The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) is one of the few federal agencies housed in the legislative branch. Responsible for monitoring and investigating the bilateral trade relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, USCC submits an annual report to Congress on the national security implications of this relationship, and it makes recommendations for possible legislative and administrative action. The commission is comprised of 12 members, three of whom are selected by each Majority and Minority leader of the Senate, and the Speaker and the Minority leader of the House. Each commissioner serves a two-year term.

 

Daniel M. Slane was first appointed to the USCC by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on December 10, 2007, for a two-year term expiring on December 31, 2009. Boehner reappointed Slane to the Commission on December 10, 2009, for a second two-year term expiring on December 31, 2011, and the Commissioners shortly thereafter unanimously elected him as the Chairman for the 2010 report cycle.

 

Born circa 1942, Slane earned a B.S. in Business Administration in 1964 and his J.D. in 1967, both from Ohio State University. He served two years as a U.S. Army Captain in Military Intelligence before earning his M.A. in international law in 1970 from the Europa Institute at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Slane then returned to the U.S. and served one year as an assistant prosecuting attorney for Franklin County, Ohio, and two years as a White House staff assistant to President Gerald R. Ford. He also worked for a number of years as a case officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. In the 1970s, Slane joined the law firm of Grieser, Schafer, Blumenstiel and Slane, where he became a partner and practiced law for several years. 

 

In 1984, Slane left the law firm to found a real estate development company, Slane Company, Ltd. which develops, owns and operates 88 shopping centers and commercial buildings in 12 states. The company also owns waste-treatment facilities in Europe, an interstate rail transportation company between the east coast and Ohio, a telecommunication company, a wood products company and a synthetic coal manufacturing company. Headquartered in Columbus, the company has offices in New York City; Cleveland; North Bergen, N.J.; Birmingham, England; and Shanghai and Fuzhou, China.

 

Slane has also engaged in public service related to his business interests. Republican Ohio Governor Paul Voinovich, for whom Slane had raised campaign funds, appointed Slane to four boards: the Ohio Building Authority, the Ohio State University Board of Trustees, the Board of Building Appeals and the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board. From 1990 to 1998, Slane served as vice chairman and chairman of the Ohio Building Authority, which finances, constructs, and manages state buildings. From 1991 to 1998, he chaired the State Board of Building Appeals, which grants variances to the Ohio Basic Building Code.

 

This connection with Voinovich raised eyebrows in 1998 when TRW initially awarded Slane’s company the contract to oversee the construction of most of 201 radio towers. The contract would have given The Slane Company the possibility of making $8 million each year for 20 years. If the deal had gone through, Slane would have bought or leased land, built the towers and then leased them to the state. When Voinovich was replaced by another Republican governor, Bob Taft, Slane’s contract was cancelled.

 

Slane also sits on the board of directors of Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing, which has developed more than a half-billion dollars of government-subsidized housing projects in Ohio.

 

In addition to being the former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio State University, Slane is the former chairman of University Hospital, a 1,000- bed hospital in Columbus, and the former chairman of the James Cancer Hospital. Over the years, he has served on the boards of financial institutions and on a number of nonprofit boards, including the board of trustees of Hiram College from 1996 to 2001.

 

A lifelong Republican, Slane has personally donated tens of thousands of dollars to political campaigns and causes, all of it to Republicans, save a single donation of $500 to 2000 Democratic Senate candidate Theodore Celeste, which Slane gave six months after Celeste’s loss to Republican incumbent Mike DeWine. Slane had actually contributed $500 to DeWine in both 1998 and 1999. Slane crossed party lines more dramatically in 2006 when he endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland over Republican Ken Blackwell. 

- Matt Bewig