The U.S. Senate should …

A) Come to grips with the nation's $1.85 trillion deficit.

B) Develop a long-term solution for Medicaid and Medicare.

C) Rein in government intrusion into automakers and other private companies.

D) Hold college football's feet to the fire until they change the setup for the Bowl Championship Series.

If you answered D, stand over there in the corner with U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Hatch has decided to waste the time of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to hold a hearing on the BCS system that - at least in theory - selects a national football champion.

Hatch this week, in an interview in Sports Illustrated, said the Sherman Antitrust Act prohibits contracts, combinations or conspiracies designed to reduce competition.

"I don't think a more accurate description of what the BCS does exists," Hatch wrote. He told the magazine that six college athletic conferences get automatic bids to participate in the series while others do not. That, he said, means the series, "intentionally and explicitly favors certain participants."

Hatch isn't alone in his attack on the BCS. Earlier this year Texas Congressman Joe Barton introduced a bill that would have prevented the NCAA from calling a game a national championship unless the NCAA goes to a playoff system.

Seldom have we seen such ferocious meddling by Congress over something that really doesn't deserve their attention. And never have we seen it at a time when the nation has its hands full with a full-blown recession, major industries on the ropes, continued fighting in Afghanistan and a still looming financial disaster over entitlement programs.

Perhaps this hearing will play well politically in Hatch's home state, Utah, where fans are still upset that the University of Utah was undefeated - including a win over Alabama in a BCS bowl game, but did not take the national title.

No doubt Hatch's words at the hearing on Tuesday will play well into the ears of still-disgruntled Ute fans and might even snag him a few votes come election day.

But Hatch knows full well - or should know - that the Bowl Championship Series, which was created 1998, lured the nation's top six football conferences and Notre Dame into participating by making their top teams automatic qualifiers. Those conferences already had lucrative contracts and matchups with postseason bowls. The Big Ten and Pac 10 had the Rose Bowl; the SEC, the Sugar Bowl; the ACC the Orange Bowl.

Without the inducement of a spot in the BCS - and a designated matchup between the No. 1 and No. 2 ranked teams in the country in a bowl game - those conferences never would have committed.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor Harvey Perlman, who was recently appointed chairman of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, said in interview with Nebraska Statepaper.com this week, "Now coaches and players will always want to play as many games as possible. And I respect them for that, but I don't think any of us are prepared to adopt a playoff system that interferes with exams in the fall semester, that extends into the spring semester any more than we have to."

Perlman argued that a playoff structure would result in fewer student athletes having the opportunity to play in postseason bowls and said that, contrary to the allegations of anti-competitiveness, the BCS had actually resulted in more income and more exposure to national markets for teams from conferences outside the automatic qualifiers than prior to the BCS series.

"It's hard to see what the endgame is for this attack on the BCS on antitrust grounds," Perlman added, "As I said: The alternative is not a playoff. The alternative is to go back to the system we had. That's fine. Many of us would think that's not a bad outcome."

Probably not the outcome Hatch has in mind. Perhaps he should then direct the Senate back to conducting the business of the country instead of wasting the committee's precious time.