Current Position: U.S. Representative (since January 1985)
Credit: Congress Bio Directory
Why He Matters
Barton’s clout on Capitol Hill as a member of the House minority may not compare to his previous stature as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. But his blunt and colorful voice has shown no signs of quieting. Now the ranking member of the panel after three years as chairman, the Texas Republican has long been a skeptic of the science behind global warming, and he stands as a vocal opponent of key
Obama administration proposals to tackle climate change.
After nearly a quarter century in Congress, Barton is now the senior GOP House member from the nation’s largest red state. Though he has a built a solidly conservative voting record, his interests have ranged widely over the years, from support for the massive superconducting supercollider early in his tenure to his push for mandatory drug testing for members of Congress. More recently, the Texan has taken a keen interest in reforming college football’s Bowl Championship Series, which has emerged as a point of rare agreement between him and President Obama. Barton ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1993 and rankled some in the GOP by briefly challenging Rep.
John Boehner (R-Ohio) for the House minority leader post in 2006.
Barton’s most notable congressional achievement has been his leadership in passing the sweeping energy bill of 2005. Though he is recognized as an energy expert within his party, he has drawn criticism for his ties to industry and his frequent deference to the big oil companies. Whether Barton can influence – if not actually derail – Democratic efforts to regulate and cap carbon emissions in the 111th Congress looms as test to his power.
At a Glance
Current Position: Ranking member, House Energy and Commerce Committee (since 2007)
Career History: U.S. Representative (since 1985); consultant, Atlantic Richfield Co. (1982-1984); White House Fellow, U.S. Department of Energy, (1981-1982)
Birthday: Sept. 15, 1949
Hometown: Ennis, Texas
Alma Mater: Texas A&M University, B.S. 1972; Purdue University, M.S. 1973
Spouse: Terri Barton
Religion: Methodist
Committees: House Energy and Commerce Committee (ranking member)
DC Office: 2109 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-2002
District Offices: Arlington, 817-543-1000; Ennis, 972-875-8488; Crockett, 936-544-8488
Email
Website
Path to Power
Born in Waco in 1949, Barton was raised in Ennis, Texas, a small town south of Dallas where he still lives with his wife and six children. His father was a salesman for an agriculture company, and as a boy, Barton was described by one childhood friend as a “straight arrow” in school.He attended Texas A&M on a scholarship, earning an award in industrial engineering that led to a master’s degree at Purdue University in Indiana.
Barton came home to Ennis after Purdue and spent eight years working for a local printing company. He became engaged with public service through volunteer work. He chaired a local parks board and helped create a volunteer ambulance service in Houston County. He moved to Washington after Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, serving as a White House fellow at the Energy Department. When his fellowship ended, Barton returned to Texas to work for the Atlantic Richfield oil company, but his absence from Washington would be brief.
U.S. House
Barton’s opportunity for a seat in Congress arrived when Phil Gramm (R-Texas) left his 6th district House seat in 1984 to run for Senate. After eking out a Republican primary victory by just 10 votes in a field of four, Barton won the general election with 57% of the vote.
Run for Senate
When incumbent Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) resigned in 1993 to become President Bill Clinton’s, Treasury secretary, Barton joined a crowded race to succeed him. He tried to run to the right of his opponents, campaigning as a “fiscal conservative, a social conservative, and a personal conservative.”
But the race ended in disappointment, as Barton finished well behind in the May primary, winning just 14% of the vote in an election eventually captured by Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas). Barton considered another Senate run in 2002, but decided instead to focus on his work on the Energy committee, where he was gaining seniority. When the committee’s chairman, Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), retired in early 2004 to become a lobbyist, Barton quickly jumped at the post, winning the chairmanship with little opposition.
The Issues
Barton has both campaigned and voted as a conservative throughout his tenure. He has voted with his party 93% of the time during the 111th Congress. Barton backs gun rights and opposes abortion rights, making an exception for the life of the mother. He supports private retirement accounts for Social Security and opposes measures that allow illegal immigrants to remain in the country. One exception to his social conservatism is his support for stem-cell research, which he believes “will ultimately yield knowledge and therapies that enhance, prolong and protect human life.”
Barton opposes same-sex marriage and allowing gays to serve openly in the military, and he has drawn criticism in the past for comments about homosexuality, which he has called “abnormal” and “immoral.” “If homosexuality was normal we wouldn't any of us be here,” he was quoted as saying during his 1993 Senate run. “You have to have heterosexual behavior in order to recreate the species.”
The Economy
Barton opposed both major legislative attempts to address the financial crisis and the steep economic downturn: the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in October 2008 under President George W. Bush and the $787 billion stimulus package ultimately signed by President Barack Obama. Barton stood against the financial rescue in its initial form – when the House rejected it in September 2008 – and again when it passed weeks later.
He criticized the legislation for adding to the national debt and said that “it doesn’t fundamentally address the real problem,” which he cited as America’s decreasing competitiveness in international markets. The bill, he said, was “a fear-driven rush to bail out financiers.” Before voting against the bill a second time, Barton pushed for changes that would have reduced taxpayer risk from the government’s intervention in the subprime market and inserted strict compensation limits for top executives.
Barton had even harsher words for Obama’s stimulus package that passed in February 2009. He supported a Republican alternative that focused more on tax cuts and aid to small businesses and homeowners. Criticizing President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership for blocking Republican input, he called the legislation a “social spending bill.” “The stimulus bill is the most anti-competitive, anti-consumer, anti-free market piece of legislation I’ve ever seen on the House floor,” Barton said in a floor statement before the House vote.
Energy and the Environment
At the center of Barton’s legacy as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee from 2004 to 2006 is the $14.5 billion energy bill that he helped steer through Congress. While supporters trumpeted the investments in alternative energy and domestic oil production, critics denounced its extensive tax breaks for oil companies and provisions loosening environmental restrictions. A group of energy lobbyists gave Barton a standing ovation after the bill passed. President Bush signed the bill into law in August 2005.
Barton lost the key chairmanship after Democrats won control of Congress in 2006. A proponent of domestic oil production, he fought aggressively against Democratic attempts by Democrats to extend the moratorium on offshore drilling in 2008.
He has also emerged as one of the House’s most vocal skeptics of human contributions to global warming. He sparred with former Vice President Al Gore (D) at a hearing in March 2007, telling the soon-to-be Nobel laureate that he was “totally wrong” in his prescriptions for dealing with climate change. Barton’s statements on climate change have increasingly drawn the derision of environmentalists, who refer to him as “Smokey Joe,” a nickname bestowed on him by the Dallas Morning News for his ties to polluting industry interests.
In 2009, Barton cited as his top legislative priority the fight against “the takeover of the American economy with a radical cap and trade plan and other unreasonable global warming schemes.” He vowed to make life difficult for current Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who is trying to pass cap-and-trade legislation out of committee. “We’re trying to kill this bill or slow it way down,” he said in May 2009, a day after advising participants to “bring a sleeping bag” to a mark-up hearing that he had earlier said he hoped would take “weeks or months” to complete.
Health Care
Barton may also play a big role in the debate over reforming health care, and, despite disagreements, he has signaled a greater willingness to work with the Obama administration on that than the climate-change issue.
While he is a staunch opponent of vastly increasing government’s role in health care, he did voice support in April 2009 for an individual mandate to purchase insurance – a position more common among Democrats. “If we mandate that everybody have health insurance it lessens the burden on everybody,” he said at a constituent forum.
Barton outlined a broad sketch of his priorities for health reform in March 2008, writing in the Washington Times that he preferred a focus on increased affordability, consumer choices, hospital safety improvements, and enhanced use of technology.(22) In May 2009, he said he would push for legislation “that maintains the best health care in the world with minimum government interference.”(23)
Supercolliding Superconducter
Barton also drew notice for his steadfast support of the superconducting supercollider, an $8 billion science project under construction in his district that consisted of a 54-mile tunnel in which subatomic particles would be hurled at each other at the speed of light.
The supercollider drew frequent criticism as a pork-barrel project, and supporters, including Barton, struggled to justify its cost. The project was also a tough political sell because as an instrument of “pure research” its scientific goal was not a clearly defined benefit, such as curing cancer, but rather the more general aim of deepening understanding about the nature of matter and the origins of the universe. Barton finally lost the battle in 1992, when the House voted to kill the project.(24)
Congressional Drug Testing
On national issues, Barton occasionally made headlines during his years as a Republican backbencher for his advocacy of two disparate issues: drug testing and taxes. He repeatedly pressed for a bill requiring random drug testing for House members and their staff. The proposal would have mandated that 10% of lawmakers be tested every month. Barton, who required tests for himself and his staff, said lawmakers should “set an example” for the nation’s youth.(25) His proposal gained some traction during 1990s amid allegations of drug use by White House staffers, but it never won approval.
The Network
Barton has been close to his predecessor in the House, Phil Gramm, and his predecessor as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Billy Tauzin (R-La.), now the head of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of America.
But he has gained a reputation for rankling some colleagues, including Republicans. Barton has irked the House Republican leadership with his maverick streak as a committee chairman and his penchant for jurisdictional battles. And he did not ingratiate himself with House Minority Leader John Boehner by briefly bidding for that post in 2006.
