Blog Post

Today marks the last day of the "The Food Stamp Challenge" by four Members of Congress - Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO). The Food Stamp Challenge is a public awareness initiative where public officials only eat food totaling $21 dollars for a week, the national average food stamp budget, to raise awareness of the Food Stamp program. These House Members have been blogging about their experiences at http://foodstampchallenge.typepad.com/.

From the Science Committee:

House Advances Major U.S. Competitiveness, Science/Math Education Package

(Washington, DC) Today, the U.S. House of Representatives followed through on a commitment to insure U.S. students, teachers, businesses and workers are prepared to continue leading the world in innovation, research and technology -- well into the future.

Today, Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sánchez sent a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, offering the White House one last chance at cooperation with the Committee's ongoing investigation into the US Attorney firings and noted that the evidence to date indicated that the White House played a central role in the matter. Conyers and Sánchez warned that absent voluntary cooperation, the Committee would be left with no alternative but to resort to compulsory process to obtain the needed information:

A sample of hearings scheduled for Tuesday, May 22, 2007:

Armed Services -- Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

9:00 am: Training of Iraqi Security Forces and the Use of Transition Teams

Foreign Affairs Committee

10:00 am: Iraq: Is Reconstruction Failing?

Homeland Security Committee

10:00 am: Homeland Security Department Role in Gulf Coast Recovery

Speaker Pelosi was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos for ABC's This Week on Iraq, immigration reform, upcoming legislation on lobby reform and on her experience as Speaker. On Iraq she said, "The point is about accountability. The American people want accountability, and that is where the President refuses to listen.

Speaker Pelosi delivered the commencement address at the University of San Francisco's McLaren School of Business saying, "We know that America's world leadership will be secured by those who operate on the frontier of knowledge and discovery. From the beginning of our nation, that frontier has been aggressively expanded by young people, who are not wedded to old ways of thinking, or daunted by the encumbrances of the past or the present." Below are her remarks as prepared:

As noted yesterday, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy (pdf) declaring their opposition to a 3.5% pay raise for the troops and an additional $40 per month for widows of slain soldiers, as well as additional benefits for surviving family members of civilian employees and price controls for prescription drugs under TRICARE.