In a letter yesterday to GAO, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and John Lewis (D-Ga.) voiced concerns that the companies are “artificially raising prices for certain pharmaceutical products in expectation of new reforms that could otherwise reduce prescription drug prices or price growth by encouraging patients and the government to be more efficient purchasers.”

Any price gouging is unacceptable, but anticipatory price gouging is especially offensive. We request that the GAO prepare on an expedited basis a report that analyzes recent trends in prescription drug pricing. In addition, we request that you prepare a proposal to ensure ongoing monitoring of pharmaceutical manufacturer pricing practices, and periodically report to the Congress on your findings.

Not that the pharmaceutical industry is taking the Times’ report sitting down. In a statement released Monday, Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the price increases represent “the natural result of market forces.”

Among the most vocal opponents of the initial draft was Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee who represents the entirety of coal-rich Southwestern Virginia. Boucher hinged his vote for the environmental bill on the addition of tens of billions of dollars in pollution-permit giveaways to the coal industry and the utility companies that rely on it — concessions that worked their way into the final bill.

Today, we learn anew how the laws of reciprocity work in Washington.

In the months surrounding the climate change negotiations, the political committees for the largest energy and manufacturing interests — including the mining, gas and electric industries — showered Boucher with more than $51,000 in campaign cash, according to second-quarter disclosure forms posted today by the Federal Election Commission.

Donors included local Virginia interests, like Richmond-based energy giant Dominion ($2,500), but also a long list of out-of-state companies who have no interest in being held financially liable for the emissions they spew. Among them are Tennessee-based Eastman Chemical ($2,500), California’s Occidental Petroleum Corporation ($2,500) and New Jersey-based NRG Energy ($1,000). The list goes on — and this doesn’t include the executives and other employees of these companies who donated to Boucher on their own. (More on that later).

For the year, Boucher’s take from energy interests is roughly $110,000, the FEC forms reveal. Not bad for a guy who won his last reelection bid with 97 percent of the vote.

Tuesday’s hearing, the first day at which amendments to the bill were presented, extended late into the night, but just six amendments were put to a vote, and Chairman Henry Waxman’s (D-Calif.) goal of voting on the bill today appeared to be in serious danger. Yet just now, Ranking Member Joe Barton (D-Texas), who had pledged to wreak havoc on the proceedings, said that the Republicans were planning just ten more amendments. The committee now hopes to wrap things up by around 7 p.m. tonight.

What led to the Republican change of heart? Republicans may be disheartened by the fairly unified Democratic front thus far — the moderates they were hoping to pick off on some votes have largely toed the party line as Republican amendment after Republican amendment has been rejected. Or maybe they simply can’t bear the thought of another week of long hearings, when a sense of inevitability surrounding the bill’s passage (in the House, at least) has set in.

Last night, the Republicans forfeited another card they had up their sleeves by agreeing not to force a reading of the 946-page bill. But Barton didn’t want Douglas Wilder, the speed reader the Democrats hired as a precaution to go to waste.

“I may force the reading of a five-page amendment just to hear that young man read,” Barton said.

Waxman responded that he thought the Democratic leadership had let the reader go after the Republican pledge last night not to force a reading. But it was soon discovered that he was present, and Barton requested a reading of an amendment he had just introduced.

And so Wilder set to work, churning out the bureaucratic language atop the amendment at an impressive clip. After about 20 seconds of reading, Barton cut him off and withdrew his request for a reading. Wilder drew a big round of applause from everyone present.

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House lawmakers took a step today to change that, passing legislation placing tobacco products under the regulatory eye of the FDA. But as evidence of just how slowly Washington works (and how powerful industries can be), the fate of the bill is uncertain in the Senate, where some regional protectionists have vowed to kill it.

The New York Times describes the bill:

As passed by the House the legislation would set up a new F.D.A. office, financed by industry fees, with powers to restrict harmful chemicals in existing tobacco products — including nicotine and possibly, after further study, menthol. The F.D.A. would also be empowered to approve or reject new tobacco products and to expand marketing restrictions and warning labels.

Among the changes, the bill would prohibit tobacco ads within 1,000 feet of schools and require companies to disclose the ingredients of their products. The FDA would not have the power to eliminate tobacco products outright.

A decade ago, the FDA tried to regulate tobacco, but the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that Congress must specifically empower the agency to monitor the industry. Bill sponsor Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who now heads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has been trying to do just that for years.

He’s almost there. President Obama supports the bill. The only potential deal-killer could come in the Senate, where North Carolina GOP Sen. Richard Burr has vowed a filibuster, The Times reports.

Is it 2009 or 1709? How the Senate votes will give us the answer.

He opened his statement at a congressional hearing yesterday as follows: “Today’s hearing is about adaptation. Adapting is a common natural way for people to adapt to their environment.”

Can’t argue with that. More questionable is his assessment of global warming in the same hearing:

“I think that it’s inevitable that humanity will adapt to global warming. I also believe the longer we postpone finding ways to do it successfully, the more expensive and unpalatable the adjustment will become. Adaptation to shifts in temperature is not that difficult. What will be difficult is the adaptation to rampant unemployment — enormous, spontaneous and avoidable changes to our economy — if we adopt such a reckless policy as cap-and-tax or cap-and-trade.”

If that seems dubious to you, here’s his solid evidence that adaptation has worked in the past: “During the Little Ice Age, both the Vikings and the British adapted to the cold by changing. I suppose that one possible adaptation response of Viking retrenchment and British expansion is that we’re conducting the hearing today in English instead of Norwegian.”

Irrefutable logic. Remember, this guy used to be chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The future of our planet was basically in his hands.

But I can’t do him justice. Watch the full clip below:

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It was no mystery that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Cal.) was intent on making environment-friendly changes when he swept the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee from beneath auto-friendly Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) in November. And this week, that house-cleaning began in earnest.

In a reshuffling that will remove several Dingell allies from key environmentally sensitive posts, Waxman melded two E&C subcommittees — the Energy & Air Quality panel and the Environment & Hazardous Materials panel — to form the Energy and Environment subcommittee, of which Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) will be the chairman, the Boston Globe reported today.

Markey, who also heads the House committee on energy independence and global warming, has long been among the most fervent congressional environmentalists, pushing for increased fuel efficiency standards and protection of the Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, among a long list of pet causes.

Displaced in Waxman’s reorganization will be Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat who has long protected the interests of Big Coal. Boucher, who heads the soon-to-be-disbanded Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee, will instead take control of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, a post currently held by Markey. Rep. Gene Green (D-Tex.), another Dingell ally who now heads the soon-to-be-extinct Environment & Hazardous Materials panel, is apparently out of a chairmanship.

Grist writer David Roberts has a nice wrap-up today of the implications of all this reshuffling:

This gives Markey a one-two punch: he can craft and help pass climate/energy legislation through the Subcommittee while using the Select Committee to educate other committee chairs about how the issue affects their jurisdictions. I can’t think of another committee chair who has the same kind of megaphone with which to drum up support for his own legislation, in the House and among the public.

With this move, Pelosi’s House further cements itself as the likely force for boldness on climate/energy issues in coming years. The Speaker is by all accounts a sincere and committed greenie. She has Waxman at the helm of the relevant committee. She has Markey running the relevant subcommittee and doing education/advocacy. Dingell and his allies — the go-slow lobby — have been cleared away. All systems are go.

Dingell, who’s represented Dearborn, Mich., for 27 terms, has been a long-time defender of Detroit’s automakers — a force who’s been a thorn in the side of environmentalists who have pushed for stricter emissions standards and more efficient American cars. Waxman has long-sided with the environmentalists on those issues, and is seen as more closely aligned with President-elect Barack Obama’s ambitious energy wishlist.

Later today, we’ll have a piece detailing the significance of Waxman’s victory.

Tomorrow, the entire House Democratic caucus will vote to decide the ultimate winner.

A great deal hinges on the outcome. Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress, has close ties to Detroit’s automakers. For decades he’s led efforts to thwart the plans of some other Democrats to limit tailpipe emissions and raise fuel-efficiency standards. Waxman, just elected to his 18th term, has long advocated for these changes. With an Obama administration set to take the White House in January, environmentalists are drooling at the thought that the liberal Californian could be the gatekeeper to many of Obama’s ambitious green-energy plans — which would have to pass through the Energy and Commerce Committee.

There are no forgone conclusions. Dingell is monolith with enormous sway over his colleagues. But Waxman, as today’s vote proves, is no slacker when it comes to whipping support. Indeed, he’s won contests against seniority before.

After being elected to his third term in Congress in 1978, Waxman took on Rep. Richardson Preyer (D-N.C.) for chairman of the health subcommittee under what was then the House Commerce Committee. Trouble was, Preyer, a six-term veteran, not only had seniority on the panel but also enjoyed the backing of Democratic leaders.

No matter.

Waxman lined up supporters and won. A January 1979 report in the Washington Post called the battle “one of the hardest-fought contests ever held for a subcommittee post.”

“The 15-to-12 vote against Preyer was a defeat for the seniority system and members of the leadership who had backed Preyer,” the Post wrote, “and a victory for labor, consumer and environmental groups and junior members who had backed Waxman.”

The big domestic issue of the day was health care. President Jimmy Carter was pushing legislation tackling rising hospital costs and health insurance policy. Representing North Carolina, Preyer was naturally a defender of the tobacco industry, which made him no friend of cancer groups. Also, his family was heavily invested in the pharmaceutical industry. Critics, including Waxman, accused him of having conflicts of interest.

In March 1989, National Journal reported Waxman’s rationale for seeking the subcommittee gavel:

Preyer’s defense of the tobacco industry and his family’s ties to a major pharmaceutical company, Waxman maintained, would have made Preyer a less-effective health advocate.

Sound vaguely familiar?

Fast-forward 30 years. Congress is soon to grapple with energy policy. President-elect Barack Obama said last week that, after the economy, energy independence will be his priority. Much of the legislation will necessarily pass through the Energy and Commerce Committee. Yet, like Preyer and his drug companies, Dingell has close ties to Detroit’s automakers. Many Democrats and environmentalists have been at odds with him for years over his protectionism of the state’s famously regional industry.

Waxman, on the other hand, is an avid environmentalist who clearly sees the arrival of the Obama administration as a rare opportunity to make great strides on fuel-efficiency standards and other Democratic energy priorities.

Get your popcorn. This one’s going to be good.

What happens then? Well, next in line to head the oversight committee is Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.). The 13-term Towns is popular in Brooklyn, where 94 percent of voters just secured his return to Washington. But he has a troubled past with one mighty-important member of the party: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.).

The reason is simple: In 2005, Towns was among just 15 House Democrats to support the Republican-sponsored Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. He was also mysteriously absent for a vote on a GOP budget bill later in the year. Both controversial measures passed by the razor-thin margin of 217-215.

Pelosi, reportedly, was furious, threatening to strip Towns of his highly coveted E&C membership. That wasn’t all. After the Democrats took the House in 2006, Towns, who was due to chair the E&C health subcommittee, didn’t get the seat. Instead, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) was given the nod.

Next in line after Towns on the oversight panel is Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D), a moderate Pennsylvanian. Does Pelosi hold a grudge that long? We might know soon enough.