If the White House wanted a taste of what's in store after the new Congress is sworn in on Wednesday, the Sunday talk shows provided a king-size helping, with vows from newly-empowered Republicans to attack head-on key Obama administration initiatives including health care reform and increased regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
Michigan Rep.
Fred Upton, who is set to be chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, promised an early vote to make good on the GOP promise to try and repeal the health care legislation.
Appearing on
Fox News Sunday, Upton said he also is going to take on the administration's plan to issue new rules through the Environmental Protection Agency limiting greenhouse gas emissions, which were announced after the end of a congressional session in which
efforts to agree on a bipartisan plan to reduce carbon emissions collapsed.
"We are not going to let this administration regulate what they've been unable to legislate," said Upton, referring to the "cap and trade" bill that passed the House but didn't make it through the Senate.
In late December, the
EPA announced a timetable for the new rules that would include stricter emission standards for power plants and oil refineries.
Upton said, "We're going to have early, early hearings on this. We're going to see exactly what their (the EPA's) analysis is on its impact on jobs. There's also something called the Congressional Review Act, that within 60 days of rules being published, Congress can take this up and with an up-or-down vote, it is filibuster-proof in the Senate. It's been used before."
Upton wrote in a December 28
Wall Street Journal column that the EPA's "move represents an unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs-unless Congress steps in."
On health care, Upton said, "As part of our pledge, we said that we would bring up a vote to repeal healthcare early. That will happen before the president's State of the Union address."
Upton noted the small margin by which the final health care measure passed the House and said "We have 242 Republicans. There will be a significant number of Democrats, I think, that will join us."
When asked if repeal could pass the Senate, Upton again pointed to last year's vote when Democrats, with their bigger majority, just managed to notch the 60 votes necessary to avert a filibuster and get a vote on the legislation. The Democratic majority is now 53 to 47.
On another front, California Rep.
Darrell Issa, who will head the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
, promised on Fox that Republicans and the administration are "going to be in a constant battle over jobs and the economy."
"My father-in-law was an Air Force pilot, and he used to say when there was a problem that stopped him from doing something, oh, another rock in my knapsack," Issa said.
Likening what he considers excess government regulation to rocks in the knapsack, Issa said, "We have about $1.7 trillion worth of regulatory costs already in the government. If the president wants to throw another $300 or $400 billion, what he's doing is taking it right out of businesses, right out of employment, right out of competitiveness. We need to make sure we compete."
"I think he's guilty of all of those things," Issa said. "He isn't doing enough. Certainly, he didn't do anything about ACORN, and we're going to continue to make sure that we don't have that kind of waste in government. He didn't do anything effectively about the New Black Panthers."
Asked if Holder should step down, Issa said, "I think he needs to realize that, for example, (regarding) WikiLeaks, if the president says I can't deal with this guy as a terrorist, then he has to be able to deal with him as a criminal, otherwise the world is laughing at -- at this paper tiger we've become. So he's hurting this administration. If you're hurting the administration, either stop hurting the administration, or leave."
Holder
has said there were problems with the idea of using the Espionage Act to indict Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, but that the department is looking into prosecuting him for other possible offenses.
Republican congressional leaders may also have to gird for some aggravation of their own from some of the Tea Party candidates elected this fall.
Florida Rep. Alan West, appearing on Fox,
stood by his criticism of Majority Leader-to-be Eric Cantor for putting out a schedule that reduces the number of weeks the House will be in session.
"Our purpose is to be up here and represent the people," West said. "And I think that we're going to have to work a little bit harder starting off especially in these first three to four months than I think that that schedule showed. And that was something that I had to bring up."
Told that Cantor's spokesman said the more days that lawmakers are in Washington the bigger the government becomes, West said, "I think that that's a very disconcerting statement for me, because if they believe that the more time that we're spending up here working toward what's best for the American people is a bad thing, then, you know, what's our purpose for being here?"
Poster Comment:
Lots of BS rhetoric, but hObama will veto everything and impose cap n tax by executive order.
BO is just another Bush, with a tan. He's the first black bush. Whooptee doo!
