waxman

It may not be big news compared to the stimulus and cabinet confirmations, but congressional Republicans just won their first battle of the Obama administration, defeating a bill that was backed by the president to delay the nationwide switch to digital television.
The vote, which stands to leave more than 6.5 million households without TV access [...]

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 [...]

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 combined $121 billion to buttress these banks, [...]

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 cause global warming.  Even though Johnson and [...]

In four hours of testimony before the House oversight committee, the former Fed chairman admitted that his belief that markets will self-regulate was flawed. But as the hearing wore on, he was back to his old confident self, fending off calls for more regulation.

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 Wall Street after the financial meltdown. [...]

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 Moody’s.

Esquire has released its rankings of “the 10 best members of Congress.”
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), a 34-year House veteran, tops the list — he’s credited with holding the Bush administration accountable, as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, while others have been unwilling or indecisive.

Former CEOs insist at congressional hearings that larger market forces, rather than decisions made by executives, caused Wall Street to unravel.

The House oversight committee is holding a hearing now on the collapse of Lehman Bros. and the financial crisis generally. This hearing– and four others– will likely provide hints of how Congress, post-bailout bill, will try to revamp how the government polices Wall Street.
The committee has produced internal Lehman Bros. documents that show Lehman CEO [...]