[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 87 (Tuesday, June 22, 2004)]
[Daily Digest]
[Pages D666-D668]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

Committee Meetings
(Committees not listed did not meet)
DC STRUCTURAL IMBALANCE
Committee on Appropriations: Subcommittee on District of Columbia 
concluded a hearing to examine the structural imbalance of the District 
of Columbia, focusing on the gap between the ability of the government 
of the District of Columbia to raise revenue at reasonable tax rates 
and its ability to provide services of reasonable quality to its 
residents, after receiving testimony from Representative Tom Davis; 
District of Columbia Delegate Norton; former Senator Fred Thompson, on 
behalf of the Federal City Council, Patricia Dalton, Associate 
Director, General Accounting Office; Mayor Anthony A. Williams, Alice 
Rivlin, Brookings Institution, Ted Trabue, Greater Washington Board of 
Trade, and Stephen Trachtenberg, D.C. Chamber of Commerce, all of 
Washington, D.C.
APPROPRIATIONS: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Committee on Appropriations: Committee ordered favorably reported an 
original bill (S. 2559), making appropriations for the Department of 
Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005.
APPROPRIATIONS: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Committee on Appropriations: Subcommittee on Defense approved for full 
Committee consideration an original bill making appropriations for the 
Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005.
REGULATORY REFORM
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs: Committee concluded a 
hearing to examine regulatory reform proposals, after receiving 
testimony from Senators Landrieu and Lincoln; Donald L. Kohn, Member, 
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; John M. Reich, Vice 
Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; JoAnn Johnson, 
Chairman, National Credit Union Administration; Julie L. Williams, 
First Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel, Office of the 
Comptroller of the Currency, John E. Bowman, Chief Counsel, Office of 
Thrift Supervision, both of the Department of the Treasury; John S. 
Allison, Mississippi Commissioner of Banking and Consumer Finance, 
Jackson, on behalf of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors; Roger 
W. Little, Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Services, 
Lansing, on behalf of the National Association of State Credit Union 
Supervisors; Mark E. Macomber, Litchfield Bancorp, Litchfield, 
Connecticut, on behalf of America's Community Bankers; Edward Pinto, 
Lenders Residential Asset Company, LLC, Bethesda, Maryland, on behalf 
of the National Federation of Independent Business; Dale L. Leighty, 
First National Bank of Las Animas, Las Animas, Colorado, on behalf of 
the Independent Community Bankers of America; Bradley E. Rock, Bank of 
Smithtown, Smithtown, New York, on behalf of the American Bankers 
Association; Eugene F. Maloney, Federated Investors, Inc., Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania; Marilyn F. James, NEPCO Federal Credit Union, Pueblo, 
Colorado, on behalf of the Credit Union National Association; Margot 
Saunders, National Consumer Law Center, and Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. Public 
Interest Research Group, both of Washington, D.C., both on behalf of 
sundry organizations; William Cheney, Xerox Federal Credit Union, El 
Segundo, California, on behalf of the National Association of Federal 
Credit Unions; and William A. Longbrake, Washington Mutual 
Incorporated, Seattle, Washington, on behalf of the Financial Services 
Roundtable.
AVIATION SECURITY
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation: Committee concluded 
an oversight hearing to examine aviation security, focusing on Border 
and Transportation Security Directorate efforts to improve the 
efficiency and effectiveness of passenger aviation security operations, 
after receiving testimony from Asa Hutchinson, Under Secretary of 
Homeland Security for Border and Transportation Security; Thomas J. 
Kinton, Jr., Massachusetts Port Authority, Boston; and James May, Air 
Transport Association of America, Inc., and Patricia Friend, 
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, both of Washington, D.C.
HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources: Committee concluded a 
hearing to examine the Department of Energy's High Performance 
Computing research and development activities in both the National 
Nuclear Security Administration and the Office of Science, and S. 2176, 
to require the Secretary of Energy to carry out a program of research 
and development to advance high-end computing through the Office of 
Science, after receiving testimony from James F. Decker, Principal 
Deputy Director, Office of Science, Jeffrey Wadsworth, Director, Oak 
Ridge National Laboratory, and Dimitri Kusnezov, Director, Office of 
Advanced Simulation and Computing, National Nuclear Security 
Administration, all of the Department of Energy; David Turek, IBM 
Corporation, Poughkeepsie, New York; Daniel A. Reed, University of 
North Carolina at Chapel Hill Renaissance Computing Institute; and 
Vincent Scarafino, Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, Michigan.

[[Page D667]]


CHARITY OVERSIGHT
Committee on Finance: Committee concluded a hearing to examine the 
governance and accountability of tax-exempt organizations, focusing on 
best practices of charities, charities accommodating tax shelters, and 
current problems and issues in the charitable community, after 
receiving testimony from Mark W. Everson, Commissioner, Internal 
Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury; New York Assistant 
Attorney General-in-Charge William Josephson, New York; Mark Pacella, 
National Association of State Charity Officials, Harrisburg, 
Pennsylvania; Jay D. Adkisson, Quatloos.com and Select Portfolio 
Management, Inc., Aliso Viejo, California; J. J. MacNab, Insurance 
Barometer, LLC, Bethesda, Maryland; Diana Aviv, Independent Sector, and 
Rick Cohen, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, both of 
Washington, D.C.; Derek Bok, Harvard University Hauser Center on Non-
profits and Philanthropy, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Willard L. Boyd, 
University of Iowa, Iowa City, on behalf of the Iowa Nonprofit Resource 
Center, and the Iowa Governor's Task Force on the Role of Nonprofit 
Organizations in Iowa; H. Art Taylor, BBB Wise Giving Alliance, 
Arlington, Virginia; Rock Ringling, Montana Land Reliance, Helena; and 
certain confidential witnesses.
PEACE CORPS SAFETY
Committee on Foreign Relations: Committee concluded a hearing to 
examine the safety and security framework that has been designed to 
protect Peace Corps volunteers around the world, focusing on trends in 
crime against volunteers and the Peace Corps' system for generating 
information, the agency's field implementation of its safety and 
security framework, and the underlying factors contributing to the 
quality of these practices, after receiving testimony from Gaddi H. 
Vasquez, Director, and Cynthia Threlkeld, Guatemala Country Director, 
both of The Peace Corps; Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs 
and Trade, General Accounting Office; and Kevin Quigley, National Peace 
Corps Association, and Gladys M. Maloy, both of Washington, D.C.
BUSINESS MEETING
Committee on Foreign Relations: Committee ordered favorably reported 
the following business items:
  Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment and 
Protocol to Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment 
on Matters Specific to Aircraft Equipment, concluded at Cape Town, 
South Africa, on November 16, 2001 (Treaty Doc. 108-10); and
  The nominations of John Marshall Evans, of the District of Columbia, 
to be Ambassador to the Republic of Armenia, Tom C. Korologos, of the 
District of Columbia, to be Ambassador to Belgium, Charles P. Ries, of 
the District of Columbia, to be Ambassador to Greece, James B. 
Cunningham, of Pennsylvania, to be U.S. Representative to the Vienna 
Office of the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador, and U.S. 
Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the rank 
of Ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, of Virginia, to be a U.S. 
Representative to the Sessions of the General Assembly of the United 
Nations during her tenure of service as U.S. Deputy Representative to 
the United Nations, and to be U.S. Deputy Representative to the United 
Nations, with the rank and status of Ambassador, and the U.S. Deputy 
Representative in the Security Council of the United Nations, John C. 
Danforth, of Missouri, to be a U.S. Representative to the United 
Nations, with the rank and status of Ambassador, and the U.S. 
Representative in the Security Council of the United Nations, and to be 
U.S. Representative to the Sessions of the General Assembly of the 
United Nations during his tenure of service as U.S. Representative to 
the United Nations, Joseph D. Stafford III, of Florida, to be 
Ambassador to the Republic of The Gambia, Lewis W. Lucke, of Texas, to 
be Ambassador to the Kingdom of Swaziland, R. Niels Marquardt, of 
California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Cameroon, and to serve 
concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador to the 
Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Ann M. Corkery, of Virginia, to be an 
Alternate Representative of the United States of America to the Fifty-
eighth Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Benjamin 
A. Gilman, of New York, to be a U.S. Representative to the Fifty-Eighth 
Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Walid Maalouf, 
of Virginia, to be an Alternate Representative of the United States of 
America to the Fifty-eighth Session of the General Assembly of the 
United Nations, John D. Rood, of Florida, to be Ambassador to the 
Commonwealth of The Bahamas, William R. Brownfield, of Texas, to be 
Ambassador to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Thomas Fingar, of 
Virginia, to be Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and 
Research, Suzanne Hale, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to Micronesia, 
Ralph Leo Boyce, of Virginia, to be Ambassador to Thailand, James R. 
Kunder, of Virginia, to be Assistant Administrator of the USAID for 
Asia and the Near East, Edward Brehm, of Minnesota, to be a Member of 
the African Development Foundation Board of Directors, Adam M. 
Lindemann, of New York, to be a Member of the Advisory Board for Cuba 
Broadcasting, a Foreign Service Officer Promotion List, Charles Graves 
Untermeyer, of Texas, to be Ambassador to Qatar, William T. Monroe, of

[[Page D668]]

Virginia, to be Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain, Douglas L. 
McElhaney, of Florida, to be Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 
Aldona Wos, of North Carolina, to be Ambassador to the Republic of 
Estonia.
MARRIAGE AMENDMENT
Committee on the Judiciary: Committee concluded a hearing to examine 
issues relative to preserving traditional marriage, focusing on States' 
perspective, after receiving testimony from Representative Musgrave; 
former Representative Barr; and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, 
Boston.
FlGHTING TERRORISM
Committee on the Judiciary: Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and 
Homeland Security concluded a hearing to examine the use of subpoena 
authority and pretrial detention of terrorists in fighting terrorism, 
focusing on providing law enforcement with important new counter-
terrorism tools that could make a critical difference in certain cases, 
after receiving testimony from Rachel Brand, Principal Deputy Assistant 
Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy, and Michael A. Battle, United 
States Attorney for the Western District of New York, Buffalo, and 
James K. Robinson, former Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal 
Division, all of the Department of Justice.
VETERANS BENEFITS
Committee on Veterans Affairs: Committee concluded a hearing to examine 
S. 50, relating to funding of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) 
medical care; S. 1014, requiring VA to place certain low-income 
veterans in a higher health care priority category; S. 1153, the 
``Veterans Prescription Drugs Assistance Act;'' S. 1509, the ``Eric and 
Brian Simon Act of 2003;'' S. 1745, the ``Prisoner of War/Missing in 
Action National Memorial Act;'' S. 2063, proposed demonstration project 
on priorities in the scheduling of appointments for veterans health 
care; S. 2099, relating to educational assistance benefits for certain 
members of the Selected Reserve; S. 2133, to name the Bronx VA Medical 
Center the James T. Peters VA Medical Center; S. 2296, relating to the 
conveyance, lease or disposal of the Louisville VA Medical Center; S. 
2327, the proposed coordination of VA per diem and Medicaid payments 
for care of veterans in State homes; S. 2417, care for newborn children 
of veterans receiving maternity care; S. 2483, the ``Veterans 
Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2004;'' S. 2484, the 
``Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel Enhancement Act 
of 2003;'' S. 2485, the ``Department of Veterans Affairs Real Property 
and Facilities Management Improvement Act of 2004; S. 2486, the 
Veterans Benefits Improvements Act of 2004;'' S. 2522, to increase the 
maximum amount of VA home loan guaranty benefits; S. 2524, relating to 
Blast Injury Research and Clinical Care Centers (BIRECCs); and S. 2534, 
relating to various education and home loan benefits, after receiving 
testimony from Senators Conrad and Corzine; Gordon H. Mansfield, Deputy 
Secretary of Veterans Affairs; Donald L. Mooney, American Legion, Paul 
A. Hayden, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Adrian M. Atizado, Disabled 
American Veterans, and Carl Blake, Paralyzed Veterans of America, all 
of Washington, D.C.; and Richard Jones, AMVETS, Lanham, Maryland.
LONG-TERM CARE
Special Committee on Aging: Committee concluded a hearing to examine 
long-term care services as provided for under the Medicaid programs, 
focusing on related provisions of S. 2077, to amend title XIX of the 
Social Security Act to permit additional States to enter into long-term 
care partnerships under the Medicaid Program in order to promote the 
use of long-term care insurance, after receiving testimony from Michael 
O'Grady, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning 
and Evaluation; Raymond Scheppach, National Governors Association, 
Washington, D.C.; Mark R. Meiners, University of Maryland Center on 
Aging, College Park; Melanie M. Bella, Indiana Family and Social 
Services Administration, Indianapolis; Kevin P. Corcoran, National 
Association of Health Underwriters, Arlington, Virginia; Steven Chies, 
Benedictine Health Systems, Cambridge, Minnesota, on behalf of the 
American Health Care Association; and Robert Bishop, Carmel, Indiana.