When former Rep. Henry Waxman’s massive climate bill passed the U.S. House in 2009, the hours were long, partisan tensions were high, and the effort ultimately collapsed in the Senate. More than a decade later, Waxman was happy to watch from the sidelines as Democrats cobbled together enough votes for the massive climate change and clean energy bill that was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Tuesday. The California Democrat retired from Congress in 2015. Waxman, the former chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Oversight and Government Reform Committee, spoke about the climate bill negotiations, the midterm elections and why he doesn’t miss Capitol Hill. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What are you working on these days? I'm chairman of Waxman Strategies, a firm that my son founded and I joined when I left Congress. We represent and occasionally lobby for clients that we support, whose causes we think are beneficial. When I left Congress, I was looking at law firms, but the law firms wanted me to commit to lobby for their clients, many of whom I fought against for years when I was a member of Congress. So my son said, “Come with me. We can work together,” and I said, “I'll be glad to do it, but I'll only lobby for and support clients whose causes I support now or have supported in the past.” Do you miss being on Capitol Hill? No, I do not miss being on the Hill. The atmosphere is so polarized and poisonous that it seems so difficult to get things done and to get bipartisan support, which is what I always sought to do when I was legislating. So I'm happy to be working on the sidelines and working on supporting those issues that I think are important. Were you surprised at how quickly the climate deal came together? It wasn't surprising. Sometimes you work year after year, and you can't get to the end goal. But when a deal is there, it can happen pretty fast. I know most of the legislation I worked on in Congress took many years to come together, but when we finally had the stars aligned, then we could move forward. Are you experiencing déjà vu, given your work on the Waxman-Markey bill? It’s not déjà vu; it’s just an ongoing drama that I've lived with as someone who thinks it's essential for us to tackle this problem of climate change and high health care costs. In terms of the environmental efforts to hold down greenhouse gas emissions, we've tried a number of approaches over the years, and I'm interested to see what finally passed.
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