Making Sense of America's Budget Crisis - As Progressive Americans See It

Here are some dandy links for those following the battle between Obama and congressional Republicans over America's budget deficit.

James Kenneth Galbraith explains what he maintains is America's "imaginary" fiscal crisis.

Paul Rosenberg traces America's current woes to the Republicans refusal to abandon Reagan mythology.

Dennis Kucinich warns that today's debt political theatre is diverting attention from the theft of Americans' wealth.

Joe Stiglitz argues the belief in free and unfettered markets brought the world to the brink of ruin.

Robert Reich discloses Mitch McConell's devious plan to make Obama pay for Republican perfidy.

Matt Taibbi wades into modern America's massive class divide by which the rich don't know the poor exist and the poor have no idea what real rich people are like.

In case any of these links go down, you can find all of these articles at www.commondreams.org

It's Official - Obama Has No Spine

It's gone, surgically removed by specialists from the Republican congressional ranks.   Now Obama has lost all chance of ever being able not to roll over on command.

Elizabeth Warren is out.   The best possible candidate for director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been passed over by Obama and it's no secret why.   The corporate lobbyists who call the shots with Republican legislators wanted Warren trashed at any cost.   As instructed, Republicans fiercely opposed Warren's nomination.  Obama rolled over.   End of story.

The agency, with Warren at the helm, was expected to tightly regulate the student loans, mortgage lending and credit card industry.   With no director - and there isn't one on the horizon - the CFPB can regulate nothing.

Exposing the Real Risk of FrackGas

Actor Mark Ruffalo on Olbermann explains why frackgas is so insanely dangerous.  "We don't have another 40 years."

Hacking for the Environment - Tar Sands in the Crosshairs

The international hacking group Anonymous has launched Operation Green Rights.   Their first target was Monsanto, a company the group called "corrupt, unethical and downright evil."   Anonymous claims to have given Monsanto a rough time.

"We blasted their web infrastructure to s*** for 2 days straight, crippling all 3 of their mail servers as well as taking down their main websites world-wide.  We dropped dox on 2500+ employees and associates, including full names, addresses, phone numbers, and exactly where they work. We are also in the process of setting up a wiki, to try and get all collected information in a more centralized and stable environment.  Not bad for 2 months, I'd say."

The group has announced it's next target, Tar Sands companies.   They're calling it Operation Green Rights; Project Tarmaggedon. Here's their manifesto:

"Anonymous' Operation Green Rights calls your attention to an urgent situation in North America perpetuated by the boundless greed of the usual suspects: Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., Imperial Oil, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and many others.

This week, activists are gathering along U.S. Highway 12 in Montana to protest the transformation of a serene wilderness into an industrial shipping route, bringing "megaloads" of refinery equipment to the Alberta Tar Sands in Canada (see Tar Sands FAQ Sheet below).

Anonymous now joins the struggle against "Big Oil" in the heartland of the US. We stand in solidarity with any citizen willing to protest corporate abuse. Anonymous will not stand by idly and let these environmental atrocities continue. This is not the clean energy of the future that we are being promised.

We will, over the course of the next few days, use the powers we posses [sic] to spread news about this scenario and the corporations involved. We are actively seeking leaks to expose the corruption that we all KNOW is beneath this. Anonymous will support the activists on July 13-14 when they initiate civil disobedience and direct action to confront this dire issue. We urge you to get involved. Montana and Idaho citizens, we ask you to join local protests and attend the Highway 12 rally if you are close enough! If you're not, join us in the IRC listed below for our own good times.

 
The continued development of the tar sands is a major step backward in the effort to curb global warming. Anonymous will not suffer this without a fight, and Operation Green Rights will always support the rights of the people to live in an unpolluted world, and aim to help safeguard it for the future. One way or another."

Anonymous can attack Big Oil where it hurts most - their secrecy.  It can expose their activities to public scrutiny.   Sure it's illegal but so was WikiLeaks when it was created.  Yet they're right, we're long overdue for plenty of civil disobedience.   That's something Harper is going to discover if he tries to run Enbridge's bitumen pipeline across British Columbia.  Maybe that's why he's building those new prisons.

Exxon in Hot Water over Montana Pipeline

Exxon has been using a pipeline to transport Athabasca bitumen without notifying state officials who thought the line was only carrying conventional or "sweet" crude.   The presence of bitumen was not initially acknowledged by the company or by federal regulators.

Bitumen contains corrosive chemicals and abrasive particles not found in conventional crude.   That means it rots out pipelines just like the one Harper wants to run across remote parts of British Columbia and load aboard supertankers that will ply the treacherous waters of northern B.C.

Exxon now admits that bitumen was in the line but not at the spot where the line ruptured.   The oil that spilled was conventional oil from Wyoming.

Snotty nosed meddlers from the Environmental Protection Agency are analyzing the spilled oil.  They're looking for benzene, a carcinogen, and hexane, a toxin that damages the human nervous system.   Montana officials said they were surprised to learn that the pipeline that is buried in the Yellowstone river is used to transport Athabasca bitumen.   You betcha.

Seriously, Did He Really Say That?

Why does the new US Defense Secretary talk just like Donald Rumsfeld?

DefSec Leon Panneta has been making the rounds in Baghdad, begging the Maliki government to ask American troops to stay.   The U.S. wants to maintain bases in Iraq that, in a pinch, could accommodate a lot more American forces.  "In a pinch" by the way means if and when America decides to attack neighbouring Iran from those bases in Iraq.

Counterpunch  attributes these quotes to a "senior Iraqi politician."  "The fall of Mubarak means that the US can no longer rely on Egypt as its main ally against Iran, so it has a greater need to be an important player in Iraq. Whatever they may say in public, the Iraqi political class wants some US troops to stay to protect their interests."

Ah, so there it is.   The Maliki government, that has earned itself a reputation for corruption and brutality, wants an American force on standby in case the "Iraqi political class" needs its interests protected.

Oh yeah, that Rumsfeld reference?  This is what Panneta told American troops during his visit.  "The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked."  It sure sounds as though Panneta is linking the terrorists attacks with the occupation of Iraq.  Maybe Obama should talk to the guy.  Then again, maybe this line now works for Obama too.

Rupe, Thou Protesteth Too Much

There's one thing about ritual sacrifice.   Do too much of it and you'll look scared, maybe even guilty of something.  Rupe Murdoch has been shamelessly abusing the rite of sacrificial cleansing lately as he seeks to squirm his way out of the News of the World, Sun, and now Sunday Times phone hacking scandals.

First he shuttered News of the World, probably hoping that would be enough to let him go through with his takeover of BSkyB pay TV system.   When that didn't work he walked away (even if only temporarily) from the BSkyB gambit.   Then he purged News International CEO Rebekah Brooks from the boardroom and hot on the heels of her departure came the "resignation" of Les Hinton, former News International CEO and now publisher of Murdoch's Wall Street Journal and chairman of Murdoch's Dow Jones.   The blood doesn't have time to dry on the altar before Rupe's tossing up another sacrifice.

Today Rupe went on bended knee and apologized to the family of a murdered little girl whose voice mail account Rupe's crews also hacked.  It was an extraordinarily odious affair, even by Murdoch standards, but is it even something that Rupe can be allowed to apologize away?  No, it plainly isn't.

All the sacrifices and the apology don't distance Rupe from these abuses, they bring him ever closer in to the direct responsibility he so totally deserves.  Corrupting British police, invading the personal privacy of innocents, this stuff has been going on for years.  Rupe had at least six years to put an end to it.   One angry rebuke from him and it would have stopped immediately.   People, especially Rupe's employees, don't run afoul of that old bastard.

This isn't something for which Rupe can muster up an acceptable apology.   It wasn't somebody else who did it.   It was somebody else with Rupe's and his key management's acquiescence.  Rupe and Brooks and Hinton and many other senior people in News Corp facilitated this.   By not intervening all those years they enabled this to continue and seemingly get worse, much worse.   We are all deemed to intend the logical and foreseeable consequences of our acts (and omissions).   Rupert Murdoch and his son, James, and our Ms. Brooks and Mr. Hinton and a good many other senior members of Rupe's crew have to be considered morally and possibly criminally culpable in this.  By all indications, while in senior managerial positions, they allowed News Corp and News International to become criminal enterprises.

The swine who created FOX News to confuse, mislead and manipulate the American people and their political institutions and, on whose watch, his British operations ran amok, deserves everything coming at him.

Another Murdoch Lieutenant Falls

The day began with the announcement that News International CEO Rebekah Brooks had resigned.   Now she's followed by her predecessor and Rupe Murdoch's handpicked publisher of The Wall Street Journal and chairman of Dow Jones, Les Hinton who has announced his resignation.

Hinton ran News International from 1997 through 2005.  Rupe Murdoch, never one to give up a fight without plenty of  blood on the floor, is plainly running from this one.   First he shuttered News of the World, then he dropped his all but guaranteed takeover of BSkyB pay TV system, then Brooks fell on her sword, now Hinton does the same.

The Murdochs, Rupe and Jimmy, are due for an appearance before a British parliamentary committee next Tuesday.  By then they'll have no one left to fire but themselves.   Oopsie.

Meanwhile, on the truly dangerous side of the Atlantic for the Murdochs, the FBI has begun an investigation into reports that Murdoch crews tried to do the telephone voicemail hacking scam on survivors of the 9/11 victims.

Karzai's Assassin - The Afghan Conundrum in a Nutshell

The guy who gunned down the brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai is almost a metaphor for what's never going to let us 'fix' Afghanistan.

Two days ago, Ahmed Karzai was assassinated in his home by a trusted guard, Sardar Mohammad.  So who was Sardar Mohammad, how did he get close to Karzai and why did he turn Talib assassin?

The man who assassinated the half-brother of the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, spent years as an ally of the US in the war against the Taliban.


The killer, Sardar Mohammad, a police commander, met US and British military officials several times, shared intelligence with Americans and played a role in Afghan arrests of scores of Taliban fighters, say three relatives interviewed in his home near Kandahar.

The reasons behind the 35-year-old officer's dramatic switch against Ahmed Wali Karzai, perhaps the most powerful figure in southern Afghanistan, are still not known.

 

The fact is that Afghanistan has a rich history of this sort of treachery.   People switch sides as the winds change.  It's said that there isn't a single Afghan warlord who hasn't, at various times, been allied and fought with every other warlord.   Yet, despite this, we tried to create a viable Afghan government without dismembering the warlord power structure.   We did this knowing full well that there has never been a successful, modern Muslim state that didn't first overcome the fatal scourges of tribalism and warlordism.

Madness, bloody madness.

SAAB Sob

Venerable Swedish car maker, SAAB, is all but officially kaput.  It's all about SAAB's suspensions.  First it suspended payments to its suppliers.   Then it suspended production.   Now it's suspended paycheques due to its employees.

The problem was a dismal sales performance.  Industry analysts figured SAAB needed 120,000 units in sales just to break even but sold only 30,000 cars last year.

There's a lot of fingers being pointed at General Motors which owned SAAB for 20-years.   It's said that GM basically ran SAAB into the ground.  Quelle surprise!

Ahmadinejad May Be On Way Out

Al Jazeera is speculating that hothead Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be about to resign.  He has clashed with his country's real power, its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but the straw that may have broken Ahmad's camel's back was the Ayatollah's decision to reinstate the intelligence minister Ahmadinejad had sacked.

Mehrdad Khonsari, an analyst with the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies in London, told Al Jazeera on Friday that the dispute, which began last month, had become "serious".

"It shows the level of disunity at the very top of the Iranian [political] hierarchy [with] Ahmadinejad having already polarised the internal political scene as a result of fraudulent election results that were announced more than 20 months ago," Khonsari said.

"He is now beginning to encroach on the powers and privileges vested in the supreme leader, and he and his constituency - mainly among the Revolutionary Guards - have tried to do this.

"And, of course, the supreme leader has tried to make a stand and in this stand he has been joined by many people from the ruling establishment who have been cast aside by Ahmadinejad."
 ..."This is quite a standoff," he said. "Ahmadinejad, I think, at this particular time, has bitten more than he can chew and has been forced to essentially step back, but the fact [remains] that both he and the supreme leader are damaged as a result of this conflict."

Although speculation continues that Ahmadinejad may resign, Khonsari stopped short of hinting at the possibility of him quitting and instead said the dispute would lead to "further polarisation; further disunity [and] rivalry ... within a state structure that's already fractured".

Is the Tea Party America's Khmer Rouge?

So Wrong, In So Many Ways

The struggles underway between Congressional GOP leaders and the White House over America's debt ceiling have an eerie, nihilistic air to them.

Some attribute it to the struggles Republican House leader John Boehner and Senate leader Mitch McConell are having with their caucuses divided between sane members and radical Tea Party legislators.  I've found these Tea Partiers fascinating, in an ominous way and I just realized why.  I figure they're America's equivalent of Cambodia's old Khmer Rouge regime.  From WiKi:

This organization is remembered primarily for its policy of social engineering, which resulted in genocide.^[1] Its attempts at agricultural reform led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, even in the supply of medicine, led to the deaths of thousands from treatable diseases (such as malaria). Brutal and arbitrary executions and torture carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during purges of its own ranks between 1976 and 1978, are considered to have constituted a genocide.

Now, obviously, I don't think the Tea Partiers are going to trigger a genocide, they've seen to it their public is far too heavily armed for that, but they are into a twisted form of social engineering laced with essentially nihilistic ideological dogma.  Like the KR, the TP is basically irrational and immune to logic and reason.

My suspicions are only reinforced by this assessment of the Congressional GOP in today's New York Times:

...Not only is Michele Bachmann, a leading Republican presidential candidate, saying a government default is nothing to worry about, but a core group of 59 House Republicans have indicated they will not raise the debt ceiling under any circumstances, according to House Speaker John Boehner.

That’s right: no matter how much President Obama gives them — from curbing entitlements to cuts in excess of $3 trillion — this cadre of radical Republicans is taking the burn-it-all-down position. They don’t want to see the terms of a deal because there is no deal they will accept. That’s their stated position.

With this step, what the chaos caucus has proven is that they have no interest in governing. They didn’t go to Washington to find solutions; they went there to destroy the place.

Based on Boehner’s math, the anarchists make up perhaps 25 percent of the G.O.P. House. At the other end of party control are the moneyed interests who’ve long bankrolled Republicans. They’re happy, of course, that their favored politicians are willing to go to the brink of catastrophe to keep even the most egregious tax loopholes from being closed. But now they’re getting scared, as the anarchist wing indicates it is serious about bringing the whole government down — and with it a lot of private money.

Typhoon Heading for Fukushima?

A major typhoon is barreling toward Japan.  Typhoon Ma-on is expected to make landfall around noon Sunday.   It's path, shown above, indicates it will hit Tokyo and, just past that along that path, lies Fukushima Prefecture.

According to the Saffir-Simpson damage scale the potential property damage and flooding from a storm ofMa-on'sstrength (category 4)at landfall includes:

• Storm surge generally 4.0-5.5 metres (13-18 feet) above normal.
• Curtainwall failures with some complete roof structure failures on small residences.
• Shrubs, trees, and all signs are blown down.
• Complete destruction of mobile homes.
• Extensive damage to doors and windows.
• Low-lying escape routes may be cut by rising water 3-5 hours before arrival of the centre of the storm.
• Major damage to lower floors of structures near the shore.
• Terrain lower than 3 metres (10 feet) above sea level may be flooded requiring massive evacuation of residential areas as far inland as 10 km (6 miles).

This is from reader Chuck's tip, Weather Underground

 

 

The map above is the predicted path of Ma-On next week.  It shows the typhoon could be at category 3 strength pretty much directly over Fukushima by Wednesday.

British Columbians Support Carbon Taxes, What's Holding Up the Rest of You?

A FINE IDEA, BUNGLED - THANKS JACK

I'm republishing this because it's an important development and I sent it out last night and it appears to have gotten lost in the typical morning shuffle.   The story is important because it dispels the cynicism that the public won't support measures to combat global warming.   I've had my fill of that nonsense from reformatories and supposed progressives alike.

A solid majority of British Columbians surveyed by the Pembina Institute support their provincial government's carbon taxation.   Here are some of the findings:

"[BC'ers] are worried (69%) about global warming and support (70%) the province being a leader in takingaction to solve the problem.
• Believe that reducing greenhouse gas pollution helps grow (36%), or has little impact (44%) on,
British Columbia’s economy.
• Feel the carbon tax has had positive (33%) or neutral (41%) consequences for B.C.
• Support (69%) a carbon tax that is applied to all sources of pollution that cause global warming,
instead of only to fossil fuel combustion (as is now the case).
• Want to see at least some carbon tax revenue being invested in clean energy projects (49%) and
other priorities like health care and education (56%).
• Support (71%) carbon taxes as one of their top three ways for government to collect tax revenue
(second in popularity to corporate taxes) and have some support (29%) for post-2012 carbon tax
increases."

To get a solid, consistent 70 plus % popular support for a tax is profound.  We like it, we would like to see it extended to all pollution causing global warming, and we think that, next only to corporate taxes, carbon taxes are a great way to collect tax revenue.

The funny thing is the government hasn't really peddled the carbon tax.   There's been no hard sell, no manipulation.   People just seem to understand it's the right thing to do.   I expect most, if not all, of those same people also understand that Athabasca is the wrong thing to do and that running toxic bitumen-laden supertankers through the pristine but treacherous waters of northern B.C. is even worse.

I think prime minister Lardarse (along with the Libs and NDP) should take note of the Pembina survey results.   Maybe that would give him some idea of what lies in store if he tries to ram that Northern Gateway project down our throats.

The Pembina study shows that the old saw about public rejection of carbon taxes was just a straw man set up by an awful lot of dodgy pols on the right - and on the left.

Gulp. America's F-35 Bill Just Skyrockets, Again

Okay, Now I Need To Know How to Flush This Thing

Already America's most-expensive ever military purchase, the F-35 project price tag just went up by three quarters of a billion dollars - but wait for it - that's for the first 28 aircraft.

The Pentagon informed the Senate Armed Services Committee Monday that the first 28 production models of the F-35, some of the world's most technologically advanced fighters developed by defense contracting giant Lockheed Martin, were going to cost the additional three quarters of a $1 billion, and the government will be picking up part of the tab.


The news sparked a brief Twitter spat between Sen. John McCain, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and longtime critic of the F-35's cost overruns, and Lockheed Martin.


"Congress notified that first F-35 jets have cost overruns of $771M. Outrageous!" McCain tweeted  Tuesday. "Pentagon asking for $264M down payment now. Disgraceful."

The next day, a tweet from Lockheed Martin said, "The F-35 team is focused on reducing costs of the jets and is showing significant improvement in key areas," and linked to recent Sentate testimony  by Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin's executive VP and general manager of the F-35 program.


McCain responded just hours later by directing his next tweet at Lockheed Martin: "To most observers, a $771M cost overrun for 28 F-35s doesn't qualify as 'significant improvement.' Taxpayers deserve better." 

So, Lockheed's F-35 team is focused on reducing costs... just like they've been promising for, well forever... and they've made significant improvement in key areas... and so the price has gone up roughly another $25-million per aircraft.   With success like that, wouldn't it be better if the Pentagon just paid Lockheed's team to stop?


Oh yeah, up here, assistant defence stooge "Colombo" Fantino said Canada's still 150% behind the F-35 and intends to stay that way even if  they get so expensive we wind up having to buy them without wings.

Connie Black Slams Rupe Murdoch

A big h/t to Matthew Steeples of London, apparently Knightsbridge, who brings us a glance behind the paywall of the Financial Times for a look at how the lordly Conrad Black views rabble like Rupe Murdoch:

“All his instincts are downmarket; he is not only a tabloid sensationalist; he is a malicious myth-maker, an assassin of the dignity of others and of respected institutions, all in the guise of anti-elitism. He masquerades as a pillar of contemporary, enlightened populism in Britain and sensible conservatism in the US, though he has been assiduously kissing the undercarriage of the rulers of Beijing for years.”

“… Although his personality is generally quite agreeable, Mr Murdoch has no loyalty to anyone or anything except his company. He has difficulty keeping friendships; rarely keeps his word for long; … and has betrayed every political leader who ever helped him in any country, except Ronald Reagan and perhaps Tony Blair.”

Ouch, Connie!  That's a tad harsh now isn't it?  Be nice to Rupe.  He may be the next guy to occupy your bunk in the GreyBar Hotel.

Finally, A Good Rupert Murdoch Cartoon

From The Guardian's Steve Bell:

Apparently Rupe has decided to duck this invitation.   Not to be outdone, Hugh Grant staged this puppet show featuring Ol' Rupe, David Cameron and Nick Clegg:

The Endless Two-Faced War in Afghanistan Nose Dives

While myopic NewsyDupes like TorStar's Rosie DiManno and that guy whatshisname at NatPo fell over each other gushing that Canada's "mission" to Afghanistan settled the Taliban's hash in Kandahar, events on the ground, particularly the assassination of Hamid Karzai's half brother, Ahmed, have revealed a starkly different picture.

The Talibs, it turns out, are biding their time, concentrating on strategic targets, and - worst of all - showing they still hold the initiative.   If they can get at a guy as powerful and influential (and corrupt) Ahmed Karzai, get an armed assassin a job in the guy's household, who is safe in Afghanistan?  The question answers itself.

And now the Americans and Pakistanis are feuding.   On the surface it seems that Islamabad is furious over the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden but there may be far more too it.  Asia Times' journo, Pepe Escobar, claims that Pakistan is worried about losing its own Pashtun province to a unified, breakaway Pashtunistan, independent of both Islamabad and Kabul.

"...the Pakistani army is - reluctantly - playing Washington's counter-terrorism/counter-insurgency game in the tribal areas. As much as Islamabad may fear Pashtun nationalism, the army knows it must proceed with extreme caution, otherwise it will face a mass tribal Pashtun rebellion that would put on the table the supreme taboo; the consolidation of Pashtunistan, breaking up Pakistan as we know it. 

And a breakaway Pashtunistan would form the perfect buffer to facilitate the departure of Pakistan's resource-rich Baloch territory.   Like the Pashtun, the Baloch territory was divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan.   The loss of the Baloch territory would deprive Pakistan of control of the vital port city of Gwadar and isolate Pakistan from Iran.   That could actually scuttle the Iran-Pakistan oil and gas pipelines that energy-poor Pakistan craves.

"Considering the Taliban may actually control as much as 70% of the country, the assassination is a sterling coup, with responsibility duly claimed by the Taliban via spokesman Usuf Ahmadi: "This is one of our biggest achievements since the spring operation began. We assigned Sardar Mohammad to kill him recently and Sardar Mohammad is also martyred."

"...The Taliban anyway are already winning the public relations war. Since the spring of 2010, the Taliban have managed to kill the provincial chief of police of Kandahar, the deputy governor, the district chief for Arghandab, and the deputy mayor of Kandahar City.

Now they got rid of the major pro-Washington actor not only in Kandahar but in the whole south of Afghanistan - where NATO has been involved en masse to crush the Taliban in their spiritual home and favored grounds. The assassination smashes to bits the hegemonic "NATO is winning" narrative.
 
And so, as ever, the war in Afghanistan has two faces; the public face our leaders like to present about suppressing the Taliban and the private face that is so complex and compounded by so many conflicting interests and circumstances and contradictions as to render the public war all but impossible to win, even confounding of understanding and measure.   It's shameful that our leaders, civilian and military, chose not to be honest with us.

Murdoch a No Show, Defies UK Parliament

Rupert Murdoch is plainly feeling the heat.   He closed News of the World and dropped (for now) his bid to buy BSkyB cable but, despite previous assurances by News Corp subsidiary, News International that Rupe would comply with Parliament's summons, he's now backed out.   As for Rupert's boy, James Murdoch, he's now saying he is much too busy to make it next Tuesday but could, perhaps, manage an appearance next month if that's convenient.

It sure looks like Rupert is worried about something far worse than a few angry questions and denunciations from British MPs.   My guess is that he's worried his answers might be used to launch investigations in the United States into his operations, particularly possible corruption allegations.

Republicans Wage All-Out War On America's Environment

America's dominant corporatist party, the Republicans, are moving to scrap, block or rollback federal environmental regulations of just about any sort.  From McClatchey Newspapers:

Republicans in the House of Representatives are waging an all-out war to block federal regulations that protect the environment.
They loaded up a pending 2012 spending bill with terms that would eliminate a broad array of environmental protections, everything from stopping new plants and animals from being placed on the endangered species list to ending federal limits on water pollution in Florida.

The terms also include a rollback of pollution regulations for mountaintop mining and a red light on federal plans to prevent new uranium mining claims near the Grand Canyon.

Another Republican-sponsored bill that's before Congress would weaken the nation's 1972 Clean Water Act, taking away the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to step in when it finds state water-pollution rules too loose.

The sweeping anti-environmental regulation agenda has support among Senate Republicans and the GOP's presidential hopefuls. Its backers say it's necessary for the sake of jobs and economic growth.