By Molly K. Hooper, CQ Staff

The House ethics panel has assured Speaker Nancy Pelosi that an investigation into the conduct of Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel , D-N.Y., will be completed by the time the current Congress goes out of business Jan. 3.

“In September, I called on the House ethics committee to look into issues raised by news reports on Chairman Rangel. . . . I have been assured the report will be completed by the end of this session of Congress, which concludes on January 3, 2009,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement released Wednesday.

The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the House ethics panel is formally known, is conducting a probe of several matters concerning Rangel, including his failure to disclose income received from property he owns in the Dominican Republic.

New allegations came to light Tuesday, when The New York Times reported that Rangel had preserved a tax benefit for an oil-drilling company on the same day that he asked the head of that company to donate money to the Charles B. Rangel public service school at the City College of New York.

Rangel refuted the Times’ reporting; the newspaper’s editorial board called on Pelosi to remove him as head of the powerful tax writing committee.

“We hope that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is shocked into action. She should insist that the ethics investigation move forward — and that Mr. Rangel relinquish his chairmanship during the inquiry. If Mr. Rangel continues to resist, the speaker should permanently reassign the gavel. In a deep economic crisis, the committee, and the country, cannot afford the distraction,” the Times board wrote.

Rangel denounced the Times for publishing a story that he said “charges recklessly ahead anyway with a host of innuendos to question my motives and actions in supporting the City College program. . . . At no time — never — did I entertain, promote or secure a tax break or any special favor for anyone as an inducement or reward for a contribution to the City College of New York.”

But, the Times editorial board said, the newspaper’s reporting “provides more grist for the House ethics inquiry that’s supposed to be under way into Mr. Rangel’s tangled affairs.”

In July, Rangel called for a formal ethics investigation to clear his name.

He had requested the investigation amid a series of newspaper reports questioning lapses on his financial disclosure forms; his lease of four rent-controlled apartments in New York City; the use of his official parking spot in a House garage for long-term storage of a car with expired tags; and the use of official letterhead to set up meetings with potential donors to his public service center at the City College of New York.

The ethics panel agreed Sept. 24 to create an investigative subcommittee to determine whether Rangel broke House rules.

Rangel has repeatedly rejected Republican demands that he step aside as chairman of Ways and Means while the ethics probe is under way.