By Corey Boles Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, is to take over as chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee in January, the top Democrat in the Senate confirmed Friday.
In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that Inouye, one of the longest-serving Democratic senators, will succeed Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., who announced earlier Friday that he would step down from the panel.
"There is no question that Senator Byrd's decision was eased by the knowledge that the gavel will continue to be in such capable hands," said Reid.
This will leave a vacancy at the Senate Commerce Committee, which Inouye currently chairs.
Senate rules dictate that an individual member can't control more than one committee.
Inouye is currently in his eighth term in the Senate, and is one of a handful of World War II veterans still serving.
He is seen as being very close to Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, a fellow WWII vet, who was convicted last week on seven counts of federal corruption charges.
Inouye and Stevens have served along side each other for years on the Commerce and Appropriations committees.
The chairman of the Appropriations Committee is one of the most powerful jobs in Congress. Not only does every spending bill that becomes law have to pass through the committee, but the chairman has vast authority to direct public funds back to his state for infrastructure and other projects.
Byrd, 90 years old, is the longest-serving member of the U.S. Senate. He has sat on the Appropriations Committee for 50 years, and for the last two decades has been the panel's chairman or ranking minority member. His most recent tenure as chairman began in 2006 when the Democrats won back the Senate.
In his statement announcing he was stepping down, Byrd endorsed Inouye as his successor.
"Sen. Daniel Inouye has stood in line for many years and now his time has come.... He will be a skillful and fair chairman of the Appropriations Committee because he is a man of outstanding character and great wisdom," said Byrd.
The Commerce Committee also is an important body, having wide-ranging authority over the telecommunications, aviation, auto and fisheries industries.
It isn't immediately clear who will fill the top job at the Commerce Committee.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.V., is second in command of the committee, but he also is chairman of the Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee, and it isn't certain he would abandon that chairmanship for the Commerce assignment.
No. 3 is Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., but he is now in line to take over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the announcement Thursday that Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., doesn't intend to take over that panel.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden will vacate the foreign relations post once he is sworn in in January.
Dodd, who was in line to succeed him, said Thursday he preferred to stick with his current role as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, where he will continue to play a pivotal role in dealing with the financial crisis.
There are also rumors that Kerry could be on the short list to become President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of state.
If neither Rockefeller nor Kerry take the helm of the Commerce Committee, it would be left to Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to take the chairmanship. Dorgan is in his third term representing North Dakota, having previously represented the state in the House of Representatives for a dozen years.
-By Corey Boles, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6601; corey.boles@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 07, 2008 17:10 ET (22:10 GMT)

Publié le 07 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones