Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

WASHINGTON -- More than 20 mayors from around the country, including David Cicilline of Providence, are slated to meet with top policy advisers at the White House this morning as President Obama's allies in the Senate resume their scramble for the votes to pass a huge spending bill intended to spark the U.S. economy.

In a development somewhat overshadowed by the controversy over the failure of key Obama nominees to pay all their federal taxes, Senate Democrats fell short of the votes they needed to pour more public works dollars into the emergency pump-priming bill. The price tag on the Senate draft of the bill exceeds the $819 billion in the House bill that passed without Repubican support last week. Republicans and some Democrats have expressed concern about the cost of the bill and its blend of spending and tax-cutting measures.

The president and some of his key economic advisers have said they are willing to consider Republican ideas about how the bill might be amended. Yesterday Lawrence Summers, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, hinted that the administration would consider changes to the ``Buy American'' provision in the House bill that -- according to critics here and abroad -- could trigger a trade war that could damage U.S. exports.

The White House schedule released late yesterday said a delegation from the U.S. Conference of Mayors -- including Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and Cicilline -- would meet with White House senior staff to discuss ``the urgent need for an economic recovery package.'' Cicilline is the only New Englander in the group.

Journal file photo
Christopher Hill, a Little Compton native, has an extensive foreign service background. A Moses Brown graduate, here he poses in front of the school in 2007.

By John E. Mulligan
Journal Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Former Rhode Islander Christopher Hill, who toiled at one of the toughest diplomatic jobs during the Bush administration -- negotiations over North Korea's nuclear arms program -- has been tapped for one of the toughest jobs in the Obama State Department.

Hill is to be named President Obama's ambassador to Iraq, according to a number of wire service reports, at a crucial moment in that nation's struggle for stability after years of war. Mr. Obama campaigned on a pledge to remove U.S. troops from Iraq and end the war that began with the American invasion almost six years ago. At the same time, Iraq's fledgling government seeks to exploit the security gains secured since Bush changed strategies to add more troops about two years ago.

Yesterday, Iraqi voters participated in provincial elections viewed as crucial to bolstering the authority and stability of the government.

Hill is the son of a foreign service officer who settled his family in Little Compton during Hill's youth. He attended the Moses Brown School in Providence -- where he was a star lacrosse player -- and Bowdoin College in Maine.

>> Continue reading: Former R.I. man to become ambassador to Iraq

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy has picked up a new assignment on a House panel with a long history of newsworthy investigative hearings.

Kennedy is among 23 Democrats who will serve on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, according to an announcement by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. The Rhode Island Democrat, first elected in 1994, already has a plum assignment on the House Appropriations Committee -- much in the news these days as the panel that produced the largest piece of the $819-billion economic stimulus bill that passed the House yesterday.

The oversight panel has a new chairman, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., and a storied past. The previous chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who has made a name for himself with his aggressive questioning of tobacco industry executives and Wall Street tycoons, among others. The last Republican chairman, former Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, called Roger Clemens and other baseball stars to answer questions about the use of illegal drugs in the sport, in one of the most highly-publicized inquiries of recent years.

Under other chairmen, Republican and Democratic, the panel had previously figured in probes of alleged wrongdoing in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

Towns has served notice that his committee will oversee closely the workings of the government under President Obama. He has said that federal contracting is among the areas the committee will scrutinize.

WASHINGTON -- The government should consider creating a "bad bank" to help ailing private banks to get rid of bad assets so that they can recover, U.S. Senator Jack Reed, D-RI, said this morning.

"The bad bank is something we have to consider," the Rhode Island Democrat told reporters after a speech that outlined his views on how the financial regulatory system should be changed.

Reed suggested that the Obama administration may be weighing the option of a bad bank. But he stressed that "this is my impression,"rather than a report on any direct discussions he has had on the policy question with advisors to President Obama. "I think they are looking at all options," Reed said of members of the Obama administration. He added that he thinks the administration sees the need to be innovative.

Reed also said the Securities and Exchange Commission needs additional resources to improve its enforcement division and proposed tighter regulation over derivatives, credit-rating companies and hedge funds.

The SEC examines about 10 percent of broker-dealers a year, "hardly enough to keep bad actors in check and discover problems,'' Reed, chairman of a Senate Banking Committee panel on securities, said in a speech in Washington.

"We must begin by empowering the SEC with the resources it needs to do its job and do it well,'' he said.

The banking committee later today will hear from Linda Thomsen, the SEC's enforcement chief, and Lori Richards, who heads the agency's office that inspects brokerages and investment advisers, for the first time since Bernard Madoff was arrested Dec. 11 for allegedly running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. The hearing may shed light on the SEC's fate, as lawmakers debate whether its investigators are overtaxed or ineffectual.

>> Continue reading: Reed: Obama team should consider 'bad bank'

It was well into the first hour of the morning after Inauguration Day when President Obama, in white tie, and First Lady Michelle Obama, in a white gown, finally arrived at Union Station, where Rhode Islanders were among the celebrants at the The Eastern Inaugural Ball.

``This is our last event of Inaugural Day,'' Mr. Obama said to cheers and the flashing of camera lights. ``And so since the first lady of the United States,'' he began -- interrupted by more cheers -- ``has been doing the same thing that I've been doing, except backwards and in heels, let me ask her for one last dance.''

It took some New England-style hardiness to last until that turn on the dance floor at the tenth of 10 balls that the Obamas attended last night. Long after the doors had opened to the old railway terminal on Capitol Hill, chilly revelers were still waiting in line. Access was shut off to some entrances as the moment approached for the Obamas' arrival at Union Station.

But spirits remained high at the close of a day that, for some, had begun with the arduous trek toward the National Mall in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday. So when Mr. Obama prompted a valedictory run through the most famous call-and-response of his election campaign, Easterners were ready.

``Today, was your day,'' he said. ``Today was a day that represented all your efforts, all your faith, all your confidence, and what's possible in America. They said it couldn't be done. And you did it.

``And if we apply that not just to elections, but to jobs, to how we rebuild our communities, then when people tell you we can't employ folks, you are out of work, you say ...''

The crowd said, ``Yes, we can!''

After departing the cavernous Amtrak station for their subway ride in the Metro station below, a group of Irish musicians regaled tuxedoed partyers with a reprise of their lyrical take on the new president. It was well-suited to the immigrant traditions of the Northeast:

``Toora-lo, toora-la
``Toora-lo, toora lama
``There's no-one as Irish as Barack Obama!''

WASHINGTON -- A prolonged battle may be shaping up in Congress over the Navy's plan to stop building a new class of stealthy destroyers, designed and built in Maine and filled with high-technology tools created in part at Raytheon's plant in Portsmouth.

"It's not done yet,'' Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy declared of the Navy's proposal to stop production of the Zumwalt-class destroyer, also known as DDG-1000, after only two of the warships are built.

The Rhode Island Democrat spoke after a House Seapower Subcommittee hearing during which he and fellow R.I. Democrat, Rep. James R. Langevin sharply criticized the plan. Other legislators, including Maine's Rep. Tom Allen, Democrat, and the panel's influential chairman, Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., endorsed it.

Vice Admiral Barry McCullough, the deputy chief of naval operations in charge of the shipbuilding budget, gave the first detailed defense of the Navy's decision to cut short the Zumwalt class, of which Bath Iron Works in Maine, a General Dynamics division, is lead designer and builder of the first two ships in the class.

The other builder is Northrup-Grumman's Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss.

Massachusetts-based Raytheon is the lead contractor on most aspects of the new ship's electronics systems, employing 2,000 company-wide and nearly 500 in Rhode Island on this job.

McCullough said the Navy made the abrupt course change after determining that it could better respond to future threats from ballistic missiles and from submarines by halting the Zumwalt program and returning to construction of the Arleigh Burke-class, the workhorse of the current destroyer fleet, construction of which was also shared by the Bath shipyard. The lead contractor on the electronics for the Arleigh Burke destroyers is a Raytheon competitor.

>> Continue reading: With R.I. jobs at stake, fight over destroyer ramps up