Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) has been elected ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, making him the top Democrat on the committee that shares oversight of communications.

He is succeeding Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who is retiring at the end of the current congressional session.

Pallone had the seniority, but ranking Communications Subcommittee member Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) had also been in the running.

The chairman of the committee is Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

Pallone will be starting his 14th term in January. He has been mostly focused on environmental and healthcare issues, rather than communications, while Eshoo has been a prominent voice in network neutrality, retrans and media consolidation issues, not to mention championing the Commercial Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM).