The Reason Foundation is a Libertarian think tank.  This bit from Jon Basil Utley.  Don't read it if you still think Obama hung the moon:

It's only a matter of time before President Barack Obama's vast popularity runs aground on his energy policies. In the name of saving the planet from global warming, he has delayed new oil drilling, an action that will have major political repercussions once the world economy recovers. Instead of using some [of] the stimulus billions to produce more gas and oil, Obama's wild-eyed supporters dream of "renewable" energy derived from corn, wind, sunshine, and even grass.

With the appointment of extremists like climate czar Carol Browner and science adviser John Holdren, Obama has placed his administration's environmental policy in the hands of radicals. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposes replacing oil and coal with windmills. Yet Barron's recently reported that America would need to build 500,000 giant offshore windmills and transmission lines to produce Salazar's specified 1,900 gigawatts of electricity. In contrast, oil and gas drilling could provide hundreds of thousands of solid, well-paying blue-collar jobs. . . .

All of these things are happening at a time when natural gas is abundant and cheap. The new technology of horizontal fraccing has made it economically feasible to drill into vast shale deposits in many states, even famously difficult ones like Michigan and New York. Many cars could run on natural gas, much like many buses do already. On a recent trip to Peru, I learned that most taxicabs have been converted to natural gas for a cost of about $1,000 each. New technologies continually revive old oil and gas fields and make new ones economically viable. So it's little more than socialist Malthusianism to argue that the world is running out of cheap energy. Science will always find and harness new sources.

Now we have a nice nasty little internal Democrat tinkling contest in the Congress. Rep. John Dingell of Michigan is currently the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. But that may no longer be the case. The Democrats want a more aggressive global warming agenda. They want to save the planet ... and John Dingell may put up too much of a fight. When I say "fight" I mean that he won't necessarily be Barack Obama's grocery bagger when it comes to global warming policy.

So who do the Democrats want as their guy? Henry Waxman of Beverley Hills. He's generally an anti-business kinda guy. He's the head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; Waxman is the guy in change of government investigations on everything from oil company profits to steroid use in baseball.

Where the battle gets interesting is the fact that Dingell is from Michigan and has made it difficult for the government to impose stricter fuel standards on automakers. Meanwhile, Waxman is a fan of tough environmental regulations and an overhaul of the auto industry. Does this auto-union bailout have anything to do with this vote?

Either way, a committee secret ballot of 25-22 recommended that Waxman be the new chair of the energy committee. The entire House still has to vote on whether or not they want to accept that recommendation ... but I think the message is clear. Barack Obama has made promises on key issues: healthcare reform and climate change. We'll get to healthcare in a minute, but having Waxman as the chair of this committee would be one less minor bump to deal with ... it would be a sign from Congress that they are eager to work with Obama in passing climate change legislation.