One day after solar company Solyndra closed its doors, two U.S. congressman are asking the White House for all documents related to the federal government’s $535 million loan guarantee. The probe also seeks correspondence between administration officials and the company’s investors, seeking to uncover if the White House engaged in cronyism to reward a major campaign donor. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) was pursuing an investigation of the Department of Energy’s $535 million loan long before Solyndra announced plans to file for bankruptcy. Now, using his perch as chairman of the House …
The House Ways and Means Committee welcomes former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a 2008 Republican presidential candidate, to testify on alternative tax systems. The hearing will examine the value-added tax and FairTax. It will also explore consumption tax and the issues surrounding it. Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) will speak at today’s Bloggers Briefing at Heritage. The freshman lawmaker serves on the Budget, Transportation & Infrastructure, and Oversight & Government Reform committees. He will be joined by Iain Murray, CEI’s vice president for strategy, and author of “Stealing You Blind.” Finally, Sam …
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce holds a hearing today in response to the National Labor Relations Board’s recent proposal to dramatically alter union election procedures. “Rushing Union Elections: Protecting the Interests of Big Labor at the Expense of Workers’ Free Choice” begins at 10 a.m. Expect the hearing to reveal the potential impact the proposed rule will have on employers and workers. Lachlan Markay will be on hand to report from Capitol Hill. Heritage Senior Policy Analyst Jena Baker-McNeill will also be on the Hill today to testify …
President Obama’s hometown of Chicago is nearly 1,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. But like many other communities across the country, it is suffering the consequences of his Administration’s anti-drilling agenda. Illinois accounted for $376.2 million in shallow-water drilling expenditures over the past three years, according to an analysis by 14 oil and gas companies that spend money on vendors and subcontractors. The bulk of that money—$242.2 million—was spent in the Chicago district represented by Representative Danny Davis (D–IL). It’s fresh evidence that Obama’s anti-drilling agenda is having a …
NPR put out a story this week on congressional oversight of homeland security. Currently, 108 Committees and Subcommittees have oversight over the Department of Homeland Security. The story includes a diagram of this oversight that should make heads spin. For some, this might seem like cute clip-art, but this is actually a nightmare for policy implementation at DHS. The oversight is a huge workload for the Department—and it also leads to conflicting messages from Congress. For example, one committee says X, another subcommittee says Y, and neither Committee nor Subcommittee …
In the U.S. House of Representatives, new legislation to prepare for and prevent WMD attacks must go through not one, not two, not three, but EIGHT separate committees before it can be enacted—a process that insures it will never become law. In the Senate, when legislators tried to create a single committee with jurisdiction over homeland security the result was a feeding frenzy of parochial Senators who stripped so much from the committee that it wound up overseeing only one-third of the Department of Homeland Security. Oversight of the Department …
The $700 billion financial rescue that the House will vote on today is a significant improvement over the drafts released last Friday, and the Friday before that. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the plan will eventually cost “substantially less” than the oft-quoted amount of $700 billion, and it even has the chance of making taxpayers money. Taxpayers will receive warrants from the firms that sell distressed assets to the government and, if after five years the plan has lost money, a fee will be assessed upon financial institutions to …
There is no doubt that past government intervention in the market, particularly by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is largely to blame for the current financial turmoil. And while past government intervention cannot be used to justify further government interference, we also have to ask how much unnecessary pain the economy must bear. Absent action along the lines proposed by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, capital markets at home and worldwide would eventually normalize. But how many large and small companies are going to have to fail to make payroll because …
Seven years removed from the attacks of September 11, 2001, what are the key next steps for homeland security? In a testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Management, Investigations, and Oversight, I provided several answers to that question; my first answer, consolidation of congressional oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. At a forum hosted by the Heritage foundation on the subject, Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL), ranking member of the same subcommittee, stated that “Congress has protected its prerogatives and privileges at the expense of oversight.” …
Congress has often criticized the Department of Homeland Security for its short comings, however in many ways Congress itself is to blame. When DHS was created 22 agencies and almost 200,000 people were pulled together into one entity. However, despite the 9/11 Commissions recommendation that congressional oversight should be consolidated, there still remains some 86 congressional committees and subcommittees with oversight over DHS. “The risk of too much oversight” is extensive, as deputy assistant secretary for policy development at the Department of Homeland Security Stephen R. Heifetz explained in a …
