Does the Wisdom of An Idea Depend on Its Source? Senate Republicans Propose Merging EPA and DOE

E&E Daily reported today that Senate Republicans are preparing legislation to combine EPA and the Department of Energy. The list of Senators identified as supporting the proposal is a virtual who’s who of conservatives, including Jim DeMint, a favorite of the Tea Party. Accordingly to Richard Burr (R. N.C.), the measure would reduce waste by eliminating duplicative programs in EPA and DOE.

Why is this even a story? Perhaps because Democratic Governor Deval Patrick did the same thing in Massachusetts in 2007, forming what has been considered a very successful Executive Office of Energy and Environment. Perhaps because newly elected Democratic Governor Dannell Malloy recently did the same thing, creating the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection in Connecticut (and naming my friend and law school classmate Dan Esty to be first Commissioner of the combined agency).

So, is this a progressive idea to ensure that energy development, which is a very big part of our economy, is considered together with environmental protection, or is this a regressive idea, intended to eliminate spending? 

Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s simply a good idea.

Politics would determine whether the combined agency leadership would pursue an aggressive environmental protection and clean energy agenda or whether it would instead avoid new regulatory programs in order to facilitate an aggressive program of developing traditional energy resources. Either way, it makes sense to house these two functions under one roof.

For those of us who follow politics as the blood sport it’s become, it will be interesting to see if this idea gets any traction and, if so, where Congressional Democrats line up. Are they going to try to tar this as a simple-minded conservative idea? If so, will the President’s friend Governor Patrick be caught in a Mitt Romney-like dance, trying to argue that it was a good idea for Massachusetts but would not be a good idea nationally? 

Serious kudos to the first liberal Democrat who unambiguously supports this proposal.

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