From The Washington Post
By Sabastian Mallaby

In leading the House Democrats to victory last year, Rep. Nancy Pelosi demonstrated political effectiveness. She perfected the art of saying nyet, stomping on President Bush’s attempt to reform entitlements. The question she left open was whether she could be a constructive speaker of the House. That will involve saying nyet to two Democratic committee chairs who discredit their own party.

This month’s energy debate provides the first test for Pelosi. The speaker says she supports bold measures against carbon emissions, and she has done much to raise expectations. But the House has produced an energy bill that not only omits the policies that could have a real impact — a cap-and-trade policy or a carbon tax — but also lacks the toughened fuel-economy standards included in the Senate version. Those standards ought to be a no-brainer. The automakers’ stiff-neck resistance to change is driving them straight into bankruptcy.

The speaker faces an obstacle in the form of Rep. John Dingell, the chairman of the energy committee who misguidedly believes he knows how to defend his carmaker constituents. Dingell initially supported a measure that was even worse, and Pelosi forced him to improve it. But the resulting “compromise” is still a disgrace, and Pelosi needs to fix it. If she can stand up to George W. Bush, she ought to be able to stand up to an old bull from Detroit whose environmental views are out of step with the party and the country.

The next challenge is farm policy. Again, Pelosi faces an entrenched committee chair, this time Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota. A decade ago, Peterson came to prominence by co-founding the “Blue Dog” Democrats to support budget discipline. Now he wants to spray taxpayers’ money at farmers, even though farm country is already high on ethanol.

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