The first task for a new alliance of two market regulators is an investigation into possible factors last week that caused stocks to drop rapidly.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced Tuesday the formation of a joint panel that will provide recommendations for what happened May 6 along with examining emerging market issues. 

Next week, the Joint SEC-CFTC Advisory Committee on Emerging Regulatory Issues will examine preliminary results from the market free fall that sent stocks tumbling about 1,000 points last week. 

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro and CFTC head Gary Gensler told a House panel today that the effort between their agencies has been "very collaborative" in the time before and since the market experienced an unusually large drop and quick recovery during trading last week. 

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Regulators told a congressional panel Tuesday they are ruling nothing out as the cause for last week’s market free fall.

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A new Congressional Budget Office analysis of the health reform bill showing $115 billion in discretionary spending has quickly been turned into extra ammo for the GOP.

"We can expect the true cost to grow even higher, since CBO noted this new estimate does not include 38 sections of grant programs, which cover 406 pages of legislation," Energy and Commerce Republicans say in a press release. "While the Democrat authors of the law did not specify a funding level for these particular programs, they are certain to further increase spending."

The White House quickly responded to the latest figures from CBO by pointing out that the new estimates would need to be paid for and therefore do not affect the deficit.

The new law "will reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion in the first decade, and that will not change unless Congress acts to change it," Office of Management and Budget Communications Director Kenneth Baer said in a statement. "If these authorizations are funded, they must be offset somewhere else in the discretionary budget. The President has called for a non-security discretionary spending freeze, and he will enforce that with his veto pen.”

The latest CBO numbers come in a letter to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee. The new score takes into consideration the cost of implementing the bill - $5 to $10 billion for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and roughly the same for the Internal Revenue Service; it also calculates how much it would cost to fund programs in the bill that are authorized but not paid for: about $105 billion over 10 years.

CBO also points out that it does not have enough information to estimate how much it would cost to fund the dozens of programs that have no price tag but for which the new law authorizes the appropriation of "such sums as may be necessary."

The new score builds upon a previous CBO estimate, released in March, that found that specified authorizations, for spending subject to appropriation, totaled $55.5 billion for 2010-2014. The new score looks at a 10-year window (2010-2019) and is roughly double the earlier estimate; it also examines the cost of extending previously authorized bills as well as the cost of an Indian health care provision.

Updated at 5:29 p.m.

This was cross-posted from Blog Briefing Room.

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) on Tuesday said he recently spoke with fellow lawmakers about rolling all tax matters facing Congress into a single bill. 

The impetus behind the proposal is the lack of legislative days to handle all outstanding issues confronting lawmakers. 

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Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said progress of this year's budget resolution faces "numerous problems," namely House members' ambivalence and the lack of floor time in the upper chamber.

House Democrats have yet to decide whether to move forward on the budget resolution, Conrad noted.

If the House decides not to move forward with a budget, Conrad said the Senate likely wouldn't act on the annual resolution, which sets discretionary spending levels for next year and lays out the majority's fiscal policies for the next few years.

"I don't think it would make any sense to do it if we can't have one," he said. "That applies to both chambers." 

"I'm still hopeful the House will, and I hope we'll get finished with this bill, so that will supply us with floor time," he added.

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Raising or changing the damages liability caps for oil spills will be done soon in the Senate. 

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that "there will be a number of opportunities" to deal with the cap but it won't be included in financial regulatory reform legislation under consideration. 

"There are lots of places we could try to do it," he said. "We have to find an opportune time."

He said it's likely the companies involved in the spill were negligent and "probably grossly negligent," he told reporters today. 

Reid said the federal government is making sure that British Petroleum, "pays for every penny of the damage they caused with that spill." 

Lawmakers shouldn't rush any changes, especially considering the spill still isn't under control, he said. 

Several Senators have called for an increase in the cap from $75 million to $10 billion to ensure that BP pays for containment, clean up and economic damages to coastal businesses. 

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) told reporters on Tuesday that his estate tax proposal is near completion. 

"It is our hope that we can get together both on the proposal, the details are pretty well resolved, and on a process by which we can get it passed as soon as possible," he said. 

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Former President Bill Clinton circulated an email on Monday asking supporters to help pay down his wife's 2008 presidential campaign bid. 

"Hillary's campaign still has a few vestiges of debt that I know she would like to see paid in full," his email states. "Will you reach out today to help Hillary this one last time?" 

The email provides a link to donate to the campaign, but does not say how much the Secretary of State owes. 

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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday said serious discussions have not taken place in his chamber on adding middle-class relief from the alternative minimum tax (AMT) to legislation extending several expiring measures.

"It's been talked about in the Senate, not so much here," he told reporters. 

AMT relief, commonly called a "patch," expired in 2009. Each year it not only costs tens of billions of dollars to extend, but its cost also increases as more taxpayers become susceptible to the tax since it is not adjusted for inflation. 

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