House Panel

The head of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc.'s "junk bond" business, which has come under scrutiny in the Wall Street insider trading scandal, was subpoenaed Thursday to testify before a congressional panel next week, sources said. Michael R. Milken was subpoenaed to testify April 27 before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The government bungled the salmonella outbreak probe so badly, a House committee chairman said Thursday, that federal investigators reminded him of the Keystone Kops. A committee member hoped the maligned tomato can get its good name back. The House Energy and Commerce Committee conducted its own investigation of the Food and Drug Administration's probe of the salmonella scare.

A bill to ban companies from hiring permanent replacements for striking workers was approved Tuesday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the second House panel to clear the measure.

The Republican-led House Resources Committee breathed new life into Bush's national energy policy, approving legislation to drill in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge while boosting incentives to encourage exploration in deep offshore wells in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The House panel voted 32 to 14 to authorize exploration in the Alaskan refuge, the centerpiece of the administration's energy plan, which is focused on reducing the country's dependence on foreign suppliers.

A House panel has preserved a program that provides boxes of food to nearly 500,000 seniors each month. The Commodity Supplemental Food Program, targeted for elimination by President Bush in a cost-cutting move, would get a 10% boost to $119 million under a bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee. The program provides beneficiaries powdered milk, vegetables, cereal, juice, meat, fruit, rice, cheese and other food.

A key House panel overturned President Bush's proposal to eliminate contraceptive coverage for federal employees, virtually ensuring that the benefit provided to 1.2 million women in the government work force since 1998 will remain.

A House panel on Wednesday approved a $1.74-trillion federal budget plan as Republicans moved to push the measure through Congress over Democratic complaints it would shortchange domestic programs. The plan for next fiscal year, approved by the House Budget Committee on a party-line vote, calls for nearly $800 billion in tax cuts over 10 years, setting aside Social Security surpluses needed later by retiring baby boomers, and staying within spending limits of a 1997 balanced-budget agreement.

In response to last summer's Salomon Bros. government bond trading scandal, a House panel cleared legislation Tuesday to revamp the $2.3-trillion market that finances the national debt. The bill that the Energy and Commerce Committee sent to the full House would beef up federal regulation of the government securities market and require better record-keeping by traders, who would also have to make prices and other trading information more accessible to the public.

A House panel Thursday approved a bill expanding the emergency authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission to take action designed to smooth trading in troubled stock markets. The voice vote by the House Financial Services Committee sent to the full House the bipartisan measure proposed by its chairman, Rep. Michael G. Oxley (R-Ohio).

By voice vote, the 42-member House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill to abolish the $20-billion synthetic fuels program in 90 days and take back most of the $7.9 billion that it still has for subsidizing projects to convert coal and shale to liquid and gas fuels. With approval by the Energy Committee, the legislation now moves to the House Banking Committee, which shares jurisdiction over the synthetic fuels program.