Shortly after November 4th, Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman (pictured) announced his intention to challenge John Dingell for chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Now, it’s always an uphill climb to unseat and replace a sitting committee chairman, but in this particular case, Waxman now has a leg up; after hearing arguments from both Dingell and Waxman, the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee voted to endorse Waxman by a narrow margin.

Now it goes to the full caucus for a vote.

Time for a full disclosure: Waxman is something of a hero of a mine. Right now he’s the head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where he’s been something of a reliable anti-Lieberman. He’s been one of the most tenacious investigators of the Bush administration’s abuses of power in the entire federal government, and I’m betting he would bring that same dogged integrity to this other chairmanship.

Dingell, on the other hand, is married to a General Motors exec, which seems like sort of a conflict of interests. It also doesn’t exactly help his credibility that his top three contributors in 2006 were all automotive companies.

It should be interesting to see how this all shakes out, one way or the other. Obama’s made it clear that energy is going to be one of his top priorities as president, and the chair of this committee will play a big role in enacting (or obstructing) that part of his agenda.

Photo by Flickr user Public Citizen used under a Creative Commons license.