban repeal would strengthen her larger bill. As it turned out, her bill didn’t move, but including the export ban repeal helped with the Senate later at the end of the year. Cornyn got the endorsement of Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell.

On the Democratic side, Cuellar and I met with Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, another area of intense shale oil activity. She agreed to be the lead Senate Democrat, and she worked tirelessly to get her fellow Senate Democrats to vote yes.

...Environmental groups opposed the bill out of concern it would also inhibit switching to alternative, green energy. The environmentalists wanted to keep our oil in the ground. Luckily, their top legislative priority was stopping the Keystone oil pipeline, so while they opposed HR 702, they did not wage all-out war against it.

...What do oil executives think of the results? Pioneer’s Sheffield said, “When the Iranians attacked the Saudi oil fields, the world price of oil would have gone to over $200 a barrel,” if not for the repeal of the export ban.

And Jim Teague, chief executive of Enterprise Products, the country’s largest exporter of crude oil, said, “Without the crude oil export ban repeal, the United States would not be producing half of the oil it is today because it could not be exported.”

Justin Miller, who covers politics for the Texas Observer, noted in a series of tweets on Sunday that Bernie, Warren, Booker are among those who say they will reinstate the ban. Status Quo Joe, Mayo Pete, Kamala and Castro haven't announced their stands. "It's hard to overstate just how significant the effect of ending the crude oil export ban has been-- both as a huge boon for the ONG industry and as a huge blow to the keep-it-in-the-ground movement. Hard to put this boom back in the box," he wrote. "Interestingly, Barton contends that passage was much smoother than anticipated because enviro groups were focused mostly on the Keystone pipeline fight. (26 Dems ended up voting to lift the ban)... There's some interesting nuggets in this though. Barton explains how Henry Cuellar was critical to getting Dem leadership to stay neutral, freeing up ONG lobbying campaign to court dozens of House Dems."