Joe Barton
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Joe Linus Barton, a Republican, has represented the Texas Sixth Congressional District (map) in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1985.
Barton was born in Waco, Texas, on September 15, 1949. He graduated from Waco High School. He attended Texas A&M University in College Station and received a B.Sc. in industrial engineering in 1972. An M.Sc. in industrial administration from Purdue University followed in 1973. Following college Barton entered private industry until 1981 when he became a White House Fellow and served under Secretary of Energy James B. Edwards. Later, he began consulting for Atlantic Richfield Oil and Gas Co. before being elected to Congress in 1984.
Barton was elected to represent Texas's Sixth Congressional seat in his first attempt, defeating Democratic challenger Dan Kubiak with 56 percent of the vote in a contest to succeed Phil Gramm, who left his seat to run for the United States Senate that year. He received 88 percent of the vote in 2000, 71 percent of the vote in 2002 against Democratic challenger Felix Alvarado, and 66 percent of the vote in 2004 against Democratic challenger Morris Meyer.
In 1993, Barton ran in the special election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the resignation of Lloyd Bentsen, who became secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration. Barton finished third in the contest and missed a runoff slot.
Congressman Barton is the chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee.
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Legislative Work
- Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, primary House author of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and chairman of the House-Senate energy conference committee.
- Both initiated and eliminated "safe harbor" provision for MTBE (in Energy Policy Act of 2005). [1],[2]
- Co-founded the Congressional Privacy Caucus, co-sponsor of the anti-spyware SPY ACT, initiated reauthorization of the National Institutes of Health.
- Was one of only 11 House members to vote against the Hurricane Katrina Emergency Relief bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush on September 8, 2005. This came one day after he told Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour that "Whatever you need from the federal government... we'll do everything we can to make it happen sooner rather than later and bigger rather than smaller."
Climate change
He is regarded as a "skeptic" on global warming [3]. Recently, prompted by a February 2005 Wall Street Journal article [4], he has taken an interest in climate change [5]. This has been widely regarded as an attack on the scientists rather than a serious attempt to understand the science [6] [7], although some view it as a normal exercise of the committee's responsibility and an effort to make possible scientific debate on a subject within its jurisdiction [8] [9]. After Barton began his inquiry, the science journal Environmental Science & Technology launched an investigation into the issue. It was discovered that The Wall Street Journal article that started Barton's inquiry had based its story on research performed by a businessman.[10] The story by Environmental Science & Technology also reported on an obscure policy journal often cited by politicians, including Barton, as scientific proof that global warming science is wrong. [11] See also Barton's own response to this controversy in the Dallas Morning News [12] (registration may be required). The dispute expanded with Sherwood Boehlert's House Science Committee taking an interest [13]
Family
A member of the Republican Study Committee, which promotes "the preservation of traditional family values", Barton divorced his first wife, the former Janet Sue Winslow, with whom he has three children, in 2003. Janet received some media attention as a victim of identity theft. Barton has used her as an example when discussing identity theft legislation. He is now married to Terri Barton, and they have one child, Jack, who was born in 2005.
Health issues
Rep. Barton's office announced that on Thursday December 15, 2005 Barton suffered a heart attack and was taken to George Washington University Hospital. He is expected to be released from hospital the following week. [14]
Quotes
- "Medicaid is a study in contradiction. Thanks to it, America's neediest get health care paid for by taxpayers. Often they get better health care than taxpayers can afford for themselves. The program is both 'free' and break-the-bank expensive. It lets poor people look rich and rich people look poor, and it rewards lawyers and druggists with real wealth. Medicaid works so well it's going broke." -- The Washington Times, October 31, 2005
- "This year seems to have set a record for security breaches. As we have learned during three hearings, details of our personal lives are easily available from many sources, including companies like ChoicePoint and LexisNexis that buy, store and sell our personal data without notifying us. Not only are there no market forces at work to motivate these types of companies to protect the data they accumulate, we now know that no federal law requires companies even to protect it. And if they lose it, what the heck, they don't even have to tell anyone." -- Opening statement at data security hearing, November 3, 2005
- "I appreciate that in China, people are hungry to prosper in the global economy. What they need is a body of elected representatives who will widely debate and freely pass a strong national energy policy. Selling China an oil company will only take pressure off its rulers and further delay the arrival of democracy." -- USA Today, July 11, 2005
- "We have this final, slim chance to break the deadlock on a comprehensive bill that will generate energy at prices people can afford to pay. I hope enough senators will come back to Washington with a new viewpoint, and that the Senate can drum up the two more votes needed to pass this legislation." -- Statement, November 16, 2004
References
- Office of Congressman Joe Barton - Official Site
- Official Joe Barton Campaign web site
- Congressional Bio Guide Entry
- Clerk of the House of Representatives
- Project Vote Smart - Representative Barton
- Environmental Science & Technology, 31 August 2005, "How the Wall Street Journal and Rep. Barton celebrated a global-warming skeptic: The untold story of how a front-page article and powerful U.S. politicians morphed former mining executive Stephen McIntyre into a scientific superstar"