Think of all the things we take for granted now - heck, that we can't even imagine living without - that were the result of hard, protracted battles against the forces who do not care about us, our rights or our well-being.

It's little consolation that history remembers the progressives fondly and those who would impede progress poorly, because of all the harm done along the way. What is important is that progress continues to be made due to the courage and good sense of people like Waxman. We owe him a hearty "thank you," but more importantly, a "keep it up"!

Fifty years from now, today's health care system will be considered Draconian and backward. But let's not wait until that is hindsight speaking - let's use foresight and drag the 30%ers kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

About 25 years ago, the city of Los Angeles approved plans to build an extensive, citywide public transportation systems. The backbone of this plan was a subway line down Wilshire, off of which other subway lines would branch - including a branch that would have gone under the mountains and into the San Fernando Valley. Had it come to fruition, Los Angelenos could have been riding the subway to work for the past 20 years, instead of spending 45 minutes to drive nine miles every morning.

Henry Waxman was the roadblock. He is the one who enacted a federal law to prevent this from happening. It is because of him that our public transportation system is still a joke, and we consistently have some of the worst traffic in the country. Whatever else he may have done regarding global warming, one must also take this into account. However much CO2 a subway could have saved the city of Los Angeles over the past 20 years should be properly attributed to him.

The real problem with the Wilshire Metro Red line was during tunneling, when the workers hit a pocket of natural gas and blew up a discount clothing store.

So far as I know that's never happened during any other subway excavation. But the LA basin is a seismically and petrologically and otherwise weird place, and residents at the time were justifiably concerned their house might be next.

It's true that Waxman partly caved to the NIMBYs and rich Beverly Hills types who didn't want "those people" riding in on the subway to steal their TVs, but he's far from the worst offender.

The real problem with the Wilshire Metro Red line was that, during tunneling, they hit a pocket of natural gas and blew up a discount clothing store.

So far as I know that's never happened during any other subway excavation. But the LA basin is a seismically and petrologically and otherwise weird place, and residents at the time were justifiably concerned their house might be next.

It's true that Waxman partly caved to the NIMBYs and rich Beverly Hills types who didn't want "those people" riding in on the subway to steal their TVs, but he's far from the worst offender.

The explosion happened not during subway excavation, It happened during basement excavation at a Ross Dress-For-Less on Wilshire. Tunnelling hadn't even begun when it happened.

The presence of natural gas was not something that construction workers were unfamiliar with in the mid 80s, and there were precautions and routine procedures at the time to deal with it. It needn't, and shouldn't, have stopped the project. The explosion wasn't the real reason Waxman so zealously opposed the subway. It was just the handy excuse he used to hide the fact that he was, as you said, caving in to the less noble demands of his constituents.

but the explosion at the Ross store was on 3rd Street, not Wilshire. And it was due to methane gas, which is a byproduct of the tar deposits that are underground in that area. I know this because I lived about 4 blocks from there during that time. The city installed a methane vent that could be used to burn off the excess gas as needed (others were also installed in the area to prevent the same thing happening elsewhere).

What, I wonder, will future generations accept as just being "there" as a result of his current work?

Democracy.

That is, if Waxman-Markey passes, and is subsequently strengthened. Though the degree of global warming that's already inevitable will still give Democracy a real run for its money.

Waxman's passage is wonderful and bittersweet, because the people who make progress don't get credit for it. These items get absorbed into our consciousness quickly, and we have to have unions remind us that they (hyperbolically) "invented the weekend."

It should remind us, though, of the vacuity of industry's Chicken Little response to progress. Recall that the auto industry would "go broke" if we had seat belts. They would definitely go broke if we had air bags. ABS brakes would bankrupt them all. CAFE would ruin them. (Now, increasing CAFE standards will do it and reducing emissions will do it, when, in fact, what bankrupted them was bad management and continually treating its own employees as "labor" and therefore "expenses" to be gotten rid of.) Decreasing pollution from coal will make generators "go broke." Having regulated prescription drug prices will make the most profitable non-energy corporations in the world "go broke" instantly.

Waxman has rejected, wisely, government by K-Mart sale, government by what's on sale, and he has been cynical about these cries of "wolf!" because they have been made too often. Each company, though, seems to find a new generation without memory or with convenient amnesia.

As non-photogenic as he may be, Henry Waxman should have a statue in his honor.