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Sen. Barrasso: Obama sees a ‘political victory’ in going over the cliffBy Alicia M. Cohn - 12/23/12 09:32 AM ET Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Sunday he thinks President Obama wants to dive over the so-called "fiscal cliff." "I believe the president is eager to go over the cliff for political purposes," Barrasso told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "He senses a political victory at the bottom of the cliff." The senator also said he believes the nation will go over the cliff, with the deadline just nine days away. Barrasso said he thinks Obama is eager to blame...

President Obama’s pick to replace Gary F. Locke as commerce secretary faces an uphill Senate confirmation battle. Even before the White House handed in the name of John Bryson for the job, Senate Republicans had vowed to block any nominee over administration foot-dragging on free-trade agreements. The selection of this particular leftist for a business-outreach post is rallying the opposition. “I find Mr Bryson unacceptable as secretary of commerce for the United States, and I will work in opposition to his conformation,” said Sen. John Barrasso, vice chairman of the Republican Conference, to The Washington Times. Mr. Bryson co-founded the...

A top Senate Republican said on Tuesday he would fight President Barack Obama's choice for commerce secretary, former energy executive John Bryson, whom he called an "environmental extremist." "The president has appointed someone who is going to make it harder and more expensive for the private sector to create jobs," said Senator John Barrasso, a member of the Senate Republican leadership. "Instead of appointing an economic leader, he has appointed an environmental extremist," Barrasso said. He cited Bryson's support for climate change legislation that failed to clear the Senate and his role in the founding of the National Resource Defense...

Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming introduced legislation Monday afternoon that would prohibit federal agencies from regulating greenhouse gases without a direct mandate from Congress. The Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act seeks to stop bureaucracies from unilaterally passing economically unsound regulations for the sole purpose of addressing climate change. It has seven co-sponsors, including Republican Sens. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and John Thune of South Dakota. “It’s time for the administration to face the facts: Americans rejected cap and trade because they know it means higher energy prices and lost jobs,” said Barrasso in...

Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is introducing his Climate Change Pre-emption bill, an initiative that would prevent the EPA and other such agencies from unilaterally regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions without explicit Congressional Authorization. The Supreme Court’s ill-advised decision in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (2007) gave the EPA a mandate to issue an “endangerment finding” on CO2 and related GHG. Since this finding was issued in December 2009, the EPA has expanded its influence by leaps and bounds, regulating everything from hospitals to cars based on their tenuous relation to man-made global warming. (Click here for ATR’s previous reports on...

The Congressional Western Caucus, headed by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, have just released a report titled “The War on Western Jobs.” From the report’s introduction: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the West reported the highest regional jobless rate in August, at 10.8 percent. The western region has maintained the highest regional unemployment for the past year. At the same time, six of the top twelve states with the largest declines in the employment to population ratio since the recession began in 2007 are western states. According to The Associated Press Economic Stress Index,...

As we approach the November elections we need to start contemplating our fight for control of GOP leadership posts. After all, what good is a Republican Majority if it is lead by governing class statists? Until recently most of the Senate leadership posts were held by non-conservatives. McConnel is Minority Leader, Kyle is Whip, Lamar Alexander is Conference Chairman, and Murkowski was Conference Vice Chair. Now that traitor Murkowski was forced out of her leadership position it is imperative that we replace her with a true conservative. Roll Call is reporting welcome news that John Barrasso will run for Conference...

The gas station of former President Jimmy Carter’s beer drinking brother will not become a national historic site paid for by taxpayers — at least, not yet.

The only two U.S. Senator physicians have released a blistering oversight report examining the first 100 days of Obamacare implementation. Sens. Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-Okla.) and John Barrasso, M.D. (R-Wyo.) offer their expert, detailed assessment of the problems with the new law and the resulting disastrous consequences. “As supporters of cost-effective, common-sense health reform, but staunch opponents of the legislation that passed Congress earlier this year, this report presents the American people with a check-up about the side effects and the implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as it begins to be implemented,” Coburn and Barrasso said...

The fight to shape perceptions of President Obama’s health care overhaul is still in the early stages, but on Wednesday two Republican senators will fire a salvo when they release a 32-page report arguing that the legislation is only exacerbating skyrocketing prices and will cause nearly 100 million Americans to lose their employer-based insurance. “The passage of the new law is a lost historic opportunity,” says the report, authored by staff for Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, and Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican. The report, titled “Bad Medicine,” comes as the Obama administration is accelerating a public relations push to...

Here is video of GOP Sen. John Barrasso – also a medical doctor – speaking on the Senate Floor and offering a “Second Opinion” on ObamaCare. Barrasso said many Americans are already having a harder time finding a doctor who will take Medicare or Medicaid reimbursements, and he says that will only worsen. Barrasso said “it is time to repeal and replace” ObamaCare with measures that will truly bring the cost of Health Care down. He detailed what should replace ObamaCare.

Republicans have had little hesitation in pointing out the stagnant job-creation numbers during the Obama administration, but to be fair, they’re also predicting a big hiring boom, too. Unfortunately, that hiring boom would come at the IRS, which is tasked with enforcing the individual mandate in ObamaCare and in determining what kind of medical coverage qualifies. The Obama administration denies that it will hire more IRS agents, while HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius predicts no more than a couple of hundred extra agents. With the CBO estimating new costs to the IRS between five and ten billion dollars over the next...

Climate Change: We can't stop terrorists from boarding planes with explosive undies, but the CIA has assets sufficient to monitor Arctic ice and look for signs of global warming? Is al-Qaida recruiting polar bears? One wouldn't think that the increasing polar bear population and the increasing rate of recidivism of former Guantanamo detainees released into the wild were related, but they are. At the urging of Al Gore, the administration is signing on to a plan to task vital intelligence assets to protect not the people of the United States, but the environment. The program, shot down by President Bush,...

SENATE DOCTORS BARRASSO AND COBURN TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE CALL ON DEMOCRAT GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE PLAN WASHINGTON – Dr. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Dr. Tom Coburn (R-OK) will hold a press conference call today at 11:15 a.m. EST to discuss the Democrats’ reckless plan for government-run health care. Details of the press conference call are as follows: Friday, December 18, 2009 WHAT: Press Conference Call WHO: Dr. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Dr. Tom Coburn (R-OK) WHEN: 11:15 a.m. EST CALL-IN: 1-888-946-8408 Pass Code: RNC Communications

A GOP counter-delegation is forming to undermine the Obama administration's work on an international climate change agreement in Copenhagen, warning that the president is poised to make commitments he can't keep and drawing heightened attention to controversial leaked e-mails. A GOP counter-delegation is forming to undermine the Obama administration's work on an international climate change agreement in Copenhagen, warning that the president is poised to make commitments he can't keep and drawing heightened attention to controversial leaked e-mails. At least a half-dozen Republican senators and representatives are planning to head to Denmark next week, as part of the overall U.S....

On "The Senate Doctors Show" Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) answers health care reform questions about the supply of doctors and nurses, how Medicare will be affected, and government-run health care. Republicans want step-by-step health care reform solutions that reduce costs and covers more uninsured Americans without increasing the deficit.

Like Jim Vicevich, I like Shep Smith, but has he "sold out"on the healthcare issue? It’s classic Shep … he gets pretty hot. Senator Barrasso from Wyoming must have been scratching his head and wondering if he had suddenly been transported to MSNBC. I like Shep Smith very much. I think he is honest and sincere, and this certainly will not change my opinion of him, but this is just classic “wrong”.

VIDEO: On this episode of "The Senate Doctors Show," Sen. Tom Coburn, M.D., and Sen. John Barrasso, M.D., talk about the importance of reforming health care in a step-by-step manner to lower costs and expand access without raising your taxes or adding billions of dollars to the deficit. The Senate Doctors are joined by bloggers Ryan Grimm of the Huffington Post and David Weinberger of the Heritage Foundation.

Sen. John Barrasso and Sen. Lindsey Graham told Greta Van Susteren they're willing to go to the White House and read any health care bills line-by-line.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has called for a Senate investigation into the silencing of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials and Small Business Administration lawyers by the Administration. "It is clear that there is a culture of intimidation in the EPA. They have ignored, and willfully blocked warnings from their own scientists, their own economists and their own lawyers," Barrasso said. This spring, the Obama Administration strongly reacted to revelations that their own attorneys had serious concerns about regulating climate change using the Clean Air Act. "These concerns were both economic and scientific and were ignored by top...