Snowe-Mello Appointed to National Committee on Communications, Financial Services and Interstate Commerce

AUGUSTA – Senator Lois Snowe-Mello, of Poland, has been appointed to the Communications, Financial Services and Interstate Commerce Committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Her membership on the committee, which is one of NCSL’s 11 standing committees, will extend through 2008.

NCSL, based in Washington, D.C., is an organization committed to bringing leaders from all over the country together to explore and develop sound policy proposals that will improve the governing of a state, as well as the relationships between state and federal government. Each of NCSL’s 11 standing committees are composed of state legislators from across the country who are asked to bring the perspective of their chamber to the state issues each committee addresses. In the past, members of these committees have been asked to testify at congressional hearings and meet with federal agency officials.

As a member of NCSL’s Communications, Financial Services and Interstate Commerce Committee, Sen. Snowe-Mello will join leaders from across the country in exploring a wide range of policy issues. Topics that Sen. Snowe-Mello’s committee will examine include: business activity taxes, consumer affairs, financial institutions, insurance fraud, internet regulation and natural disaster insurance. Her committee will meet three times over the course of the year; in Washington, D.C., Boston, Massachusetts, and Phoenix, Arizona.

Sen. Snowe-Mello, a member of the Maine Legislature’s Insurance and Financial Services Committee, is pleased with her appointment. “I’m very excited to join leaders from other states to examine the important issues this committee will address,” she said. “The topics this committee takes up are vitally important to each and every income-earning American, and I am looking forward to getting to work with the rest of the committee. I can learn a great deal from my fellow committee members, and I hope to offer them my own unique perspective as well.”

Sen. Snowe-Mello represents District 15, which includes Auburn, Durham, New Gloucester and Poland. She can be reached in Augusta by calling 287-1505, in Poland by calling 784-9136, or by e-mail at replois@megalink.net.

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