Legislative Hearings

Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte) edged closer to winning confirmation as the nation's Labor secretary, with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee clearing her nomination in a voice vote. Only two Republicans voted against her. The full Senate is expected to vote this week. Meanwhile, the Senate voted 93-4 to confirm William Lynn III as deputy Defense secretary, endorsing President Obama's decision to waive ethics regulations by putting a former defense lobbyist in charge of day-to-day operations at the Pentagon.

A congressional subcommittee investigating a recent salmonella outbreak released e-mails Wednesday revealing that the owner of a peanut company discounted warnings that nuts were infected with the deadly bacteria. "This lot is presumptive SALMONELLA!!!!" wrote plant worker Mary Wilkerson last June 6 to company officials. That same day, Stewart Parnell, owner and president of Peanut Corp. of America, replied, "thanks Mary, I go thru this about once a week...I will hold my breath....

The Senate set a test vote for Feb. 24 on the nomination of Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte) as Labor secretary. She won committee approval this week after more than a month of delays over questions about tax liens that her husband recently paid and her role as a board member and treasurer of American Rights at Work, a nonprofit working to pass a bill to make it easier for workers to form unions. A 60-vote majority will be required to advance Solis' nomination to a final vote.

Current and former chief executives of three major U.S. financial institutions hit by sub-prime mortgage fallout were asked Monday by a congressional committee to testify at a hearing next month on their pay and severance packages. A House panel invited Countrywide Financial Corp. CEO Angelo Mozilo, former Citigroup Inc. chief Charles Prince and Stanley O'Neal, former head of Merrill Lynch & Co., to appear Feb. 7.

On the eve of testifying before Congress about baseball's steroid era and subsequent reforms, Commissioner Bud Selig said Monday he would not pledge to outsource baseball's drug-testing program to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency or any other third party. "I'm satisfied with the way it is now," Selig said. Selig said he remains committed to implementing all the reforms recommended in last month's report by former Sen.

At first look, all is good in our world of sports. Super Sunday was pretty much that. It was a shockingly competitive game that canonized another Manning brother, correctly so, and saved us from Boston winning everything in pro sports this season, after all. Beware of omens, Celtics. The Lakers have a new player and new hope. The Clippers have internal turmoil and we're used to that. College basketball is now officially in its long run to the Final Four.

In recent days, Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey has voiced opposition to the early release of hundreds of federal inmates convicted of dealing crack cocaine, saying the move would unleash a potential crime wave in communities across the country. He reiterated his concern Thursday at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. But some U.S. attorney offices around the country may not be getting the message.

As a star-studded, nationally televised show on the eve of spring training, Wednesday's steroid hearing by a House committee is surely not the kind of curtain-raiser on the 2008 season that Major League Baseball officials would prefer.

WASHINGTON -- Barry Bonds will not appear before Congress on Wednesday. Roger Clemens will be the star baseball player under oath, and he has vowed to testify he never used steroids. But as Bonds awaits trial on charges that he lied under oath when he told a federal grand jury he had never knowingly used steroids, the credibility of those charges could be enhanced or weakened by how Clemens emerges from his testimony, according to one House member who will hear him Wednesday.

It took four hours and 41 minutes -- about as long as the average Yankees-Red Sox game -- for an overriding truth to emerge from Wednesday's hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The investigation into steroid use in baseball should not have come to this, a made-for-TV tragicomedy of sometimes fumbling questions and evasive answers timed by an impatient gavel.