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California Sen. Barbara Boxer declared war Wednesday on an effort by House Republicans to roll back environmental regulations, warning that blocking the plan in the Democratic-controlled Senate is no sure thing. The House is set to vote Friday on legislation that would delay an Environmental Protection Agency rule to require 27 states that rely heavily on coal-fired electricity generation to reduce power-plant emissions that drift into other states, and another rule that would limit mercury and other pollution from coal-fired plants. Both rules would step up enforcement of the 1970 Clean Air Act. House GOP leaders plan weekly votes throughout...

Sen. Barbara Boxer would like to see Congress take another stab at legislation to fight global warming. Just don't expect it to happen anytime soon. After touring part of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Wednesday morning, Boxer said federal climate-change legislation remains dead. Such legislation would be a big boost to many of the technologies under development at the lab, including advanced biofuels and artificial photosynthesis. But the current gridlocked Congress won't touch it. And she won't introduce such legislation herself until that changes. "Climate change doesn't have the votes," said Boxer, a Democrat. "I'm a pragmatic legislator. I'm not going...

California U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer is lambasting what she calls a Republican "vendetta" against Planned Parenthood, saying that efforts in the House Republicans' proposed budget to entirely defund the organization will impact millions. In California alone, hundreds of thousands of women, the Democratic Senator said, use the organization's "life-saving" services -- including cancer screenings, mammograms, day-to-day health care, OB-GYN services as well as contraception and family planning. Boxer made the statements this week at a San Francisco press conference, where we asked Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific President and CEO Heather Estes about the controversial question of the organization's providing of...

WASHINGTON – The next California wilderness fights will stretch from the desert to the Delta, in a dicey new political environment. This week, the state's two Democratic senators set the stage by introducing wilderness-related bills. Their prospects are unclear, but their ambitions are undeniable. "I've still got 1 million acres to go," Sen. Barbara Boxer said of her aspirations Wednesday.

WEST HOLLYWOOD -- Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is reaching out to gay and lesbian voters by emphasizing her support for marriage equality and her record opposing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. She told about 60 supporters Wednesday at a West Hollywood community center that she had the courage of her convictions to oppose "don't ask, don't tell from the start."

Democrats are breathing easier in the California Senate race, pointing to a Suffolk University poll out late yesterday showing incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer with a hefty nine point lead over GOP challenger Carly Fiorina, close to the 8 point lead shown in the L.A. Times poll over the weekend. Republicans will find this harder to dismiss than the LAT poll. Even Rasmussen shows Boxer maintaining a four-point lead. Few voters remain undecided.

President Obama will be spending one of those last precious days just before the election helping California incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer in her race against GOP challenger Carly Fiorina. It's yet another sign of the rising national attention on the California Senate race, which until now has been overshadowed by the gubernatorial contest between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman. This direct from the White House: Obama will be at a DNC fundraiser in San Francisco on Oct. 20th and again in Los Angeles on the 22nd, . . .

WASHINGTON – Few would deny that Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is a polarizing figure in Washington and a power broker in Congress. As she navigates her most difficult race in years, however, her record is on trial. Her opponent, Republican Carly Fiorina, points out that few pieces of legislation bear Boxer's name. She portrays the incumbent as a do-nothing senator, arguing that Boxer's partisanship makes it impossible for her to forge high-profile bipartisan agreements. "She hasn't done anything for the people of California, other than make their lives more difficult," Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, told reporters in Washington...

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina got a wildly enthusiastic reception today from 300 tea party activists, pounding U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer and saying the Democrat "had no right to insult" a military officer who called her "m'am" instead of Senator. Fiorina, who spent much of her address lambasting the three term Democratic incumbent, told the tea party crowd in the Mill Valley Community Center that the incident was one reason "we're all becoming members of one party..the "had enough" party." The line from the former Hewlett Packard CEO drew big applause, as did her observation that the tea partiers...

Barbara Boxer was on CNN where she discussed Arizona, her hair and her high unfavorable ratings. "Why do you think more than half of California voters just don't like you?" reporter Jessica Yellin asked. Boxer replied that she "the three Republican candidates" running for Senate beating up on me" -- plus two Republicans running for governor. So after 18 years in office, people don't like her because a handful of Republicans, most of whom lost their primary, have said negative things about her? Say this for Boxer, she is a pro at styling herself as an underdog.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is stepping up her role in supporting Senate colleague Barbara Boxer's re-election bid. Feinstein, who is up for re-election in 2012, will chair Boxer's campaign. . . . "Senator Boxer and I make a great team for California," Feinstein said...

Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer on Thursday downplayed poll numbers suggesting she faces her most difficult re-election campaign yet this year, saying she has won 10 consecutive hard-fought races. . . . WORTH REPEATING "The reason why there is a tea party movement is because Republicans were acting like Democrats light."CHUCK DeVORE, the Irvine Republican running for U.S. Senate.

California Republicans say Scott Brown's win in the Massachusetts special Senate election portends a conservative wave in November's midterm elections, and electoral doom for incumbent U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. But Democrats cite big differences between the Bay State and the Golden State, and Boxer's challengers have a much tougher row to hoe than Brown did. California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring asked Tuesday whether Democrats "will finally start listening to the American people, who want taxes lowered, the debt retired, and government out of the way; or if they will continue to let the most radical elements of their...

The U.S. Senate defeated an amendment last week to restrict taxpayer funding of abortions under Obamacare. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., voted against the measure, arguing that it would require women to buy special riders to purchase abortion coverage. In defending her no vote, Boxer argued that male senators were doing to women something they would never do to men. Quoth Boxer: "The men who have brought us this don't single out a procedure that's used by a man, or a drug that is used by a man that involves his reproductive health care, and say they have to get a...

WASHINGTON -- The widely played video clip of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer reprimanding a general for calling her "ma'am" is the gift that keeps on giving for the two Republicans hoping to challenge her next year. Republicans Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore are trying to capitalize on the exchange by making it a key ingredient of their fundraising efforts and attempts to recruit grassroots support. Both campaigns say the video revs up a GOP base that already has long-standing animosity toward Boxer, among the most liberal members of the Senate. Whether it will have currency beyond next June's Republican primary,...

WASHINGTON -- California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said Monday that abortion-rights foes in the U.S. Senate are showing "a lack of respect" for women by promoting legislation that would limit abortions. "Please don't single out women," Boxer said in a speech on the Senate floor. "What have women done to deserve this? ... Why have such a lack of respect for them?" Boxer made the remarks as the Senate prepared to vote on an amendment by Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska that would prohibit any insurance company from offering plans to cover abortion services if they receive federal subsidies.

LAST FRIDAY'S exchange between Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice turned into the chew toy of cable news shows over the weekend -- with Democrats arguing that Boxer was right to point out that Rice, a single woman, has no children fighting in Iraq, and White House spokesman Tony Snow indignant that Boxer had made "a great leap backward for feminism." Debbie Argel Bastian, a Lompoc mother who lost her son Derek Argel in Iraq in 2005, told me over the phone that Boxer's remarks were "rude," "shameful" and "cruel." In case you missed the exchange,...