The bridge was not classified as structurally deficient, but a Federal Highway Administrationdatabase lists it as being "functionally obsolete" a category meaning that the design is outdated, such as having narrow shoulders and low clearance underneath.
While some Democrats on the committee used the hearings to air their gripes on the Bush administration's creation of a financial database to track money transfers by terrorists, the issue isn't expected to derail the nomination.
As part of its implementation of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration moved late last year to make the huge Medicare claims database more broadly available to the public by allowing some community groups focused on improving health care at the local level to obtain doctor-specific data.
By 2008, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration's Web site, 38 states had passed legislation to create a database for physicians and pharmacists to prevent abusers from obtaining multiple prescriptions.
Clinger and committee Republicans accused the Clinton Administration of taking vital information from the files and entering it into a political enemies computer database.