Economic Recoverey Plan Becomes Law Today

The Economic Recovery Plan becomes law today and does have bipartisan support outside of Washington. Yet to come: Banking revamp, Executive Compensation Rules, the future of Infrastructure, The future of Education, Auto industry plans, and the Obama Housing plan.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department should audit the Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of state inspection contracts after the salmonella outbreak involving peanuts, a Democratic lawmaker said.

The outbreak traced to the Peanut Corporation of America’s plant in Blakely Georgia, has forced one of the biggest food recalls in American history, sickened 636 people and may have killed nine and brought the FDA under intense scrutiny. Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, chairwoman of the House of Representative Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the FDA, said an audit by the department’s inspector general was needed to find any problems with the FDA’s oversight of other state inspection contracts.

A Justice Department investigation into the conduct of senior lawyers who approved waterboarding was on the verge of completion last fall when then Attorney General Michael Mukasey raised objections to the findings. Democratic Senators Dick Durban and Sheldon Whitehouse followed a story reporting that a draft report by the department’s internal ethics watchdog unit sharply criticizes three former top lawyers at Justice who authored c controversial legal memos about interrogation practices.

Source: Our Future Today, February 17, 2009