The procedural vote in the Senate last week on financial reform did more than end a Republican filibuster. It set up the real test of the Democrats’ resolve to enact the kind of change that the nation’s financial system so badly needs. Achieving that requires passing amendments to strengthen the
Parents have been worrying for years about their youngsters being lured into the smoking habit by tobacco company come-ons, or even by hanging out where they breathe in secondhand smoke that can cause lung cancer just as if they were lighting up themselves. Many heaved a sigh of relief when
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) is leading an effort to ensure state insurance regulators keep strong powers under Wall Street overhaul legislation Buried in the 1,400-page bill to revamp the financial regulatory system is a provision to create a new Office of National Insurance to monitor insurers at the federal level.
Members of the Pendleton business community Friday told Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley that loans are still tough to get and financial reform needs to make common sense. The Democrat met with a dozen business owners and leaders during a closed-door session Friday at the Heritage Station Museum. With financial reform
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–The intense scrutiny surrounding Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s (GS) potential conflict of interest in packaging and selling mortgage-backed securities could give a boost to lawmakers hoping to tighten banking rules in a Senate financial-overhaul bill. Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), who chairs the panel that subjected Goldman executives
Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley’s bill to increase penalties for harming protected migratory birds has passed out of committee. Oregon’s junior Democratic senator introduced the Migratory Bird Treaty Act Penalty and Enforcement Act last November. Current law provides a misdemeanor penalty of up to $2,000 and two years in jail for
WASHINGTON — There was a lot of talk in the Senate Wednesday about roads. But the topic wasn’t transportation. “This is the showdown, Main Street versus Wall Street,” Heather Booth, director of Americans for Financial Reform, shouted during a morning news conference in support of Democratic legislation to reform and
MAUPIN — Oregon U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley said his three proposed energy efficiency programs will help create jobs in Wasco County if he is able to insert them into upcoming federal jobs legislation. “When I took office last year, the unemployment rate was going up by 1 percent a month,”
As Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) urges his fellow U.S. senators to support the Molalla River Wild and Scenic bill, he’ll be able to give first-hand testimony. Merkley and his staff visited the Molalla River Corridor on Tuesday and took a mile-long rafting trip starting above the Glen Avon Bridge. “Senator
An Oregon law to boost breast-feeding by providing working mothers with unpaid time and a clean space to pump breast milk is going national U .S. politicians are notorious for kissing babies, not legislating in their behalf. Candidate-baby encounters usually peter out in an exchange of gurgles. But this somewhat
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