One of the House leadership races getting relatively less attention is the battle for the House Energy and Commerce chair. The position sets the agenda on large swaths of energy and environmental policy (including EPA oversight), on Medicaid, and on boring but important issues like net neutrality.

Rep. Joe Barton (R., Texas) is the current ranking Republican and is seeking the chairmanship. But he’d need a waiver to get around Republican rules limiting time atop committees. Will he get one? It depends in part on how vividly Republican leadership remembers Barton’s “apology” to BP during a hearing on the Gulf oil spill this summer. At the time, some Republicans were calling for Barton’s ranking membership, and the feeling was that there would not be any extraordinary effort made to install him as the chair should the Republicans retake the House. It also depends on whether reported rifts between leadership and Barton’s committee staff can be healed.

Barton faces competition from Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.), the senior eligible committeeman, and possibly from Reps. John Shimkus (Ill.) and Cliff Stearns (Fla.). Stearns and Shimkus are considered long-shots (though the latter has a key edge in political contributions made to fellow Republicans). Upton, while reportedly the favorite of Republican leadership (and of Fred Barnes at The Weekly Standard), is being harassed from his right flank with charges that his voting record isn’t sufficiently conservative. Criticism (from Rush Limbaugh, among others) has focused on Upton’s role in passing a law that would gradually ban incandescent lights in favor of more energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs. Some on the Hill suspected that Barton staffers were behind the attacks, a charge Barton denies.

Now NRO has obtained an Upton memo being circulated to House Republicans designed to counter the “RINO” charges. It outlines a wall-to-wall conservative committee agenda, promising to: repeal and replace Obamacare, check the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions, prevent taxpayer funding of abortions, use the FCC to ensure family-friendly entertainment, and oppose the repeal of Don’t Ask/ Don’t Tell. Upton concludes the memo assuring colleagues that he is a “loyal Republican” and “team player,” and even invokes Regan:

I have always been and will always be a loyal Republican. I have always been and will always be a team player. As I learned from my old boss, President Ronald Reagan, “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”
[. . .]
I have the conservative vision, the well-earned reputation as a tough legislator, the proven experience, and the steady leadership skills to succeed.

You can read the whole memo here.