Kilgore would be a great recruit. His brother won the 9th District by 12 points, his best showing in the entire state, during a lackluster run for governor in a bad Republican year. In 2008, John McCain carried the district over Barack Obama by 19 points. It’s the kind of seat that the GOP stopped targeting while playing defense in 2006 and 2008, but Boucher’s support for cap-and-trade legislation has it looking again.

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.

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.