Barbara Boxer, mover and shaker

December 10, 2006

By David Whitney
Sacramento Bee


Barbara Boxer sweeps into the Senate radio and television studio, cushioned by her posse of aides. The room is packed with reporters, cameras and digital recorders all pointed at her. They are there to hear her talk about -- bipartisanship?

It's another sign of the times.

The liberal California Democrat began the 109th congressional session 23 months ago with such flamboyance that she alone challenged certifying the 2004 Ohio presidential vote because of "irregularities." She later stopped just short of calling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a liar at a hearing on the war in Iraq. These days, though, she is sounding restrained.

"I really have two major goals," Boxer said as she began to unveil her agenda as the incoming chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "They are to protect the health of the American people. And the second is to make the environment a bipartisan issue again on Capitol Hill."

At 66, the third-term senator who spent a decade in the House before her 1992 election to the upper chamber, is suddenly at the pinnacle of power by virtue of the Democrats' sweeping victory in the November elections.

The committee she will head has enormous reach, covering everything from global warming and clean air to nuclear safety and flood control.

Boxer has taken nothing off the table.

Air pollution. Safe drinking water. Perchlorate leaching into the ground from defense plants. Nuclear waste from government bomb plants. Cleanup of toxic Superfund sites. All could be subjects of oversight hearings.

The world's biggest oil companies and polluters, which rarely faced a tough question in the Republican-controlled Congress, will have to answer in the Senate to Boxer, one of their biggest critics.

"She is going to be a very tough chairwoman who'll do a lot of things we don't like," said Frank Maisano, an energy industry lobbyist whose clients include oil refiners and electricity producers.

"I don't know how effective she will be," he said.

"It will be a tough challenge for her -- and for us."

Boxer, who calls the environment her "signature issue," suddenly is in hot demand.

"Already I am getting calls from global leaders," Boxer said, adding the world wants to know if the United States is going to lift its reluctance to reduce pollutants that contribute to global warming.

On Wednesday, for example, Boxer met in the afternoon with California Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, to talk about the state's global warming initiative, and then was among a group meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the evening to talk globally.

It's not just the global stage that has opened in front of her.

As head of the 18-member committee, Boxer will take direct charge of legislation on Sacramento flood control, long-term storage of nuclear waste at the former Rancho Seco power plant, air pollution spreading like fog over the Central Valley, and her most ambitious priority, making a national model out of the state's groundbreaking law to limit greenhouse gases.

For the first time in her Senate career, Boxer is likely to step out from behind the large shadow cast by the state's senior senator, fellow San Francisco Democrat Dianne Feinstein, and into a spotlight all her own.

Núñez said California will be the winner, particularly on global warming.

"I am very optimistic because the senator is the best person to take the leadership on this issue," said Núñez.

"This has been her No. 1 issue for a long time. The fact that she is chairing the pertinent committee I think is phenomenal."

Environmentalists, for whom Boxer has been a faithful champion since entering politics as a San Francisco County supervisor more than three decades ago, are ecstatic.

"Her taking that position will transform that committee from the pollution protection committee to the environment committee," said Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch.

"What I anticipate is that she'll hold lots of hearings and lay the groundwork for real action on global warming."

But can Boxer push through the Senate a version of the landmark California law that calls for a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020?

"Congress is probably not ready for that," O'Donnell said. "The real challenge will be to make members understand that it's a big problem and that California has taken action worthy of emulation."

It's a dramatic change in committee leadership. The outgoing chairman, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., is a global warming skeptic. In his last hurrah as chairman, Inhofe held a hearing last week into how the news media was whipping up worldwide hysteria over the warming phenomenon that he regards as nothing more than a natural cycle without human cause.

Inhofe is not alone in his skepticism. And because actions to curb emissions have regional implications, some of Boxer's toughest critics could turn out to be Democrats such as Sen. Robert Byrd of coal-rich West Virginia and Rep. John Dingell. Dingell, incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, represents the Detroit area, home to the domestic auto industry.

At a recent meeting of the Western Business Roundtable in Colorado, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, pointed out the difficulties ahead for Boxer.

"Barbara can do all she wants to do as chairman of the environment committee," Craig said, according to Greenwire, an energy and environment publication. "She can jump up and down. She's not going to get anywhere without John Dingell. And she's not going to get anywhere without 60 senators." Sixty is the magic number of senators needed to stop a filibuster and move legislation to a vote.

Boxer's answer is to move slowly with hearings, steadily building a case for environmental reforms. Others on the committee are eagerly awaiting her arrival, even some Republicans who, unlike Inhofe, believe global warming is real.

"What's bothered me about the committee is that we get together to discuss issues, and because of special interests and the media, we don't listen to each other," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio.

Earlier, Boxer summed up her approach in three words: "Listen, listen, listen."

But she was careful not to promise results, saying she doesn't believe pent-up frustration over environmental regression during the past six years of congressional harmony with the White House is putting unrealistic pressure on her to produce reforms.

"When you shine a light of truth on these issues, they take on a force of their own," Boxer said.

"I don't think people are expecting too much. I've said I will take these issues as far as I can."

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