Phil barnett henry waxman biography
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Her perspective on oversight is one of someone who conducted oversight not from a position in Congress, nor from a state legislature, but as a nonprofit seeking to inform the public and equip decision-makers with facts. From 1983 to 1984, he served as law clerk to Judge William C. Canby, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Ryan served as president of Taxpayers for Common Sense for fourteen years. Taxpayers for Common Sense is a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on ensuring responsible use of taxpayer dollars and that government operates within its means. Phil also has extensive experience in congressional oversight, having led major investigations into the tobacco industry, food and drug safety, steroid use in baseball, contract abuses in Iraq, the Wall Street collapse, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Phil graduated from Princeton University in 1979, where he won Princeton’s highest undergraduate distinction, the Pyne Honor Prize, and from Harvard Law School in 1983.
Ryan co-founded Appalachian Mountain Advocates, which she continues to chair, and sits on the boards of directors of the Fund for Constitutional Government, Project on Government Oversight, and R Street Institute. During his career, he helped Rep. Henry A. Waxman enact multiple pieces of landmark legislation, including the Clean Air Act of 1990, the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, the Affordable Care Act of 2010, and reforms of federal telecommunications, procurement, and postal laws.
He was a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School in 2011 and 2012.
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In 1995, he became counsel in the office of Rep. Henry A. Waxman. Phil returned to Capitol Hill in 1997, where he served on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as Minority Chief Counsel (1997 to 2003), Minority Staff Director (2004 to 2006), and Staff Director (2007 to 2008).From 1989 to 1994, Phil was counsel to the Health and the Environment Subcommittee of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. “ You need legislators who “stick with it and really believe in what they are doing.” No one did it better than Henry Waxman. He now chairs Waxman Strategies, a communication and lobbying firm and is a Regents’ Professor at the University of California.
On this episode of oversight matters, my guest is Ryan Alexander.
In 2009, he moved to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where he served as Staff Director (2009 to 2010) and Minority Staff Director (2010 to 2014). In the area of environment, he not only shepherded the 1990 clean air legislation but also led enactment of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House and would have established a national greenhouse gas reduction program using a cap-and-trade regulatory system had it passed the Senate. The Affordable Care Act is one more milestone in his leadership on public health policy.
Waxman entered politics because he believes government can be a force for good. He sees part of the job in the environmental arena as ensuring that business competitors had to meet the same standards. As chair of the chief investigatory committee in the House, he led investigations of the catastrophic release of toxic chemicals from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, leading to federal legislation requiring reporting by industry of chemical releases above specified thresholds.
Henry Waxman
“Tougher than a boiled owl” is how former Senator Alan Simpson described Congressman Henry Waxman’s tenacity in moving the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 through the House of Representatives and the conference with the Senate. Following service in the California Assembly from his suburban Los Angeles district, Waxman was elected to the U.S.
Congress where as chair or ranking member of a major committee, he championed public health, environmental protection , and consumer protection for forty years. Waxman’s hearings in 1994 on the impact of smoking on public health produced memorable performances by tobacco company CEOs claiming disbelief that nicotine is addictive.
Waxman is generous in his praise of many Republican colleagues who contributed to the passage of key legislation. Public support is important, but to pass a good law, “the details are what really counted and we were able to develop the consensus and bipartisan support.
They conduct their own robust investigations and issue their own reports, an interesting example of oversight by a nonprofit.
Phil is a former instructor and board member of the National Outdoor Leadership School.
Together, we discuss habitual oversight like the GAO’s high-risk list, and oversight on a wide range of topics including oil & gas and cybersecurity.
I enjoyed this conversation and hope you all do as well.
The views expressed on Oversight Matters do not necessarily represent the views of Wayne State University or Wayne State Law School.
Philip S. Barnett worked for 25 years on Capitol Hill, where he served as the staff director of two major House committees, the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Phil began his Washington career in 1988.
Ryan has worked with allies all across the political spectrum to get things done, and has testified to Congress on a wide range of topics related to federal spending, subsidies, and fiscal policy.