The main architect of the dismantling of 40 years worth of environmental protections was Dick Cheney, who also tried to remake the entire career branch of the interior department and the EPA in his image. The Washington Post ran a short article that covered some of that, but not all:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/

Now, there is need for a general housekeeping in all of the departments that set environmental and health regulations, namely the EPA, the FDA, the DHHS, and even CDC - all need new leadership that isn't in bed with specific firms within the industry they are supposed to be regulating.

"Law and science seemed to be on the side of the fish. Then the vice president stepped in."

"First Cheney looked for a way around the law, aides said. Next he set in motion a process to challenge the science protecting the fish, according to a former Oregon congressman who lobbied for the farmers."

"Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River."

"Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/leaving_no_tracks/

His biggest supporter isn't the automobile industry, but rather the electric utilities industry, who own a lot of coal-fired power plants in the U.S.

The thing to keep in mind about fossil fuel economics is that there is vertical as well as horizontal integration. In the case of coal, you have coal mines, railroads, coal-fired power plant operators, electricity traders, and, finally, utilities that service residential and industrial locations.

The shareholders in the system - whether coal mines, railroads, or utilities - enjoyed huge profits under deregulation, and the last thing the shareholders want is to see all those profits plowed back into building wind farms - they'd far rather run their dirty coal plants into the ground for another decade, wouldn't they? They tend not to live downwind of coal plants, or drink water poisoned by coal mines, and their response to global warming is to turn up the air conditioning.

This is why we need government regulation that will force all energy corporations to switch to renewables - because without regulation, the shareholders will simply move their investments to whoever has the largest profits, and under the current system, that means whoever has the dirtiest, most polluting energy source - because those sources are still cheaper.

However, the fact of the matter is that when you do true cost accounting of fossil fuels on one side, including things like pollution, global warming and warfare, and renewables like solar, wind, tidal, and clean biofuels on the other, then you find that renewables are far cheaper than fossil fuels. For one thing, the raw energy sources - the sun and the wind - are never subject to exhaustion, as fossil fuels are.

Dingell and his collegeu Boucher represent this coal-fired electricity generation behemoth, not the American people. Dingell also does side work for the transportation industry, which operates similarly.

In the case of the auto industry, it really is a sad story. They were essentially prevented from jumping into the high-efficiency, high-mileage auto market (Prius or electric cars). If GM had kept their electric car in production, there's little doubt it would have been a best-seller over the summer.

What seems to have happened, however, is that the oil industry likes low-mileage cars because it keeps demand high, which is really the story behind the SUV in the 1990s. The connecting glue is just like the coal-fired system - except here were are talking about the petroleum-fueled transportation system. Crude oil producers, oil refinery operators, fuel traders, and marketing chains all want to see a high demand for their product. An independent auto corporation wouldn't care about that, however - they'd want to be selling the cars that people come rushing in to buy. However, if the same people who own GM also own Exxon, Chevron, Conoco, etc. - well - you see the problem, I hope?

Nevertheless, by getting involved with the oil cartel, the U.S. auto industry has destroyed its own competitiveness. Their management seems to have ceded control of their business plan to external oil interests, if you ask me, and now they're facing the blowback - consumers don't want it.

That's what cartels do: self-destruct, sooner or later.

Dingell, by refusing to raise CAFE standards, was a major part of the problem - so it is great news that he no longer controls the committee.