Most of the coverage of the departure of Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.) from the powerful chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has focused on his anti-environmentalism and his staunch defense of the interests of dysfunctional Detroit auto manufacturers.
But there is much more to Mr. Dingell than his having propped up a failing industry instead of a tougher approach that could have required it to improve and become competitive. He has fashioned a congressional career of bullying behavior. During the 1980s, while chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Dingell intruded constantly in federal agencies' domestic policy-making and their negotiation of international regulatory agreements. His committee's ideologically motivated investigators continually harassed scientists from various regulatory agencies (of whom I was one), although the congressional staffers lacked any understanding of the subject area and were, in fact, lobbying against both a sound scientific approach and a climate that would encourage American innovation.
Research and development in fields such as agricultural biotechnology and pharmaceuticals still bear the scars.
Mr. Dingell was a master of the politics of personal destruction. In acrimonious hearings, he made vile and untrue accusations against prominent scientists, university administrators and business executives, relying on his congressional immunity to avoid being sued for slander.
In performing his committee's oversight role over the FDA, Mr. Dingell acted as a kind of self-appointed grand inquisitor. He and his staff often summoned agency officials to humiliating and abusive hearings and demanded that they produce mountains of documents on unrealistically short deadlines. His investigators even helped themselves to FDA files that contained confidential business information, a clear violation of federal law.
Mr. Dingell lost track of the constitutional division of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government. His actions were often grossly inappropriate.
Congressional committees have responsibility for oversight of government agencies, not of individual companies or universities. Congressmen don't get to play drug regulator, park ranger, soldier or air-traffic controller at their whim.
Mr. Dingell's abusive behavior was an affront to effective and enlightened government. He will not be missed.‹
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