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.
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 More…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
Three weeks after the Federal Reserve threw an $85-billion lifeline to the American International Group, the Fed gave another loan Wednesday to the world’s biggest insurer. This extra money could total $37.8 billion. An AIG spokesman said the second lifeline is necessary to deal with an “extraordinary situation in the More…
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 More…
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