-By Tim Craig

December 13, 2011- Amid rising tension between Occupy D.C. protesters and some congressional leaders, a House committee is investigating why the National Park Service has allowed demonstrators to remain camped in McPherson Square.

The probe by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee represents a new turn in the debate locally and nationally about whether Occupy Wall Street protesters should be allowed to stake claim to public property as part of their demonstrations against what they say are economic and political inequalities.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the committee, sparked the investigation with a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar this week, accusing Occupy D.C. of damaging McPherson Square after $400,000 in taxpayer funds were spent in recent years to improve it. He also questioned whether the Park Service has disregarded its own rules by making exceptions for the 10-week-old protest.

-By Ryan Grim

December 12, 2011- WASHINGTON -- Bill Magwood, the man at the center of an effort to overthrow the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and his most likely successor if the move is successful, served as a consultant for Tepco, the Japanese company that owns the Fukushima nuclear power plant, according to information provided by Magwood as part of his nomination and confirmation process, which was obtained by The Huffington Post.

On Friday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) released a letter signed by Magwood and three other commissioners attacking the panel's chairman, Gregory Jaczko, setting off a firestorm in the energy industry. Issa and the four commissioners framed the dispute as personal and managerial, but emails released by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) show a political and ideological battle underway over post-Fukushima safety standards.

-By Laura Bassett

December 1, 2011- House lawmakers sparred bitterly on Thursday over the Obama administration's decision to deny a group of Catholic bishops a lucrative grant because they refused to refer sex trafficking victims to a full range of reproductive services. Republicans accused the administration of being overtly anti-Catholic and promoting abortion, while Democrats said the GOP had scheduled the hearing with the sole purpose of "smearing" President Obama.

The Department of Health and Human Services recently decided not to renew a $19 million, five-year contract with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to help sex trafficking victims because the group does not refer survivors to abortion or contraception services. The three groups who received the grant instead of the bishops -- Tapestri of Atlanta, Heartland Human Care Services of Chicago and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants of Washington -- all agreed to provide victims "the full range of reproductive services" recommended by the health department.

-By Laura Bassett

November 16, 2011- House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has drafted a proposal that would give Washington, D.C. greater autonomy over how it spends its money -- unless it wants to use that money to pay for low-income women's abortions.

The bill's abortion prohibition would codify the D.C. abortion-spending ban that President Obama conceded to Republicans during budget negotiations in the spring. All 50 U.S. states are legally allowed to use their own funds for abortion care.

“John, I will give you D.C. abortion, but I am not happy about it," Obama infamously told House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) at the time, referring to language in the budget bill that would prevent D.C. from using its own locally raised funds to help women pay for abortions.

-By Michael McAuliff

November 7, 2011- Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is pushing for a federal probe of a New York City community organization based on a Fox News report that accused the organization of improperly aiding the Occupy Wall Street movement and linked the group to the now defunct ACORN.

A year after Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now filed for bankruptcy, conservative fascination with the group hasn't waned. And recently, Fox has charged that New York Communities for Change -- which uses office space and some staff that the ACORN used to have, according to Fox -- solicited donations from union members to secretly support Occupy Wall Street.

Now Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has decided the anonymously sourced stories warrant an investigation from United States Attorney Loretta Lynch, who oversees the Eastern District of New York.

-by Luke Johnson

October 27, 2011- Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) attended a fundraiser co-hosted by a lobbyist for Solyndra, the now-bankrupt solar energy company Issa is investigating as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune.

According to his hometown paper, Issa was featured on the invitation to a fundraiser in Washington for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign co-hosted by Alex Mistri of the Glover Park Group, a lobbyist for Solyndra. A spokesman said Issa attended the event in order to support the former Massachusetts governor, who he endorsed for president.

-by Amanda Terkel

October 17, 2011- Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has begun to assert veto control over how Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee can travel with their staff, escalating tensions on an already fractious panel.

The latest dispute centers around a request by Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) to take two Democratic committee staffers with him to a drug control policy forum in Chicago on Monday evening. Davis is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health Care, District of Columbia, Census and the National Archives, which has jurisdiction over drug control policy.

The committee chairman needs sign off on reimbursements for staff travel, but normally, such requests are routinely approved. Issa, who serves as chair, denied Davis' request.

-By Seth Stern

October 17, 2011- The U.S. Justice Department denied that a third weapon tied to a program that put illegal U.S. guns in the hands of Mexican criminals was recovered at the scene where border patrol agent Brian Terry was killed last year.

“The FBI has made clear that reports of a third gun recovered from the perpetrators at the scene of Agent Terry’s murder are false,” said Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, in an e-mail statement today.

U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said there was evidence of a possible third weapon during an appearance yesterday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program.

Issa, a California Republican, has led the congressional investigation into the law enforcement program called Operation Fast and Furious that allowed illegal U.S. gun purchases in an effort to link the weapons to Mexican drug cartels.