House

To the surprise of no one, the House approved sweeping reforms to the credit card industry Thursday, including provisions banning retroactive rate increases, warning card owners 45 days in advance of rate increases and giving consumers more time to pay their bills.
The vote was 357 to 70. Several consumer-friendly amendments were added during floor debate, [...]

The two leading House Democrats on environmental policy are expected to unveil a major energy and climate bill today with more ambitious goals than recent competing proposals, according to The New York Times.
The Times has caught wind of some of the details of the bill, drafted by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) [...]

The Democrats’ ginormous $787 billion stimulus bill passed the House this afternoon, without a lick of Republican support. The count was 246 to 183, with seven Democrats opposing the measure, and another (Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski) voting present.

Either it was very timely or very untimely.
This afternoon, we ran a story on a controversial provision in the Senate stimulus bill providing a $15,000 tax credit for homebuyers. No more than 25 minutes after we published, congressional leaders announced that the differences between the House and Senate bills had been ironed out, and it [...]

How badly do lawmakers want to get out of Washington for the scheduled week-long Presidents Day recess? Well, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) just announced that it took only one day of House-Senate negotiations to reach a compromise between the two chambers’ stimulus bills. From The Associated Press:
Several Democratic officials said there was an [...]

Is there an echo in here?
In The New York Times today, op-ed columnist David Brooks blasts the Democrats’ House-passed stimulus package with the charge that it doesn’t meet the “timely, targeted and temporary” criteria pushed by supporters:
In a fateful decision, Democratic leaders merged the temporary stimulus measure with their permanent domestic agenda — including big [...]

The vote was 244 to 188, with no Republicans supporting the bill.
Repeat: Zero Republicans voted for the bill.

Place this in the “legislative-futility” column.
Just a few hours after the Senate voted yesterday to grant the Obama administration its request for the second $350 billion in Wall Street bailout cash, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) said the lower chamber will still consider its bailout-reform bill next week. From Pelosi’s statement:

Literally.
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.

Not Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) if he can help it.
As Mike flagged yesterday, Waxman, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, will challenge Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) for the post of House Energy and Commerce Committee chair. Waxman called Dingell this morning. A Dingell spokesman has called the challenge “unhealthy.”
Dingell [...]