Bay Area congressman topples panel leader as Trump battles loom

In his new position as ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources, Rep. Jared Huffman expects to clash early and often with the incoming Trump administration.

Huffman, a Marin County resident, was elected to the position this week after challenging Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona. Grijalva had led the committee’s Democrats for 10 years.

“This is a big development,” said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University. “It’s a big development for him personally and a big development for his North Coast district. This makes Jared hugely influential.”

Huffman, 60, is one of three Democrats who recently ousted more senior members of their party from positions of leadership. The changing of the guard has led some to speculate that the party is embarking on a youth movement in response to their election losses in November.

“There clearly is a longer-running generational change happening within the California Democratic Caucus and the party nationally,” McCuan said. “Democrats have faced a problem of aging leadership since 2016.”

Grijalva, 76, was frequently absent from votes during much of 2024 because of cancer treatments.

“It became pretty untenable to head into the next Congress with everything that we knew was coming at us,” Huffman said. “I felt I had to put myself forward. Unfortunately, I was unable to work out an arrangement with Mr. Grijalva, so I had to challenge him.”

Grijalva, who was the second House Democrat to call on President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race, announced on Dec. 2 that he would not seek to retain his committee leadership role.

“After much thought, I have decided that it is the right moment to pass the torch,” he said in a statement.

Soon after, Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat from New Mexico, jumped into the race. Stansbury is 45.

“Grijalva was obviously pretty unhappy that he had been challenged and had to withdraw,” Huffman said, “so he encouraged her to run and endorsed her.”

On Monday, Huffman won a Democratic Steering and Policy Committee vote by 44 to 17. At that point, Stansbury dropped out, removing the necessity for a confirming vote by the full Democratic caucus.

In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump said his intent during his second term is to “drill, baby, drill” — referring to his support for the nation’s oil and gas industry.

Trump asserted during his campaign that increased use of cheaper fossil fuels would allow him to tame inflation and bring down prices.

Huffman said he is “ready for this fight.”

“I know exactly what’s coming, and I feel like if we are effective in pushing back, we should be able to bring the American people along with us,” he said.

Huffman said he expects the Trump administration to try to roll back royalties paid on the sale of oil and gas produced on federal lands; to eliminate incentives for electric vehicles, battery manufacturing and offshore wind energy projects funded by the Inflation Reduction Act; and “dramatically weaken our bedrock environmental laws so all the polluters and developers that donated to Trump’s campaign will have an easier path to pollute and to profit.”

Huffman concedes that the notion that more oil and gas production will make the nation’s economy stronger may have “superficial appeal” to some people, but said it is a false promise.

“We are awash in fossil fuel right now with record levels of production and exports,” Huffman said. “That hasn’t translated into lower prices at the pump for consumers, and we haven’t even talked about what it’s doing to the climate — the fact that climate disasters are rising in their level of destruction and the cost to taxpayers.”

Other younger Democrats who have recently moved up in the party’s pecking order include: Rep. Jamie Raskin, 61, of Maryland, who replaced Rep. Jerrold Nadler, 77, of New York as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee; and Rep. Angie Craig, 52, of Minnesota, who was elected as the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, defeating Rep. Jim Costa, 72, of California and Rep. David Scott, 79, of Georgia.

However, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 35, of New York lost her bid to become the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the 84-year-old former House speaker, opposed her. The post went to Gerry Connolly, 74, of Virginia, who announced in November that he has throat cancer.

“It’s not like our Democratic caucus wants to throw out every senior member and anoint every young member,” Huffman said. “It’s going to be case by case.”

Asked what, if anything, Democrats did wrong during the last election, Huffman said Biden “never should have run for reelection.”

“When he decided to run for reelection, it made it very hard to reach a lot of voters who were frustrated with things that they blamed Biden for,” Huffman said.

“I think some people around Biden shielded and protected him for too long and by the time it burst open on national TV at that debate, it was alarming.” he said. “I think you could fairly criticize the Biden team for not being honest and transparent about some of that for the full year preceding the debate.”

McCuan said Democrats remain divided over what changes to make to reverse their fortunes.

“They’re still somewhat in a shell-shocked pickle,” he said. “It’s unclear what the direction is. You see this even within California, where leaders want to be the center of the Trump resistance, but they also want to find places where they can work with the Trump administration.”