Sen. Baucus' bipartisan health effort collapses

Senate Democrats' most concerted quest for a bipartisan compromise on health care collapsed Tuesday as Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., announced he would move ahead with his long-delayed proposals without any guarantee of Republican support.

Even as Baucus hit that roadblock from the right, he also took a blow from his own party's left, as a senior Senate Democrat declared that too many concessions have already been made and he would not support the emerging bill because it did not include a public insurance option.

"I cannot agree with [Baucus] on this bill," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., a senior member of the Finance Committee. "There is no way, in its present form, that I will vote for it."

The Baucus plan, which scales back President Obama's ambitious proposals both in scope and cost, is considered a likely template for the measure that will ultimately clear the Senate. It has been designed to allay the concerns of moderate Blue Dog Democrats as well as Republicans.

The Obama administration has for the first time set out its views on the Patriot Act, telling lawmakers this week that legal approval of government surveillance methods scheduled to expire in December should be renewed, but with room left to tweak the law to protect Americans' privacy.

In a letter from Justice Department officials to key members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the administration recommended that Congress pass legislation that would protect the government's ability to collect a variety of business and credit card records and to monitor terrorism suspects with roving wiretaps.

But Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich also told Democrats that the administration is "willing to consider" additional privacy safeguards advocated by lawmakers, so long as the provisions do not "undermine the effectiveness of these important authorities."

The provisions set to expire Dec. 31 include allowing investigators to monitor through roving wiretaps suspects who may be trying to escape detection by switching cellphone numbers, and obtaining business records of national security targets.

Several U.S. House members attacked an independent report that found NASA's Constellation program would not get to the moon by 2020 and should give way to a broader, better-funded space-exploration program.

Members of the House Science and Technology committee lashed out at former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, who led a 10-member panel appointed by the White House to review America's manned-space program. The Augustine committee concluded that problems with the program would delay NASA plans of launching a moon mission until at least 2028 -- and said the agency's current plans are "unaffordable." Committee members did not address what NASA should do if it cannot get funding above its current budget of $18 billion.

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