Tightening Clear Skies Bill Would Kill It - Lawmakers
622061
Any move by Congress to regulate carbon dioxide emissions would derail a controversial Bush administration plan to reduce other pollutants from coal-burning power plants, Republican lawmakers said on Wednesday.
33661
Congress may kill the Air Force&#39;s plan to lease refueling tankers from the Boeing Co. By Bryan Corliss. Congress appears poised to reject the Boeing Co.
363729
By MATTHEW DALY  WASHINGTON - An Oregon senator is threatening to filibuster a must-pass spending bill if Congress does not extend payments to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging.
100540
Two dozen senators Wednesday criticized a Pentagon proposal that would eliminate Lockheed Martin Corp.'s C-130J Hercules aircraft to save nearly $5 billion over the next six years.
218682
The U.S. Congress still needs to deal with network neutrality, and supporters in Congress are willing to block any legislation favored by broadband providers until the issue is resolved, a leading Democratic lawmaker said Wednesday.
10237
A higher tax on domestic flights and a moratorium on airport expansions are among some of the key proposals a Conservative policy group will announce Thursday as part of the political party&#39;s commitment to fighting climate change.
197654
House and Senate conferees agreed  late on Thursday to ban the leasing of aerial refueling  aircraft as part of a final deal on a $422 billion defense  authorization bill, killing a proposed $23.5 billion Air Force  deal with Boeing Co. BA.N, congressional sources said.
351816
Control towers at some airports could go dark between midnight and 5 a.m. under a cost-cutting plan the government is considering.
528735
(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Congress still needs to deal with network neutrality, and supporters in Congress are willing to block any legislation favored by broadband providers until the issue is resolved, a leading Democratic lawmaker said Wednesday. "Network neutrality is a large, unresolved debate," said Representative Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, speaking at the State of the 'Net Conference in Washington, D.C. "It's [the Internet's] open and accessible policy that has enabled it to be a platform of innovation." A net neutrality law, which would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing Web content from competitors,Â stalled in Congress in 2006, and large broadband providers, such as AT&T and Verizon, opposed efforts to pass a law. But net neutrality advocates -- many of them part of the Democratic majority that now controls both houses of Congress -- would block any legislation requested by the large broadband providers until a net neutrality compromise is hammered out, Boucher predicted. Last year, AT&T and Verizon pushed for a new law that would streamline the franchising process they must go through to offer television over IP service in competition with cable TV. But this year, the large broadband providers have largely backed off on their lobbying efforts, and Boucher suggested that's because Democrats will demand a net neutrality law as a trade-off for any legislation that benefits providers. Boucher supports a net neutrality law, but he called for compromise. Congress should not pass a net neutrality law with "unintended consequences" that hurt the development of the Internet, he said. "I don't want to do anything ... that has the effect of hobbling innovation inside the network," he added. Other speakers at the conference, sponsored by the bipartisan Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus, suggested a net neutrality law would hurt efforts to increase broadband adoption in the U.S. A net neutrality law would limit broadband providers' options for providing new services, said George Ford, chief economist at the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies, a free-market-focused think tank. "We should exercise discipline," Ford said. "We rarely do that with communications policy." Other speakers argued there's little evidence of broadband providers blocking competitors' Web content, a scenario net neutrality advocates want to prevent. "Economic change and technological change need room to breathe," said Christopher Yoo, a tech law professor at Vanderbilt University. If broadband providers eventually take action that harms customers and competition, then Congress should pass a law, Yoo said. Yoo and David Farber, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, argued that broadband providers need the ability to block Internet content such as spam and to shut down Web applications that hog bandwidth. Providers should also be allowed to prioritize Web applications such as video or voice, allowing customers to have a high quality of service, Farber said. "If you try to get quality of service for everyone, you don't get quality of service," Farber said. But Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia University Law School, said providers should only block Web content in the most extreme circumstances. The difference between "good blocking" and "bad blocking" depends on the user's perspective, he said. "Blocking should be highly suspect," Wu added. "We say good blocking is good and bad blocking is bad, but so does the Chinese government. They're making bad decisions at the center [of the network]."
662691
As Democrats and Republicans disagreed on the accomplishments of the 108th Congress, one thing is certain: Hundreds of programs &#151; from highway building to welfare reform &#151; are being kept on life support through temporary measures because lawmakers failed to meet deadline after deadline for renewing them.
209518
The drive to pass a &#36;136 billion corporate tax bill hit a roadblock in the Senate on Friday when lawmakers upset about tobacco regulation, new overtime rules and combat pay employed delaying tactics to prevent a vote.
722641
A senior U.S. lawmaker said on  Wednesday he had introduced legislation designed to prevent  broadband Internet providers from unreasonable interference  with subscribers' access to content.
505233
The House rushed late Friday to pass pension legislation meant to give retirees greater financial security and prevent airlines from dumping their plans on the government. After a year of delays and missed deadlines, the bill could be on the president's desk as early as next week.
85482
The passage of a major U.S. tax bill  on Monday containing a buyout for tobacco farmers has left a  bitter taste among public health groups that had hoped to link  the funding to new federal laws regulating cigarettes.
70638
'It's only a matter of time' Adding to the chorus of critics who say detailed images on Google Earth can aid and abet terrorists and snoops, a New York state lawmaker is calling on the company to blur potential terrorist targets.â¦
630745
Two legislators instrumental in healthcare reform yesterday warned that some health plans under the new law might offer only minimal coverage and force subscribers to pay high out-of-pocket costs.
375807
Ports security legislation that most senators agree would make the country safer was stuck Tuesday in election-year politics as Republicans threatened to scrap it if Democrats forced in a wide range of provisions.