Congress: Changes Coming at Senate EPW Committee; House T&I Gets New Staff Chief

 Barrasso

News agencies reported that Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., confirmed he will chair the Environment and Public Works Committee when the new Senate takes office in January.

EPW is the principal Senate committee that designs legislation for highway and waterway transportation, and is currently chaired by James Inhofe, R-Okla., who was term-limited in that role.

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., will be the EPW minority’s new ranking member. He follows current ranking member Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who is retiring from the Senate.

In the House, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., continues as chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that has broad jurisdiction over all modal legislation. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., also continues as ranking T&I member. But the committee has a new top staffer.

Shuster recently announced he had promoted Matt Sturges to be the committee’s staff director, after Sturges has been deputy director since September 2014.

Sturges follows Chris Bertram, who left as T&I staff director last summer to co-found the B+S Strategies consultancy.

Earlier, Sturges was staff director for the T&I aviation subcommittee and was T&I’s director of member services. Before joining the committee he was legislative director for Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., and held other staff positions in Washington GOP offices.