The congressman in the 7th District is Democrat Edward Markey, first elected in 1976 at age 30, and now dean of the Massachusetts delegation, and indeed the delegations from the rest of New England. He grew up in Malden, where his father was a milkman. He graduated from Malden Catholic High, Boston College, and Boston College law school, then immediately was elected to the state House, at age 26. In 1976, he ran for the U.S. House and won a 12-candidate primary with 22% of the vote. Now he ranks ninth in House seniority. Read More

The congressman in the 7th District is Democrat Edward Markey, first elected in 1976 at age 30, and now dean of the Massachusetts delegation, and indeed the delegations from the rest of New England. He grew up in Malden, where his father was a milkman. He graduated from Malden Catholic High, Boston College, and Boston College law school, then immediately was elected to the state House, at age 26. In 1976, he ran for the U.S. House and won a 12-candidate primary with 22% of the vote. Now he ranks ninth in House seniority.

In his first years in the House, Markey made his name as a fierce opponent of nuclear power plants and as a crusader for the nuclear freeze (a popular idea among progressives in the early 1980s). Speaker Tip O’Neill put him in a position to be a serious legislator in the House from early on, with a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and he has long since become one of the House’s most legislatively productive and creative members. Impressed by the high-tech boom around Route 128, he joined the communications subcommittee early. In 1985, after only eight years in the House, he became chairman of the Energy Conservation and Power Subcommittee. In 1987, with help from Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., who liked aggressive and loyal younger Democrats, Markey became chairman of the telecommunications subcommittee. This is one of the plum positions in the House, with lucrative possibilities for fundraising, and with subject matter that is intellectually more demanding (and, in lobbying terms, more fiercely contested) than almost anything else in Congress.

Markey has been an important shaper of public policy, often working with Republicans, often coming up with original initiatives, knowledgeable about the workings of the industries he oversees, and often inclined toward deregulation, though he can just as often be found siding with consumers. In 1992, he shrewdly produced the cable television regulation bill with enough support that Congress was able to override President George H.W. Bush’s veto—the only bill passed over his veto. Markey’s influence was not greatly reduced when he became ranking minority member in 1995; bills in these areas are hard to pass without bipartisan consensus. He was a major player in the passage of the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996. He has been an impetus as well behind the transition to digital television. He and Dingell pressed in 2005 to have the government pay for the converter boxes that would be required on old sets after digital television became universal in 2009. In 2007, he called on the Federal Communications Commission to regulate children’s program advertising for unhealthy foods.

On the big telecom issues during the Bush administration, Markey favored allowing regional Bell and satellite companies to compete with cable companies locally (and cable companies compete with others nationally) in providing broadband and other Internet services, but only with a requirement that new entrants serve all video customers in a geographic area. He has been a booster of so-called “net neutrality,” which would prohibit Internet carriers from charging higher fees to big-volume users like Google and Yahoo. “If we don’t protect the openness of the Internet for entrepreneurial activity, we’re ruining a wonderful model for low-barrier entry, innovation, and job creation,” Markey said. In 2010, he sought to have the Federal Communications Commission national broadband plan accommodate those with disabilities using Internet TV and questioned whether Google’s collection of information from private WiFi networks and its Street View feature, which allows close-up views of specific streets and buildings, violated privacy laws.

In 2007, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi picked Markey to be chairman of a Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. This was an attempt to get around Dingell, who as chairman of the Energy Committee, had resisted efforts to toughen auto emissions standards. When Dingell strenuously objected, she announced the select committee would not have authority to propose legislation, but she gave Markey free rein to hold hearings and travel widely—often with Pelosi—to make the case for a far-reaching bill to curb global warming. In 2007, Markey, working closely with Pelosi, proposed an increase in fuel-efficiency standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2018. The domestic auto industry and the United Auto Workers union criticized the plan as extreme and said that it would impose a far lower burden on foreign companies. Their allies backed a 2022 deadline and more-flexible terms. Dingell’s resistance to including the provision in that year’s energy bill led to extended negotiations. The bill that was passed and signed by President George W. Bush set the 35 miles per gallon standard for 2020, the first increase in the fuel-efficiency standards since 1975. Markey has long opposed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and has sought to declare it a wilderness area. When gasoline prices surged in 2008, he unsuccessfully urged the Bush administration to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He has long been a proponent of tougher regulation of nuclear power, and proposed a ban on radioactive materials used in dirty bombs in 2009. Markey criticized the 2008 U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal as a “historic mistake.”

After the 2008 election, California Democrat Henry Waxman defeated Dingell for the chairmanship of the full Energy and Commerce Committee, and Markey became chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee while retaining the select committee gavel. Now Pelosi had the people she needed in place to achieve the Democrats’ goal of an 85% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, along with a cap-and-trade program that would allow companies to buy and sell emissions credits with the overall goal of reducing emissions. “The stars are aligned for great change,” Markey told the Boston Globe in January 2009.

But bringing about that change meant imposing higher costs on regions dependent on coal-generated electricity and Markey, working closely with Waxman, strove to propitiate adverse interests. The original Obama budget counted on revenues from carbon emission permits, but Waxman and Markey agreed that 85% of them would in early years be provided free to coal-using utilities and others. Markey worked with Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., on provisions affecting farmers and biofuel producers; he worked with oil and gas interests, with the auto industry, and with manufacturers generally to gain their support, or at least, reduce their level of opposition. The Congressional Budget Office said that the bill would cost average households less than $200 a year, which helped blunt Republicans’ characterization of the bill as “cap-and-tax.” He got support from leading corporations—Nike, Starbucks, Exelon, Symantec, and PG&E. After fierce negotiations, the bill came to the floor in June 2009 and passed 219-212. Markey said that passage of the bill showed the power in bringing business and consumer interests together “to create a pathway that works for both.”

He also gamely predicted that the Senate would pass a bill. But it was not to be. In the Senate, many Democrats had reservations about the bill, and the only Republicans pursuing bipartisan alternatives, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine, were pushing very different approaches. Majority Leader Harry Reid first said he would schedule cap-and-trade and then reneged. Markey’s energy bill died for the remainder of the 111th Congress (2009-10).

But Markey continued to be productive legislatively on other fronts. He and Peter Welch, D-Vt., were able to pass a bill with tax rebates for energy-efficient home improvements, dubbed “cash for caulkers.” In response to the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, he repeatedly pressed BP and the Obama administration for specifics on how much oil was leaking. In June, he proposed a new commission with power to subpoena BP’s internal records and he held a subcommittee hearing that month in which he excoriated top executives of five oil companies, noting that four of them had response plans that detailed steps to deal with walruses, which are not found in the Gulf of Mexico. Closer to home, he backed the Cape Wind project, a wind farm proposed off the coast of Cape Cod that has stirred protests from the cape’s wealthy second-homeowners.

From his seat on the Homeland Security Committee, Markey has worked on air cargo security issues. In 2003, his proposal to require screening of all air cargo passed the House easily, but it was opposed by the Bush administration and went nowhere in the Senate. He claimed victory late in 2007 when President Bush signed a bill requiring inspection of all freight on commercial passenger planes. And he continued to push for mandatory inspections of all-cargo aircraft.

For many years, Markey coveted a Senate seat. In 1984, he wanted to run for the seat vacated by Democrat Paul Tsongas but deferred to then-Lt. Gov. John Kerry, who went on to win the seat. In 2004, he was again disappointed when Kerry lost the presidential contest and remained in the Senate. In September 2009, after the death of Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy produced the first vacant Massachusetts Senate seat in 25 years, he declined to run, and the Democratic nomination went to state Attorney General Martha Coakley. Markey has been re-elected in the 7th District without difficulty.