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It's the Brian Leryshow on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. 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 D.C 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. Health care, 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-elect Trump wants to end or roll back that tax credit, as he has threatened to do,

or lots of other ways where drill baby drill meets climate laws, hello energy and commerce committee.

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