ThinkProgress has learned from Hill sources that newly elected Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) will be added to the Senate Armed Services Committee, a position he was “pushing hard” for. The assignment will give Brown, a lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts National Guard, a “boost” since the committee has jurisdiction over national security spending. The late senator Ted Kennedy, whose seat Brown has filled, was also on the committee.

Additionally, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) will be added to the committee, to maintain the Democratic-Republican ratio.

A major question for Brown is how he will come down on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), one of the top issues facing the committee. In a January interview with ABC News, Brown said that he still hadn’t taken a position on whether to repeal the policy:

BROWN: I think it’s important, because as you know we’re fighting two wars right now. And the most — the first priority is to — is to — is to finish the job, and win those wars. I’d like to hear from the generals in the field — in the field — the people that actually work with these soldiers to make sure that, you know, the social change is not going to disrupt our ability to finish the job and complete the wars. [...]

WALTERS: So you can’t say whether you’re for or against it?

BROWN: No. I’m going to wait to speak to the generals on the ground.

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Bingaman voted against the ban on gay men and women serving openly in the military when it came up in 1993.

The Senate Armed Services Committee wouldn’t confirm the appointments to ThinkProgress since an official release has not yet gone out. The staff member also wouldn’t say when that would be happening.

In his testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee late last week, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke listed immigration reform as one of the issues Congress can and should take up to advance the nation’s economy:

There are a lot of things Congress can do…there’s tax policy, there’s immigration policy, trade policy. [...]

I think frankly, this is a topic that I can never get much traction on — I think our immigration policy which restricts severely the number of highly-trained skilled immigrants is a problem because bringing those kind of folks in helps our high-tech industries develop more competitively — become more competitive.

Watch it:

Last year Bernanke told a Congressional panel that “by opening doors to more people with top technical skills…you’d keep companies here, and you’d have more innovation here, and you’d have more growth here.” Bernanke has also indicated that in order to overcome the effects of an aging population, immigration would have to rise to 3.5 million people annually.

Bernanke’s predecessor, Alan Greenspan, agrees. Back in December, Greenspan testified that immigrants of all skill-levels are “affecting the economy in a positive way.” Greenspan also affirmed that “we would have a very serious problem” if the U.S. tried to embark on a massive deportation program that would involve sending the nation’s undocumented immigrants back home.

While neither Greenspan or Bernanke will likely win Wonk Room Economics blogger Pat Garofalo’s “Person of the Year Award,” their remarks are indicative of growing consensus amongst several leading economists when it comes to immigration and the economy. Tom Freidman has written, “When the best brains in the world are on sale, you don’t shut them out. You open your doors wider. We need to attack this financial crisis with green cards not just greenbacks.” A recent report by Raul Hinojosa of the University of California, Los Angeles further found that immigration reform which includes a path legalization could generate at least $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years. The Center for American Progress has estimated that mass deportations could cost the U.S. up to $230 billion or more.