from WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Monday,

December 16th. So the House Republicans ran against DEI, right? Diversity, Equity, and inclusion policies. And you might say, as they fill

out their leadership roles, that they're keeping their campaign promise. As the DC-based

Punch Bowl News reported on Friday of the 16 elected House committee chairs, 15 of them are white

men. The only exception is Congressman Brian Mask, Republican from Florida, whose mother is Mexican

American.

One of the new committee chairman, who is not very well known nationally, but will suddenly

be a very important person to many things that matter a lot, is Congressman Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, the new chair of the

Energy and Commerce Committee. One of our locals, New Jersey Democrat Frank Pallone, is the ranking

Democrat, so he'll be important too. But if energy and commerce sounds a little obscure, you know,

it's not the Judiciary Committee. It's not ways and means.

It's not the oversight committee. These things that are in the headlines all the time,

consider this. As Pallone's website notes, Energy and Commerce has one of the broadest jurisdictions

of any congressional committee. You're ready for this? The committee's jurisdiction includes,

but is not limited to, the site says, issues pertaining to health care, energy, environment,

commerce, food and drug safety, consumer protection, and communications and technology.

Think about that.

Healthcare, suddenly back on more of a front burner after the public reaction to the murder of the United Healthcare CEO.

If there are any changes to Obamacare or expansion of insurance protections, anything like that,

it goes through the Energy and Commerce Committee, anything

climate-related or otherwise environmental. One of the stories in the headlines today is the

expiration of the EV electric vehicle tax credit at the end of this month. If President

...