Now that the dealings of the Congressional “supercommittee” on debt reduction are behind us, the panel’s general counsel, Michael Bloomquist, has taken on the GC role at another Congressional hotspot—the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Representative Fred Upton (R-Michigan), who chairs the country’s oldest legislative committee, announced the move on Wednesday.
Bloomquist, a graduate of the Washington University School of Law, comes to the new role with plenty of experience. He has been serving as the deputy general counsel to the Energy and Commerce Committee since January, and also held that post from 2005 to 2007. In 2008, Bloomquist joined Wiley Rein as of counsel to the firm’s public policy group, focusing on climate change and energy-related issues.
As The Hill reports, Bloomquist steps up as the committee gears for battle over the Keystone XL pipeline project—the proposed 2,000-mile route between Canadian oil sands and Texas refineries that President Obama nixed (for the time being) last month. Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, have made greenlighting the project central to their current agenda, and the issue has been a prominent talking point on the presidential campaign trail, as The New York Times reports.
Last month, the Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on H.R. 3548, a bill that would “take the pipeline decision out of the president’s hand,” and give oversight responsibilities instead to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to the committee’s website.
Keystone XL won’t be all that’s on Bloomquist’s plate. The panel keeps tabs on a wide swath of regulatory activity, the broadest of any such committee in Congress. They oversee the Departments of Energy, Health and Human Services, and Transportation, alongside the Federal Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Federal Communications Commission.
See also: “Tracing the Effects of Oil and Gas Industry Political Donations,” CorpCounsel, February 2012.
