Seems like Sen. Schumer (D) looks pretty business as usual on the major green/infrastructure front, while Sen. Kerry (D), also on the Finance Committee, may be inclined to be more bold.
On another front, we noted yesterday that Sen. Levin (D) had gotten the TARP office at Treasury (the people running the bailout) to release the contracts governing the investment of the TARP money. In other words, these contracts contain the terms on which the money was given to the banks — and which would tell us a lot about whether it was given on terms that hold any real hope of every getting the money back.
But it turns out that Levin apparently had to agree not to release the documents to the public.
Late Update: Turns out there’s a bit of a mystery here. An unnamed Levin aide told the Times that they did not plan to make the contracts public. But when we talked to Levin earlier today, it seemed to be the first he’d heard of the idea of not releasing the documents publicly — he seemed to assume that they would be releasing them publicly. So we’re still trying to figure out just what’s up with that.
