Browsing: Congress

Campaigning for presidential candidate Sen. John McCain hasn’t cost Sen. Joe Lieberman his coveted chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced this morning that Lieberman will retain his chairmanship, ending months of speculation of whether the Democrats would punish Lieberman for backing McCain publicly. Connecticut’s Lieberman is registered as an independent, though he caucuses with the Democrats. And it’s very clear that the vast majority of the Democratic Caucus wants to keep Sen. Lieberman as chairman of his committee, member of the Armed Services Committee, and that was done. It’s all…

You could say Sen. Ron Wyden is unhappy with Treasury’s actions on the Troubled Asset Relief Program. “It’s like Dodge City before the marshals show up,” said Wyden, D-Ore., bemoaning the lack of oversight into Treasury’s spending of $700 billion intended to unfreeze the credit markets. This analogy was thrown out at today’s Senate Finance Committee hearing regarding the nomination of Neil Barofsky as the special inspector general for TARP. The committee doesn’t have jurisdiction to deliberate on Barofsky’s nomination — that falls to the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday — but its members wanted to discuss their concerns with…

Existing agencies and departments could be called on to help implement new energy legislation, said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., this morning. Speaking this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said agencies may be playing bigger roles in energy reduction, should energy legislation be passed. That could include administering programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and carbon cap and trades. “A significant time and opportunity cost is associated with starting a new institution from scratch. We need to make good use of the existing institutions we have,” he…

It’s official: President-elect Barack Obama’s resigning his Senate seat effective this Sunday. Here’s Obama’s statement just e-mailed to the press from his transition team: It has been one of the highest honors and privileges of my life to have served the people of Illinois in the United States Senate.  In a state that represents the crossroads of a nation, I have met so many men and women who’ve taken different journeys, but hold common hopes for their children’s future.  It is these Illinois families and their stories that will stay with me as I leave the United States Senate and…

Looking for a job in the Obama administration? Then you should check out the Plum Book, the federal directory of leadership jobs released after every presidential election. The book was released today and contains more than 7,000 federal civil service leadership and support job descriptions in the legislative and executive branches. Of course, there’s no guarantee that all of the jobs will be filled when Obama takes office. It does, however, give you a look at the scope of opportunities available for you in certain sectors of the federal government (and could even help you get that ol’ resume ready!)…

A new Capitol Visitor Center. The center opened for media tours today, giving reporters and photographers their first chance to see the space that will soon greet every visitor to the Capitol. The space is located underground on the east front of the Capitol, but soaring skylights give you close up views of the Capitol dome, making you hardly feel like you’re in a basement or bunker. The CVC, which opens to the public Dec. 2, has been decades in the making. Like any government project, it took years to get underway, with construction starting six years ago. The initial…

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., announced this afternoon he’s stepping down as chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, effective Jan. 6, 2009. But Byrd, who’s never know for his succinctness, started out his statement with a little (unintentional?) humor. To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Which, of course, is a verse from Ecclesiastes from the Bible. But it’s also a lyric from the famous song by the sixties group The Byrds. The Byrds? Sen. Byrd? Oh, we’re just cracking ourselves up here. But seriously folks, Byrd’s expected to take on an honorary…

If you’re looking for tickets to President-Elect Barack Obama’s inauguration and parade, you may want to prepare yourself for disappointment. While stopping in various congressional offices today, I noticed one thing: the phones are ringing off the hook. In fact, all of the phone lines were ringing at once for five solid minutes in one representative’s office, and all of the callers had the same question: How do I get tickets? Aides told me tickets aren’t yet available, and some offices have started waiting lists. It’s likely that, due to demand, the majority of the inaugural tickets will be held…

A curious memo may halt spending on many earmarks intended for federal agencies. OMB Director Jim Nussle issued a memo Oct. 23 detailing conditions that must be met for agencies to spend earmarks embedded in the fiscal year 2009 continuing resolution, which also contains the Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans’ Affairs appropriations. In order for an agency to allocate funding for an earmark, the earmark must meet three conditions. They are: 1. It must have been in the FY 2008 appropriations bill; 2. It must continue in 2009 and beyond (no one-time, non-recurring projects or grants); and 3. The affected…

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