Word: capitol
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...combination of high oil-company profits and high gasoline prices has led to much fulminating on Capitol Hill, mostly about refining bottlenecks that have brought near record prices at the pump. But the main reason gas prices are so much higher now than a decade ago is that crude has jumped from $10 per bbl. in 1999 to $64 today. And the fact that the world's biggest nongovernment oil company isn't going like gangbusters to find more of the stuff will have far more impact on future prices than the Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act approved...
...practically grew up in the House. Dingell recalls hunting rats "as big as cats" with an air rifle in the Capitol basement, and Franklin D. Roosevelt inscribed a photograph to him--"my friend"--around the time that Dingell was a 12-year-old congressional page. He insists that he never planned to occupy his father's seat, but the senior Dingell's death in office left a humming political machine leaderless and important goals unmet...
Those aren't the motives that have Capitol Hill buzzing, however. Insiders wonder if Dingell has been riled up by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, with whom he has a long-running feud. Over the years, Dingell has opposed her rise to party leadership. She, in turn, backed another member of Congress, Lynn Rivers, when Rivers was forced by redistricting to run for Dingell's seat. That was in 2002, but Dingell still savors the drubbing he gave Pelosi's friend. So bad blood was pulsing when the Democrats took the reins of Congress this year and Pelosi appointed...
...Dingell is superstitious about the luck-changing power of grandiose statements, according to a longtime associate. So instead of a grand finale, he quietly but insistently drummed his cane on the floor of his Capitol hideaway office as punctuation for the long list of his legislative achievements...
...Mica says the real problem is Congressional politics, not the Architect of the Capitol or a lack of oversight. "I could directly attribute the delays and cost overruns to members of Congress who couldn't make a decision, or made them and they weren't good," he says. For example, Mica says that Congress initially was going to reserve 160,000 sq. feet of undeveloped space inside the CVC facility for future office use. But in 2001, lawmakers realized it would be cheaper to develop the office space immediately. This change caused at least a year in delays, which...