Chairman John Dingell
Rep. John D. Dingell represents Michigan's 15th congressional district and is the Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. He is also currently the longest-serving member of the House and second-longest-serving member in our nation's history. Dingell serves the people of Monroe County and parts of Wayne and Washtenaw Counties. His work includes fighting for the working families that keep America's economy going, including making health care more affordable and accessible to all families and protecting our nation's natural heritage.
Over the last five decades, Rep. Dingell has written some of the best-known laws protecting our health and our environment, as well as the rights of workers and consumers. One notable example is the 1990 Clean Air Act which is credited with cleaning up the air we breathe while also preserving American competitiveness. He fought for the passage of revolutionary legislation such as the Endangered Species Act; as well as laws that address America's most pressing needs like the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Mammography Quality Standards Act.
Rep. Dingell also took a leading role in creating the "Do Not Call" list in 2003 to help families stop unwanted telemarketing, and remains vigilant in his pursuit of a "Patients Bill of Rights" which will ensure patients' care is in the hands of doctors, not HMO's and insurance companies.
An avid conservationist and outdoorsman, and senior member on the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, Rep. Dingell successfully passed legislation to create North America's first international wildlife refuge, protecting thousands of acres of natural habitat in Southeast Michigan and Canada. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees for the Nature Conservancy of Michigan.
Congressman Dingell worked to protect federal road funds for our communities and he led efforts in Congress to get hundreds of millions more in vital road dollars for Michigan. He worked with officials in Wayne County to save local taxpayers more than $350 million of the cost to stop pollution of the Rouge River and has been relentless in his efforts to limit the importation of Canadian waste into Michigan. Dingell also wrote the bill that created Michigan's Automobile National Heritage Area to conserve the story of America's auto industry.
In addition, few legislators can demonstrate a record of fighting government waste and corporate corruption like Congressman Dingell. A leader in the effort to toughen corporate accountability both before and after the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals, Dingell has also taken the lead in exposing government waste and abuses of tax dollars, including the investigation of no-bid defense contracts in Iraq.
In the past, Dingell led successful efforts to stop the Bush administration from allowing higher arsenic levels in drinking water and from cutting funds to investigate and prosecute environmental crimes. A defender of the "polluter pays" principle - which protects taxpayers from picking up the tab on environmental damage - he is fighting efforts by the Defense Department to exempt itself from some of our cornerstone environmental laws.
At the beginning of every session of Congress, Congressman Dingell introduces the national health insurance bill his father sponsored when he was a Member.
