Joe Barton News

Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, set out a startling scenario in floor debate Saturday before the House approved the health care bill pushed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Consumer privacy groups are teaming with the congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus to brief Hill staffers Nov.

About 12 hours after the House began its debate, the final tally late Saturday was 220 to 215, with 39 Democrats choosing to vote against their leadership, despite personal lobbying by President Obama to keep Democrats on board.

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, finally ended the guessing game about his position on the $1 trillion Democratic healthcare bill with an announcement Saturday morning before the vote: "no." "After listening to thousands of my constituents and carefully reviewing the legislation, I have made a decision to vote no on the House healthcare reform bill," ...

By ANNA M. TINSLEY As Congress debates overhauling the nation's healthcare system, some state leaders hope that whatever legislation passes will include a provision allowing Texas to opt out of the plan.Although its not yet part of the massive Democratic-led plan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said there will be a provision letting states ...

Congressman Joe Barton was interviewed recently by some local talk-show host or another.

Now this is change I can believe in. Remember the stories written one year ago today, the morning after the Barack Obama win? It wasn't just about him, said the prevailing analysis.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an impassioned plea Tuesday to a joint session of Congress to help forge a binding climate-change deal at an international meeting next month in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Republican Party is set to reveal an alternative health care reform bill to the Democratic ones in Congress just as the House prepares to take up Democratic legislation.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued an interim final rule to beef up penalties for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act , as several Congressmen criticize the agency for leaving dangerous loopholes in the law.

House Democratic leaders "will have to address abortion and immigration before they release a manager's amendment in time to vote on the" health care bill before "Nov. 11, if they hope to marshal the 218 votes they need," CongressDailyAM reports.

The House Democratic healthcare reform bill is going to "ream" the American people, according to Energy and Commerce ranking member Joe Barton House GOP leaders were quick to march an entire hardcopy of the Democrats' nearly 2,000 page healthcare bill before TV cameras to denounce the measure for raising taxes, creating mandates and cutting ...

Numerous media figures and outlets have followed in lockstep, with the Politico 's Jonathan Allen asserting that the bill "comes out to about $2.24 million per word," and Sean Hannity claiming that "if you can't put this down in 30 pages or less, it proves that this is a complicated, you know, bunch of bureaucratic garbage." EMBED House Republicans ...

By MARIA RECIO WASHINGTON - For the Republican lawmakers who represent Tarrant County in Congress, the House Democratic healthcare bill is too big, too costly and too much government, a message that seems to be resonating with Democratic Rep.

Oct. 29, 2009 - The Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act, H.R 3126, is slated for mark-up today by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is focusing on the bill's impact on the Federal Trade Commission and its broad authority over consumer protection.

In the last ten years, Republicans have had twice as many Southern Senate incumbents get tossed out of office by the voters.

Gun Rights: A decade after Congress forbade the CDC from studying the health consequences of gun ownership, the National Institutes of Health has started funding such research.

Well net neutrality fans, your enemies list just got one person bigger. John McCain is the latest to come out against the FCC's work, and has even proposed legislation to stop the agency in its tracks.

The Net Neutrality Quandry for Big Telecom: Fight or Deal? It's The Morning After for Big Telecom, and it ain't pretty.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to take the first step Thursday toward enacting net neutrality regulations that would ban Internet service providers from impeding Web traffic.