The House’s top Department of Energy appropriator signaled Monday he might be interested in running the full Appropriations Committee next year after current Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) retires from Congress.
In a Twitter message, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), the blunt-talking, hard-nosed dentist-turned-lawmaker who chairs the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, said he has “always” been interested in the promotion.
I have been asked many times if I would be interested in a
larger role on the committee someday. My response has always been and
remains that it is something I will seriously consider.— Cong. Mike Simpson (@CongMikeSimpson) January 29, 2018
Frelinghuysen has served New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District for 22 years, taking office in 1995. The local Bergen County Record first reported Monday the lawmaker planned to retire.
Frelinghuysen became chairman of the Appropriations Committee in January 2017, when the 115th Congress began the first of its two legislative sessions. Before he ran the whole committee, Frelinhuyson was chairman of the energy and water subcommittee.
That powerful subcommittee, which Simpson has led since 2015 writes the first draft of appropriations bills for the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
To get Frelinghuysen’s gavel and run the whole panel, Simpson will first have to win another term representing Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District. He appears poised to do just that in November; the website Ballotpedia rates his seat as reliably Republican. Assuming he is re-elected, Simpson will next have to convince the House GOP’s steering committee he is the person for the chairmanship.
He would also have to overcome other contenders for the job, including Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas): chair of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. The steering committee would eventually recommend a member for the House Republican Caucus to approve as chair.
House Republicans may not serve more than three consecutive terms as the chair or ranking member of any committee or subcommittee.
Simpson has not staked out any particularly controversial positions about either DOE’s active nuclear-weapon programs or Cold War nuclear cleanup programs. He has, like his House colleagues, been skeptical of the department’s request to cancel the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction in South Carolina. Both the Donald Trump and Barack Obama administrations proposed terminating the facility, which is being built to dispose of surplus weapons-grade plutonium.
