Ask, and ye shall receive.

Earlier this week I lamented the conservative House Blue Dogs' ability to command the political spotlight in Washington while the larger Congressional Progressive Caucus seemed to sit on the sidelines. And now we have a sign that the left wing of the Democratic party is ready to flex its muscle.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler's (D-NY) office just mentioned that the Progressives are requesting a meeting with President-elect Obama "to discuss greatly increasing the size" of the economic recovery package. Nadler also rapped the House stimulus bill as too small to truly lift the nation out of recession, signaling a showdown to come over despite the legislation's likely weakening in the Senate.

Nadler's full statement after the jump.

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I'm starting to dig into the differences between House transportation panel chairman Jim Oberstar's $85 billion proposal for infrastructure funding in the stimulus bill (available for download on the right-hand side of the committee page) and the actual final product, released yesterday.

David Alpert at Greater Greater Washington has a chart that tells the tale well. But my first question is: Where did you go, Amtrak Joe?

When the perennially cash-poor train system got a $15 billion authorization signed by George Bush last fall, it represented a big win for Acela-loving Vice President-elect Biden. Now, however, it would seem that Biden's administration has given mass transit the short end of the stick.

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The sheer complexity of the $825 billion economic stimulus bill unveiled in the House yesterday means that it may take some time for stakeholders in the effort to digest the Democrats' spending choices. But the environmental community was on the ball right away, shooting out statements that were sadly little-noticed in the flood of news.

Green advocates mostly like the stimulus, particularly its investment in modernizing the nation's electricity grid and remodeling buildings to promote energy efficiency. But the transportation portion of the bill left several major environmental groups very underwhelmed -- and rightly so.

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While the Senate has decided to hand over the rest of the $700 billion to Barack Obama, the House has only started debating its bill imposing oversight and restrictions on the money.

I sound like a broken record, but it's a shame that the Senate didn't take up its own bill setting conditions on the new administration as it spends the cash. Especially since one of the two amendments adopted this afternoon was Rep. Patrick Murphy's (D-PA) plan to require the Federal Reserve to reveal the mysterious terms and contracts governing its purchase of mortgage-backed securities.

"We are only just starting to get details about the contracts with the Troubled Asset Relief Program and that is only after the threat of a subpoena - we cannot let history repeat itself," Murphy said after his amendment was unanimously approved.

Too bad such a good plan won't have the force of law because the Senate won't pass its own oversight bill!

You remember the mind-blowing New York Times reporton the Pentagon's program of seeding compliant military pundits on TV to promote the Iraq war, right? The Defense Department inspector general's office was required by law to release its investigation on the matter on Monday, but it's been a bit late.

Thankfully, Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH) was on the case with a classic strongly worded letter. So now the report is expected to drop tomorrow.

Despite skepticism, even in the environmental community, about the wisdom of the cap-and-trade system as a method for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon tax has never found much favor with Congress.

This is partly because of the T-word, which remains politically incendiary even after the devastating deficits launched by the Bush tax cuts. But the idea is perceived as a dead letter with industry, even more so than the unavoidably expensive cap-and-trade concept. Just listen to Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon, speaking at a conference last weekend:

A carbon tax is also the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions -- from investments made by companies to fuel their requirements, to the product choices made by consumers.

Wait, what?! Exxon's CEO would prefer a carbon tax? This is undoubtedly a bit of mojo to muddy the waters as a climate change bill begins moving through Congress. But just the same, Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) is at the vanguard of the movement this year, dropping a new carbon tax bill today.

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As TPMmuckraker's Zack can attest, the oversight vaccuum for the $700 billion financial bailout has generated a mountain of unanswered questions for journalists and voters. Thankfully, Democrats are setting the bar a lot higher -- hell, they're actually setting a bar -- for the $825 billion stimulus bill they hope to pass next month.

Overseeing the economic recovery spending, House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey (D-WI) said today, will be a seven-person board composed of assistant secretaries and inspectors general of various agencies. Obey described the board's mission as "early warning of funding management problems" as the bill is implemented in states and towns across the country.

Contracts and data on where the stimulusmoney is heading will be posted online (the hypothetical URL "recovery.gov" was mentioned). But the best part of all: Any member of the public who has concerns with a particular element of the spending disbursement can post their questions for the oversight board to investigate.

When can all this wonderful citizen muckraking get started? Well, Obey said Democrats are aiming to mark up the stimulus (that is, add amendments and debate it in committees) next week, followed by floor consideration by the end of the month.

That leaves only the first two weeks in February for the Senate to finish the plan, and iron out differences with the House, before a final vote around Presidents' Day. If that doesn't happen, no vacation for Congress. Good luck, guys.

David Obey (D-WI), the House Appropriations Committee chairman, just met with reporters in his bright corner office to discuss the $825 billion economic stimulus bill that was released today.

The most striking message he had was so subtle that you almost missed it: Democrats have learned from their struggles after the 2006 election, when their failure to press a reversal of Bush's war policy left voters frustrated. This time, Obey wasn't making any promises that the stimulus bill would heal the recession. Not even close.

"You have to look at this bill not as a salvation for the economy by any means," he said. "It's simply the largest effort by any legislative body on the planet to try to take action to prevent economic catastrophe."

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The House just passed a $33 billion reauthorization and expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, a.k.a. SCHIP, the legislation that Democrats tried in vain to expand last year only to meet with two vetoes from George Bush.

But now that Bush is gone, and there's no more president to protect, it seems that a few Republicans feel they're ready to support children's health care. Comparing today's House vote count to the roll-call vote in 2007, when Democrats came within about 13 votes of overriding Bush's veto. (There was another override vote that year, and a second in 2008, with similar near-miss outcomes.)

GOP Reps. Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL), Mike Rogers (AL), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL), and Thaddeus McCotter (MI) -- a member of Republican leadership who got picketed over his previous votes on SCHIP -- all voted yes today after voting against expanding the health care program under Bush.

What happened, guys? Was it Obama's post-partisan outreach that did it for you?

The House is about to take up Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank's (D-MA) bill setting restrictions on the $350 billion of new bailout money sought by Barack Obama -- legislation that Democrats apparently don't believe is necessary to pass into law.

The bill is currently in the Rules Committee, that famously procedure-driven outpost that controls floor debate in the lower chamber of Congress. (For a great primer on the Rules panel, read Matt Taibbi's masterful 2005 piece on then-Rep. Bernie Sanders.) As you can see by the rules for appearing before Rules, getting one's amendment accepted by the House ain't easy -- a fact that held true under GOP control as well as Democratic.

As MarketWatch noted, Financial Services panel members weren't given a chance to offer amendments in the committee either. But look at all the damn good amendments that were thrown out there!

Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) would retroactively apply the bill's executive compensation rules to banks that got bailout cash under George Bush. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) would pry out more information from the Fed about its purchase of mortgage-backed securities. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) would prevent companies from transferring stock en masse to their senior executives while getting bailout money.

Too bad that none of these are likely to see the light of day -- but then again, the oversight bill itself is headed for a dead stop in the Senate.

After posting last week on the role of Democratic factions in the House's stimulus debate, I tried a small thought experiment: If we took media exposure as a measure of congressional influence, which Democratic group is the most powerful?

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I headed down to the Speaker's Hallway, the ornate alcove at the end of Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) office suite, for a scheduled media availability with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on the economic recovery bill. But Pelosi never appeared; instead, a spokesman materialized to answer a few questions. This is part of the culture in the Capitol -- the best laid plans of press folks often go awry, leaving reporters to wait in vain outside meetings that start late and end later.

The Pelosi spokesman did confirm that a two-hour meeting took place with the panoply of House committee chairman involved in crafting the stimulus package: David Obey (D-WI) of Appropriations, James Obserstar (D-MN) of Transportation & Infrastructure, John Spratt (D-SC) of Budget, George Miller (D-CA) of Education & Labor, Henry Waxman (D-CA) of Energy & Commerce, and others.

That's an impressive list of "old bulls," as influential congressional chairman are often dubbed. Since the House is slated to start "marking up" the stimulus bill next week -- voting on amendments to the legislation and sending it to the floor for a final vote -- does that mean each of these chairman will get to hold their own hearings? Looks like that question has yet to be answered.

Just talked to a spokesman for Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), a powerful subcommittee chief in House Ways and Means, who wanted to make the congressman's stance on health care reform crystal clear. Although a report last month suggested that Stark believes a major health care bill could wait until early next year, his spokesman reiterated that the congressman is ready for a reform push before the 2010 midterm elections intrude on the political scene.

"Comprehensive health reform is a complicated, important effort," Stark clarified in a statement. "It will take time to do it right, but we ought to finish in 2009 if at all possible."

Here's a question that, quite literally, kept me awake last night.

Before acceding to Barack Obama's request for another $350 billion of financial bailout money, the House is set to take up a bill from Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) that would require some cash to be spent on foreclosure aid and set limits on executive compensation. But Frank's counterpart in the Senate, Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT), has suggested that yesterday's non-specific letter from Obama adviser Larry Summers might be enough to convince him that the incoming administration plans to spend the taxpayers' money more wisely.

And even Frank (before HuffPo reported it) has already shown his unquestioning faith in the Obama team. Here's what he said Friday while introducing his own bill to provide oversight of the second $350 billion:

[II]t doesn't have to be enacted. It would be helpful if it was. But if the bill passes the House with a large majority, and we have smart and cooperative people in this administration, I'm willing to accept their word that they will act as if it were the law.

Now to my question. How would progressives react if these were Republican lawmakers agreeing to take the word of John McCain -- or any Republican president succeeding George W. Bush? Would the response be universal alarm at Congress failing to exert even minimal oversight powers? Remember how much agita this remark caused?

Even though the resolution before the Senate is not as strong as I would like ... I will take the President at his word that he will try hard to pass a UN resolution and will seek to avoid war, if at all possible.

That was Hillary Clinton in October 2002, before the vote to authorize the Iraq war.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) gets results! The director of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, Martin Sullivan, has just written back to Sanders' plea for a little logical cohesion in the caption hanging beneath the museum's new portrait of George W. Bush.

The portrait's caption, describing the Bush era, originally said that the 9/11 attacks "led to" the war in Iraq. After Sanders pointed out the obvious flaw in that causal correlation -- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 -- Sullivan replied: "Our intention was to remind viewers of the portrait that the listed events were defining moments in the Bush presidency, within the limited space of an object label. I appreciate your concern, however, about the words 'led to.' We will revise the label and delete the words 'led to.'"

Score one for historical accuracy. Now where's that Bush Truth & Reconciliation Commission?

Barney Frank (D-MA), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, proposed on Friday to impose new limits on companies receiving funds under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (a.k.a. "the bailout"). The Frank bill is poised for a vote in the House this week, timed to coincide with the joint Bush-Obama call for Congress to release $350 billion more in bailout money.

But what's this? While the Frank bill moves towards passage, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) suggests that a letter of assurances from the incoming Obama administration, detailing its promises for responsible use of the bailout cash, could be enough to alleviate Dems' concerns.

From the Politico:

Dodd said he's prepared to draft legislation, mirroring a bill proposed by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) last week, to call for a broadening of the TARP program and for more oversight, but he said that a letter from Obama's team - instead of additional legislation - could be sufficient to alleviate concerns in Congress.

"The Obama administration wants to rebrand this process," he said. "They realize it has been terribly mismanaged, they realize in order to be effective in assisting our credit markets to get them unclogged and moving again, this program has to be far better run than it has been.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the Obama administration harbors nefarious intentions to renege on its promises for stricter conditions on the second half of the TARP money. But a letter, no matter how well-intentioned, lacks the force of law -- and as Democrats take care to underscore their independence from Obama, they'd be well-served to make sure their oversight goals are set in stone.

The House just approved its version of the praise-filled pro-Israel resolution approved yesterday in the Senate. And though I've yet to see a co-sponsor tally that would show any senator courageous enough to resist the lure of AIPAC, the stiffened-spine caucus in the House reached 26 members today: 4 who voted no and 22 voting "present" in a gesture of stoic disapproval.

Compare today's outcome to 2006, when the combined total of no and present votes was only 12, and we could be seeing a slow but welcome shift of the dialogue towards political leeway for lawmakers to criticize Israel. The Minnesota Independent has the statement of Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), who wasn't present to vote in 2006 but pointed out that the resolution is "void of any relation to the hellish reality that is being inflicted on the citizens of Gaza right now."

Since Josh asked yesterday about the congressional constituency for including environmentally sustainable, forward-thinking proposals in the stimulus bill, I've been hunting around for it. And wouldn't you know it -- the Bold Action Caucus had its first meeting yesterday.

Okay, that's not its real name. The working title of the new congressional group convened by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Steve Israel (D-NY) is the Sustainable Energy & Environment Caucus, and their organizational event drew between 30 and 35 members.

The group has set out its general guiding principles, an Inslee spokeswoman told me. Asked about specific proposals that the new caucus might be pushing for inclusion in the stimulus bill, she said that question is on the agenda. "Clearly the stimulus is something to consider, but right now they're in the organizational stages."

It happens more often than you might think on Capitol Hill: a new bill is announced by a congressional office, with little fanfare and fewer co-sponsors than it deserves but a purpose so abundantly sensible that the plan cries out for more attention.

Such is the case with H.R. 104, a bill introduced on Tuesday by House judiciary committee chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and nine other lawmakers. The measure would set up a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties, with subpoena power and a reported budget of around $3 million, to investigate issues ranging from detainee treatment to waterboarding to extraordinary rendition. The panel's members would hail from outside the government and be appointed by the president and congressional leaders of both parties.

Sounds like a great idea. In fact, it sounds a lot like Senate armed services committee chairman Carl Levin's (D-MI) proposed interrogation-policy commission that has been kicking around since 2005. So why does such a good bill only have 10 co-sponsors?

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We've been following the political maneuvering over Leon Panetta's CIA nomination since it began -- and in a prime example of the punishingly quick news cycle on Capitol Hill, opposition to the pick has almost totally dissipated now that it's actually been announced.

Well, except for Kit Bond (MO), the senior Republican on the Senate intelligence committee. Bond chose the same day he announced his retirement to mount a crusade against Panetta's alleged failure to understand pre-war intelligence lapses. (Whereas Bond was consistently on the right side of the intel.)

So if Bond wants to dig into every word of Panetta's anti-Bush op-eds for a public flogging, one would expect that Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) -- his House counterpart and FISA-eviscerating buddy -- would be all for it. Right, Rep. Hoekstra?

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Buried in today's New York Times piece on Tom Daschle's confirmation hearing before the Senate health committee is a possible revelation on his plans for passing health care reform this year.

Daschle, tapped by Barack Obama to head the health and human services department, had hinted as far back as June that he would consider using the "reconciliation" process as a way to fast-track broad health reforms. Reconciliation is a procedural tool, presaged in annual congressional budgets, that allows deficit-reducing legislation to be taken up in the Senate with no ability to filibuster and limited ability to amend -- an anti-democratic proposition in theory, but a weapon often used by Republicans during their years in the majority.

Reconciliation could be a boost to Democrats as they anticipate Republican pushback to a new public health insurance option as part of the Obama team's plan. But Daschle told senators yesterday that he would not use reconciliation to secure passage of health care reform, per the Times:

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... though it's not the questionably valuable business tax benefits that are catching the most flak. Before Democrats ducked into a private briefing with Obama's White House economic adviser-in-waiting, Larry Summers, those on the Senate finance committee had a closed-door session to talk shop on the stimulus. They came out decidedly unimpressed by Obama's proposed payroll tax cuts -- which amount to $500 per person, distributed in small amounts over several paychecks.

The Democratic senators were equally doubtful about Obama's proffered $3,000 tax credit to business that hire new workers. As Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), a bellwether centrist, told CNN:

I think it's unlikely to be effective. If you think about it, business people are not going to hire people to produce products that are not selling. Who is going to hire in the auto industry if you give them a $3,000 credit to make cars that people are not buying?

No one's saying this will bring down the bill. In fact, the House ways and means committee is already said to be scheduling drafting sessions. But stepping back to look at the timeframe, the stimulus will still need to be cleared by as many as three committees on each side of the Capitol by the end of Inauguration week, which leaves three more weeks for simultaneous debate in both houses of Congress as well as a conference committee to produce a unified final product.

The old question about deadline pressure still applies.

This move has been in the works for a while, but it just became official: Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), a dedicated advocate for strong climate change legislation, just took over the key House subcommittee on the energy and environment from Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), a very nice man also joined at the hip with the coal industry.

This clears the way for Markey to join the new House energy and commerce panel chairman, Henry Waxman, in making a full-court press for carbon emissions caps this year. Sweet.