Congresspedia Preview: This Week in Congress (July 20-26, 2008)

With three weeks left before the August recess, both parties are scrambling to pass something - anything - addressing the two issues at the fore of everyone's minds and evening newscasts: the housing/mortgage crisis and high gas prices. The former seems to be a broad-based, serious effort that may help the situation, but the latter has devolved into the usual kabuki political theater.

The major housing/mortgage crisis relief bill may receive final votes in both the House and Senate this week. The Bush administration asked Congress last week to include help for government-sponsored mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the form of a higher credit limit with the U.S. Treasury and the possibility of a government buy-up of their stock. In exchange, congressional Democrats reiterated their support for a $4 billion program to provide funding to local governments to buy up, refurbish and sell foreclosed homes, which President Bush had previously threatened to veto the bill over. Now it's a question of who blinks first.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are also each trying to pass their own legislation to address high gas prices. Democrats have decided to target oil speculators through bills like the Energy Markets Emergency Act of 2008 while also trying to freeze out efforts by Republicans to open the Outer Continental Shelf and Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. Neither approach is likely to have much effect on gas prices in either the long or short run, however, so at this point both parties are just trying to avoid the wrath of voters and head into the August recess having passed something (or at least have a good story about the obstructionism of the other side).

The House will also likely take up the global aids funding bill passed by the Senate last week and consider a $1 billion, 10-year plan to systematically inspect and repair the nation's bridges and tunnels.

Complete schedules of the week's committee hearings are beyond the jump.

Hearings Schedules:

July 22, 2008

Senate

House

July 23, 2008

Senate

  • Committee on Environment and Public Works Hearings to examine the midwest floods, focusing in ways to determine what happened and how to improve managing risk and responses in the future. SD-406 9:30 am.
  • Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs - An oversight hearing to examine the Department of Veterans Affairs, focusing on responding to the needs of returning United States Guard and Reserve members. SR-418 9:30 am
  • Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources - Hearings to examine the status of existing federal programs targeted at reducing gasoline demand, focusing on additional proposals for near-term gasoline demand reductions. SD-366 9:45 am
  • Senate Committee on Foreign Relations - Hearings to examine the nominations of James Christopher Swan, of California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Djibouti, Alan W. Eastham, Jr., of Arkansas, to be Ambassador to the Republic of the Congo, and W. Stuart Symington, of Missouri, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Rwanda, all of the Department of State. SD-419 10:00 am
  • Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs - Hearings to examine information sharing, focusing on connecting the dots at the Federal, State, and Local levels. SD-342 10:00 am
  • Committee on the Judiciary - Hearings to examine courting big business, focusing on the Supreme Court’s recent decisions on corporate misconduct and laws regulating corporations. SD-226 10:00 am
  • Joint Economic Committee - Hearings to examine skyrocketing household costs and falling home prices, focusing on ways to help American families out of this crisis. SD-608 10:00 am.
  • Senate Committee on Appropriations - Oversight hearing to examine the adequacy of defense contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. SD-106 10:30 am
  • Senate Special Committee on  Aging - Hearings to examine person-centered care, focusing on reforming services and bringing elderly citizens back to the heart of society. SD-562 10:30 am
  • Senate Committee on the Judiciary - Hearings to examine the nominations of J. Patrick Rowan, of Maryland, and Jeffrey Leigh Sedgwick, of Massachusetts, both to be an Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice, and William B. Carr, Jr., of Pennsylvania, to be a Member of the United States Sentencing Commission. SD-226 2:00 pm.
  • Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs - Hearings to examine the nominations of Carol A. Dalton, Anthony C. Epstein, and Heidi M. Pasichow, all of the District of Columbia, all to be an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. SD-342 2:30 pm 
  • Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions: Subcommittee on Children and Families - Hearings to examine childhood obesity, focusing on declining health of America's next generation (Part II). SD-430 2:30 pm

House

July 24, 2008

Senate

House

July 25, 2008

Senate