Waxman Has a Few Questions for Bank CEO’s

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is again focusing on the hard-to-fathom salaries of financial executives, writing to the CEO’s of the nine banks that were partly nationalized as part of the Treasury Dept.’s $700- billion rescue plan.

Waxman, chair of the House oversight committee, points out that Treasury spent a More…

Bush’s Last-Minute Environmental Deregulations

The Clean Air Act is one of the signature laws that gives regulatory authority to the Environmental Protection Agency.

But the Bush administration, especially under EPA head Stephen Johnson, has weakened ozone standards and ignored a U.S. Supreme Court order to use the law to regulate greenhouse gases that More…

Shocked, Shocked by Financial Breakdown

A congressional hearing on federal regulators’ role in the financial crisis began with a striking admission.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who lawmakers regularly referred to as “the Oracle” at past hearings, admitted for the first time that he was “partially” wrong in how he monitored Wall Street from More…

Waxman to Greenspan: Were You Wrong?

“Partially,” answered Alan Greenspan, the former oracle and maestro of the Federal Reserve between 1987-2006.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a great hearing yesterday on the role that the credit rating agencies played in the financial system’s meltdown. Today’s hearing on federal regulators on Wall Street More…

Congress Saves Best for Blasting Rating Agencies

At the end of a five-hour excoriation of CEOs at credit-rating agencies, Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) said to the heads of Moody’s, Standard’s & Poor’s and Fitch: “Remember, we’re speaking from an institution, Congress, with lower ratings than yours.”

Congress doesn’t know what its next step will be in regulating More…

Rating Agencies Raced to the Bottom

The House oversight committee released a smattering of documents today from two big credit-rating agencies– Moody’s and Standard & Poor — on how they evaluated mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps. One letter shows that S&P decided to lower its standard in rating mortgage-backed securities simply to compete with More…

Ratings Agencies Accused of Rampant Ratings Fraud

“Is this simply a case that they got the assumptions wrong?” Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) asked a panel of experts on credit-rating agencies at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. “Or is there more to the story they’re not sharing with us?”

The panel, and most lawmakers More…

Credit Rating Agencies Getting Hammered

Confused about the financial crisis? The rise of mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps? So, it appears, were the credit ratings agencies — the companies that rated these financial instruments.

Since the federal government didn’t have authority to regulate the secondary mortgage market, it was up to the big CRA’s, More…

How Not to Pass a Defense Bill

The House Financial Services Committee, on Sept. 24, grilled Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson Jr. about the $700-billion financial bailout plan. The high-profile hearing signaled that lawmakers were not going to pass just any rescue bill before recessing to campaign.

But that same day, More…

This Bloch Party’s Over

Scott Bloch, director of the Office of Special Counsel, is now set to resign, effective Jan. 5. Bloch has drawn some unwanted attention to the federal agency that investigates whistleblower complaints from federal employees, including examples of partisan politicking in the bureaucracy. He hired “Geeks on Call” to scrub More…