Blog Post

Washington, D.C. -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement today on the troubling jobs report from the Labor Department, which showed that the U.S. economy lost 63,000 jobs in February, the largest monthly job decline in nearly five years:

The Oversight Committee is currently holding a hearing, "Executive Compensation II: CEO Pay and the Mortgage Crisis." The hearing is to examine the compensation and retirement packages granted to the CEOs of three corporations deeply involved in the current mortgage crisis.

The House has just passed H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act by a vote of 268-148. This bipartisan legislation will end discrimination against patients seeking treatment for mental illnesses by prohibiting insurers and group health plans from imposing treatment or financial limitations when they offer mental health benefits that are more restrictive from those applied to medical and surgical services.

From the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming:

Markey: Bush Renewable Energy Stance--Not Made in the USA

WIREC Speech Highlights Bush Admin. Opposition to Renewable Incentive Programs, Binding Emissions Limits

The Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia and the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight are currently holding a hearing, "Declaration and Principles: Future U.S.

This afternoon the Education and Labor Committee held a hearing to examine how to improve nutrition and food safety in the nation's schools. Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture ordered the largest recall of meat in the nation's history after investigations revealed that meat from non-ambulatory (or "downer") cows at a California slaughterhouse had been allowed to enter the food supply. More than a third of the tainted meat had gone to federal nutrition programs, including to schools.

Americans are now paying the price for years of a failed energy policy that has resulted in record energy costs, a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and the rising threat of global warming. The price of a barrel of oil is now four times higher than it was when President Bush took office and more expensive than in 1980.