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Senator Rand Paul’s toilets don’t work, and he blames the Department of Energy.

At a hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Thursday, Mr. Paul lambasted Kathleen Hogan, deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency at the Energy Department, telling her that the department’s “hypocrisy” and “busybody nature” has “restricted choices” for consumers rather than made life better for them.

“You don’t care about the consumer really,” Mr. Paul said. “Frankly, my toilets don’t work in my house, and I blame you.”

The hearing was called not to examine toilet policy, but to consider two proposed bills, one that would update energy efficiency standards for appliances and a second that would repeal a measure passed in 2007 to phase in new efficiency standards for light bulbs beginning next year.

The new standards would make the current form of 100-watt incandescent bulbs obsolete. Those bulbs have long been known to be particularly inefficient, emitting far more heat than light.

Conservatives have taken up the cause of the incandescent light bulb, saying the government is trying to dictate to Americans what kind of light bulbs they can use in their homes. In the Senate, Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, has proposed a bill to repeal the light bulb standards that is co-sponsored by at least 22 other senators, including Mr. Paul. The bill, the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act (or the BULB Act — get it?), is Senate Bill 395.

Two bills are on the books in the House of Representatives. One, H.R. 91, is identical to the BULBS Act in the Senate and is sponsored by Representative Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, and 12 others. A second, H.R. 849, is sponsored by Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, who introduced a similar bill two years ago and who mentioned the looming bulb restrictions in her Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech in January. That bill is co-sponsored by four other House members, including Representative Ron Paul, the father of Senator Paul.

While many Republicans have taken up the cause of the familiar 100-watt incandescent bulb, Mr. Paul said he took the law as a personal affront visited on Americans by “bureaucrats.”

“I’m not against conservation,” Mr. Paul said. “But why not do it in a voluntary way,” rather than force him to adopt the new bulbs with “fines and threats of jail?”

Mr. Paul also drew a pointed parallel with abortion, opening his questioning by asking Ms. Hogan, “I was wondering if you are pro-choice?”

Ms. Hogan said she was “pro-choice in light bulbs.” But Mr. Paul accused her, the Energy Department and Democrats in general of hypocrisy. “You favor a woman’s right to abortion,” he said, but “you’re really anti-choice on every other product.”

He said that department standards on energy-efficient refrigerators and toilets, for example, do not work. “We don’t even save any money,” Mr. Paul said. “We have to flush the toilet 10 times before it works.”

Mr. Paul started to leave the hearing room shortly after his turn at questioning the witness, but he was called back into the room by Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, who scolded Mr. Paul for being rude to Ms. Hogan.

“I think it behooves us all not to engage in name calling,” Ms. Shaheen said. Government workers like Ms. Hogan are simply trying “to carry out the work Congress has asked them to do,” and Congress can change the law if it wants, Ms. Shaheen said.

Ms. Hogan herself had a kind word for Mr. Paul: “I can help you find a toilet that works.”

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President Obama on Wednesday nominated Virginia A. Seitz, a law firm partner who specializes in appellate litigation to lead the Justice Department’s powerful Office of Legal Counsel.

The nomination represents Mr. Obama’s second attempt to get someone confirmed to lead the agency, which tells the executive branch whether proposed policies would be lawful. His last nominee, Dawn Johnsen, a former Clinton administration lawyer, withdrew after her nomination had lingered for more than a year without a Senate vote.

In a statement, Mr. Obama described a group of executive branch nominees that included Ms. Seitz — whose nomination to the position of assistant attorney general for the office has been rumored for months — in glowing terms.

“The extraordinary dedication these men and women bring to their new roles will greatly serve the American people, he said. “I am grateful they have agreed to serve in this administration and I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come.”

Ms. Seitz is currently a partner at the law firm of Sidley Austin. Her work there has included being the counsel of record for a group of retired military officers who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of upholding affirmative action policies in a 2003 Supreme Court case, Grutter v. Bollinger.

She does not have a great deal of experience in national security legal policy matters – a factor that could both hurt and help her. Critics may attack her lack of relevant experience, since the Office of Legal Counsel has been deeply involved in setting limits – or sometimes secretly proclaiming a lack thereof – on what the executive branch wants to do to combat Al Qaeda.

On the other hand, critics are unlikely to find much of a paper trail laying out specific views on such matters as Bush administration interrogation policies and the balance between handling terrorists as wartime combatants or as criminals. Such issues have served as recurrent fodder for partisan controversy.

The Office of Legal Counsel wields extraordinary power. If a proposed policy would be illegal, it has the responsibility of telling the president that it cannot be done. But if it signs off on a policy, then any official who takes an action based on its opinion is essentially safe from prosecution – even if the legal analysis invoked by the office is later repudiated.

Once obscure, the Office of Legal Counsel became notorious during the administration of President George W. Bush after its political appointees, citing expansive theories of executive power, issued secret memorandums approving surveillance and interrogation policies that bypassed statutory and treaty limits.

The controversy that surrounded the office after those memorandums came to light have made it difficult for presidents of both parties to get anyone confirmed to lead it. It has not had a Senate-confirmed assistant attorney general since 2004.

Ms. Seitz earned an undergraduate degree from Duke University, was a Rhodes Scholar, and graduated first in her class from Buffalo Law School. She also clerked for Harry T. Edwards, a former appeals court judge, and William J. Brennan, a former associate justice of the Supreme Court.

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After a decade as the inspector general of the Justice Department, Glenn A. Fine told President Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Monday that he will step down early next year.

In letters to Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder, Mr. Fine said “it is time for me to pursue new professional challenges” and he would resign at the end of January 2011.

“I am proud” of his office’s “significant contributions to the Department of Justice,” Mr. Fine wrote. “Through our audits, investigations, inspections, and special reviews, we have sought to improve the department’s performance, promote economy and efficiency in its programs, and detect and deter waste, fraud, and abuse in its operations.”

Mr. Fine had already served about five years in lower positions in the office of the inspector general when President Bill Clinton appointed him to become its top official in 2000. He went on to become among the most prominent watchdogs in the federal government.

His office attracted particularly widespread attention during its investigations into Justice Department scandals during the Bush administration — including documenting politicized hiring practices in the department’s Civil Rights Division and the circumstances behind the firing of nine United States attorneys in 2006.

Mr. Fine’s office also audited the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation over its use of expanded surveillance powers after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 – including bringing to light widespread problems with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s use of administrative subpoenas called “national security letters.”

In a statement, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, commended Mr. Fine for his “excellent work” in helping to ensure that the Justice Department operated “efficiently, effectively, within the scope of the law, and with integrity and commitment to American values.”

“I particularly applaud his work to shed light on improper political influence in hiring and prosecutions, which helped bring the department through a particularly dark chapter in its history,” Mr. Leahy said, adding that “all Americans should appreciate Inspector General Fine’s audits of the use of surveillance authorities” – investigations that “led to greater public accountability and triggered important reforms by the F.B.I.”

Attorney General Holder also praised Mr. Fine.

“For more than fifteen years, Glenn Fine’s commitment to integrity and professionalism has helped the Department of Justice fulfill its most important responsibilities,” Mr. Holder said in a statement. “Throughout his decade-long tenure as inspector general, he has embodied the Justice Department’s highest ideals and greatest traditions of service.”

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As many as 200 FBI employees cheated on an exam judging their skills in criminal or national security operations, operational support and intelligence collection, a Justice Department investigation found. The DOJ inspector general report released Monday concludes that certain test takers used cheat sheets, some consulted with each other during the exam, and others “exploited [...]

FBI surveillance and investigation of homegrown activist groups, including Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the placement of some members on a terrorist watch list, was improper and “troubling,” the Justice Department said Monday. The review by DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine was ordered after civil liberties groups and Democrats on [...]

The United States Justice Department is looking into Google’s takeover of airline ticketing software firm ITA Software, to determine whether the deal would exert too much influence on the online travel industry, Reuters said, citing a report in The Wall Street Journal. Google bought ITA Software, one of the Web’s key providers of airline travel [...]