"Republicans in the new Congress, with control of the House and larger numbers in the Senate, promise to use their power to focus most intensely on ways to cut spending in a time of giant budget deficits. But their influence will change the terms of Washington's debate on a range of other major issues as well:
• Health care: Republicans plan an early House vote on legislation to repeal President Barack Obama's health-care law, but they concede that has little chance of passing the Senate. They will follow up with targeted measures to cut off funding to enact the law's less popular provisions, such as enforcement of the requirement that most Americans carry health insurance, expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor and subsidies to offset the cost of buying insurance for lower-income workers.
• Environment: The new Republican majority in the House will use oversight hearings to try to pressure the EPA to back down from environmental regulations. Targets include EPA efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants and other big industrial facilities. Rep. Fred Upton (R., Mich.), the next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has said Republicans "will not allow" the Obama administration to issue the standards, siding with businesses that say the necessary technology doesn't exist. Republicans will also take aim at EPA plans to regulate the waste generated by coal-fired power plants.
• Immigration: Republicans are likely to shift their focus to tougher border-security measures and away from fighting the DREAM Act, which failed in the Senate. The measure would have provided a path to citizenship for young, undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. Rep. Steven King (R., Iowa), who is expected to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee, supports building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. The question is how far Republicans are willing to go in cracking down on illegal immigrants, many of whom are Latinos, at a time when the latest Census figures show Hispanics make up 15% of the U.S. population. An approach favored by Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), the next head of the House Judiciary Committee, involves requiring businesses to verify workers' immigration status through an electronic system known as E-Verify.
• Judicial Nominations: Expect little change in the partisan grudge match over court picks, which Chief Justice John Roberts decried as a "recurring problem" in his year-end report Friday. Democrats will continue to control the Senate, which confirms federal judges. In the last Congress, however, judicial nominations were low on Democrats' priority list, disappointing liberal activists who felt the ex-law professor in the White House and his filibuster-resistant Senate majority squandered an opportunity to reshape the federal judiciary.
In contrast, Republicans long have made molding the courts a top objective. As they did in the last Congress, Republicans likely will make up in energy what they lack in numbers, using parliamentary privileges to slow or block Obama nominees.
• Education: School reform has been identified by Mr. Obama as an area of possible compromise. Rep. John Boehner (R., Ohio), the new House speaker, has an interest in the issue dating to his co-authorship of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act that is up for renewal. But the parties have long warred over education funding questions, and the budget deficit will make these even more pressing. Any government program expansion could run into opposition from the influx of tea-party Republicans who want a reduced federal role in the schools."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703820904576058200075558840.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
