WASHINGTON  – The Senate Democratic leader is indicating lawmakers may not complete health care legislation this year, missing President Barack Obama’s deadline on his signature issue.

Asked if the Senate would complete comprehensive legislation in the next two months, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Tuesday:  “We’re not going to be bound by any timelines.”

Reid said he was awaiting a final cost analysis on the bill from the Congressional Budget Office.

Obama has pressed Congress for a bill by year’s end. Across the Capitol, the House is expected to vote on its version of legislation later this week. Lawmakers from both chambers then would have to meld the two bills and cast final votes in the House and Senate before the legislation could be sent to the president.

WASHINGTON  – The House has approved a stopgap spending measure to avoid a shutdown for 11 Cabinet-level departments whose budgets won’t be enacted by a midnight Saturday deadline.

The measure would give Congress until Dec. 18 to finish seven incomplete spending measures that were supposed to be wrapped up by Sept. 30. The bill passed by a 247-178 vote and now goes to the Senate, which must pass it this week to avoid a partial shutdown.

The legislation, among other things, extends highway programs and federal loan guarantees for larger mortgages. The anti-shutdown measure was attached to a remarkably generous spending bill for the Interior Department and environmental programs. Lawmakers are pumping billion of dollars into clean and safe-drinking water projects.

WASHINGTON – Despite a vaguely worded veto threat by President Barack Obama, the House was expected Thursday to easily adopt a major defense policy bill that calls for continued development of a costly alternative engine for the Pentagon’s next generation fighter jet.

The move comes as the House debated the annual defense authorization bill to guide the Pentagon budget for the fiscal year that began last week.

After House approval, the measure would go to the Senate for final congressional action and then on to the White House for Obama’s signature.

Obama’s veto threat involves a program to develop an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Air Force’s multi-mission fighter for the future. The second engine would be built by General Electric Co. and Rolls-Royce in Ohio, Indiana and other states. The main F-35 engine is built in Connecticut by Pratt & Whitney.

The administration promised in June to veto the legislation if it would “seriously disrupt” the F-35 program, a vague test at best. It says that spending on a second engine is unnecessary and impedes the progress of the Joint Strike Fighter program. The legislation recommends $560 million for the program in 2010. The Pentagon says the Pratt & Whitney engine is performing well and that the second engine adds unnecessary costs and would delay the program. Supporters of the program say it provides competition that would boost contractors’ performance and tamp down costs.

Lawmakers have parsed the Obama threat and decided not to take it seriously.

“I think if they … were going to carry it out, they would have been more explicit,” said Rep. John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., a senior member of the Armed Services Committee.

“It would be a shock to me” if Obama vetoed the measure, said the panel’s top Republican, Howard “Buck” McKeon of California. In fact, the Pentagon is already backpedaling.

“Our position on this is that if the final bill … calls for further investment in the second engine, the department will carefully evaluate the impact on the overall Joint Strike Fighter program before making recommendations to the president about whether or not to veto the legislation,” said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, did prevail in a battle to kill the over-budget F-22 fighter program, which has its origins in the Cold War era and is poorly suited for anti-insurgent battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The compromise measure also heeds Obama’s call to terminate the VH-71 replacement helicopter program for the presidential fleet. The program is six years behind schedule, and estimated costs have doubled to more than $13 billion.

The $680 billion measure doesn’t actually fund the Pentagon’s budget but provides policy guidance that is typically followed closely by the appropriations committees.

It also approves Obama’s $130 billion request to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The legislation approves a 3.4 percent pay raise for military personnel, a half-percentage point over the president’s request. The measure also prohibits any transfer of detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison into the US until 45 days after the Obama administration submits a comprehensive plan for closing the controversial prison.

Republicans were irate that the so-called hate crimes legislation was attached to the bill. It would give people attacked because of their sexual orientation or gender federal protections and significantly expands the reach of hate crimes law.

The measure also would make it easier for federal prosecutors to step in when state or local authorities are unable or unwilling to pursue hate crimes.

“I’m in a dilemma today,” said Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, adding that enclosing the hate crimes legislation in a bill supporting the U.S. military would force people to vote against their beliefs.

“It is simply inappropriate to use a defense bill as a vehicle for divisive, liberal social policies, wholly unrelated to our countrys national security,” said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama will deliver a major address to Congress next Wednesday, confronting critics of his health care overhaul and trying to buck up supporters on an issue that has been slipping from his control under withering Republican-led attacks.

The speech will underscore an acceleration of Obama’s direct involvement in proposals to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Many allies have been urging him to be more specific about his plans and to take a greater role in the debate, and White House aides have signaled he will do that in the address to a joint session of lawmakers in the House chamber.

The speech’s timing suggests that top Democrats have all but given up hope for a bipartisan breakthrough by Senate Finance Committee negotiators. The White House had given those six lawmakers until Sept. 15 to draft a plan, but next week’s speech comes well ahead of that deadline.

It will come a day after lawmakers return from an August recess in which critics of Obama’s health proposals dominated many public forums. Approval ratings for Obama, and for his health care proposals, dropped during August.

Senior adviser David Axelrod had said Tuesday that Obama was considering being “more prescriptive” about what he feels Congress must include in a health bill.

WASHINGTON  – Slightly more than one-third of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Democratic-led Congress, a new poll said Wednesday in a clear warning to the majority party.

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press said the 37 percent expressing a positive opinion represents a decline of 13 points since April.

The favorable percentage is one of the lowest in more than two decades of Pew surveys – if not the lowest, the poll said. The previous low was 40 percent in January, but the difference is not statistically significant because of the margin of error.

The overall percentage wasn’t the only warning for Democrats.

The poll found a major drop in intentions to vote Democratic in next year’s midterm elections. Forty-five percent of respondents said they would vote for a Democratic candidate in their district or lean Democratic, while 44 percent said they would vote or lean Republican. Four years ago the numbers favored Democrats 52 percent to 40 percent, as the party went on to gain control of Congress.

The bad news for Democrats isn’t a bonanza for Republicans. The survey found that favorable ratings for the GOP remain low at 40 percent.

Most of the shift in voting intentions occurred among political independents, who backed Democrats by a wide margin previously but now say they would back Republicans in their districts by 43 to 38 percent.

On specific issues, a separate Pew survey showed mixed results – with Democrats trusted more but with their leads narrowing. Democrats are viewed as more associated with honest and ethical governance, concern with average Americans and having better candidates. However 34 percent said Republicans could manage the federal government as well as Democrats, compared to 38 percent who favored Democrats. Two years ago, Democrats led by 44 to 32 percent.

The survey covered 11 policy issues, and Democrats held significant leads on seven. The parties were viewed about equally on handling the budget deficit, taxes and immigration, while Republicans had a slight lead on only one issue, handling terrorist threats at home.

The Aug. 20-27 survey on opinions of Congress contacted 2,003 adults nationwide, with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.5 percent.

The Aug. 27-30 issues survey contacted 1,005 adults and had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percent.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Amid a boisterous debate on health care reform, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many e-mails that they overloaded the House’s primary Web site.

Technical support issued a warning to congressional staff that the site – www.house.gov – may be slow or unresponsive because of the large volume of e-mail being sent to members.

Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the House’s chief administrative officer, which maintains the Web site, said traffic data was not available and could not be released without the lawmakers’ consent.

But anecdotally, he said, the spike in e-mail volume was widely believed to be a result of the health care debate.

“It is clearly health care reform,” Ventura said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

Lawmakers are in their home districts this month for the August recess, where a populist backlash has emerged in some quarters against President Barack Obama’s plan to reform the nation’s health care system.

Democrats are trying desperately to regain control of the debate, with the White House posting a new Web site designed to dispel what it called “the misinformation and baseless smears that are cropping up daily.” House Democratic aides have set up a health care war room out of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office. It is designed to help lawmakers answer questions about the legislation.

Ventura said the last time he saw such a significant slow-down in the system was in January, shortly before the House passed an $819 billion bill to stimulate the economy.

Ventura said new technology called “load balancing” is in place to try to handle spikes in volume. So far, the House Web site remains available to the public.

In particular, people are heavily using a link on the site called “Write Your Representative,” which helps a voter track down their representative by plugging in their zip code.

WASHINGTON  – A congressional chairman is demanding answers from a coal group about forged letters criticizing major climate legislation that were sent to three congressional offices ahead of the vote.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity has acknowledged that the firm it hired through a subcontractor, Bonner & Associates, sent 12 forged letters purportedly from local nonprofit groups to the congressional offices.

In a letter Wednesday, Rep. Ed Markey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, demanded to know when the congressional offices were notified of the faked letters.

Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat and one of the climate bill’s primary sponsors, noted that a “background document” put out by the coal group said it was first informed about the situation on June 24 – two days before the House narrowly approved the legislation. He said the group “chose to remain silent” until after the vote.

Last week, the office of Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Va., said it found six letters purported to be from a local NAACP chapter and a Latino advocacy group criticizing the bill, which turned out to be forgeries. Bonner & Associates, a Washington grassroots lobbying firm, acknowledged that it had forged the letters, blaming the fakes on a temporary employee who has since been fired.

This week, the coal group said that its primary grassroots contractor, the Hawthorn Group, had hired Bonner & Associates to do limited outreach on the climate bill prior to the vote. The coal group revealed that a total of 12 forged letters had been sent to three House members: Perriello as well as Pennsylvania Democrats Chris Carney and Kathy Dahlkemper.

Lisa Camooso Miller, a spokeswoman for the coal group, declined to identify the groups whose names were used in the letters to the Pennsylvania lawmakers, other than to say they were local nonprofits. She said the coal group, which represents industries involved in producing electricity from coal, notified the offices about the faked letters on Monday.

Dahlkemper’s office also declined to identify the groups. Her spokesman, Zac Petkanas, called it “an unfortunate incident involving several out of thousands of letters that Rep. Dahlkemper received regarding this important issue.”

Carney’s office did not respond to messages Wednesday.

Perriello ended up voting for the bill; the other two lawmakers voted against it.

Markey asked the coal group to respond by Aug. 13.

“We just received the letter and will answer the questions fully,” said Camooso Miller.

In statements this week, both the coal group and Hawthorn put the blame on Bonner & Associates. The coal group’s president and CEO, Stephen L. Miller, said: “We are outraged at the conduct of Bonner and Associates … because of Bonner and Associates’ misconduct, we apologize to the community groups and the members of Congress involved.”

Michael Coe, Hawthorn’s chief operating officer, said that Bonner & Associates “failed to reach the congressional offices to properly advise them” of the forgeries.

“The Hawthorn Group deeply regrets that Bonner & Associates caused the fabricated letters to be sent to the congressional offices and its failure to follow up appropriately when they discovered the error.”

Bonner & Associates did not return messages seeking comment.

WASHINGTON  – Top House Democrats sought to minimize the impact of a near-certain missed deadline for health care legislation on Tuesday as the leadership struggled to ease the concerns of rank-and-file critics.

“I’m disappointed of course because I really hoped that we could have gotten a bill out of here by the end of this month,” said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and chairman of one of the three committees at work on the measure.

“The issue is critical. Whether we do it at the end of July or not, I don’t think that’s critical except the perception in terms that the Congress didn’t respond to the request of the president.”

President Barack Obama had asked Congress to advance legislation through both houses by the time lawmakers leave on a monthlong summer vacation, a plea that now appears unlikely to be met.

Obama has worked intensively to reassure the public about his health care proposals at a time when Republicans have stepped up their criticism and polls suggest a leveling in public support. Making his pitch to a crucial constituency, Obama went to the headquarters of AARP, the huge advocacy group for seniors, for a town-hall style event.

“Sometimes I get a little frustrated because this is one of those situations where it is so obvious that the system we have isn’t working well for too many people and that we could just be doing better,” Obama said to close the hourlong question-and-answer session. “We got to have the courage to be willing to change things.”

The president looked to ease seniors’ concerns about changes to care, costs and other issues.

“The costs of doing nothing are trillions of dollars in costs over the next couple of decades – trillions, not billions – but trillions of dollars in costs without anybody getting any better care,” Obama said. “Now, here’s the problem, that in order for us to save money, in some cases, we’ve got to spend some money up front.”

Among the problems facing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House leadership is a rebellious group of conservative and moderate Democrats demanding changes in legislation as the price for voting it out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The fiscally conservative Blue Dogs were at odds with the leadership over setting rates for the payments to doctors and other health care providers under a proposed government-run health plan that would compete with private insurance. The House bill models the payments based on Medicare, but Blue Dogs want a negotiated rate similar to private insurance.

“We’re not ready to support a bill yet,” said Rep. Baron Hill, D-Ind., a member of the Blue Dog group, who added: “We’ll get there. We are going to pass a health care bill, whether it’s now or in the fall remains to be seen.”

Without the backing of the 52-member Blue Dogs, it would be difficult for Democratic leaders to pass a bill, especially since no Republican supports the legislation.

After weeks of secretive talks, three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee were edging closer to a compromise that excludes a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite Obama’s support for such a plan, officials said.

The Finance senators were considering a tax of as much as 35 percent on very high-cost insurance policies, part of an attempt to rein in rapid escalation of costs. Also likely to be included in any deal was creation of a commission charged with slowing the growth of Medicare.

Obama has outlined two broad goals for legislation he is struggling to win from Congress: expansion of health insurance coverage to millions who lack it, and controlling costs.

The president’s top domestic priority has suffered numerous setbacks in recent weeks and a Senate vote has been postponed until September. Administration and Democratic leaders hope to show significant progress before lawmakers begin their monthlong August recess.

In the Senate, officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private negotiations said any legislation that emerges from the talks is expected to provide for a nonprofit cooperative to sell insurance in competition with private industry, rather than giving the federal government a role in the marketplace.

Obama and numerous Democrats in Congress have called for a government option to provide competition to private companies and hold down costs, and the House bill includes one – another concern for the Blue Dogs.

Officials also said a bipartisan compromise in the Senate would not subject large companies to a penalty if they declined to offer coverage to their workers. Instead, these businesses would be required to reimburse the government for part or all of any federal subsidies designed to help lower-income employees obtain insurance on their own.

The legislation in the House includes both a penalty and a requirement for large companies to share in the cost of covering employees.

WASHINGTON  – Democrats are accusing senior CIA officials of repeatedly misleading Congress, but Republicans say the allegations are just political maneuvering to protect House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The accusations come as lawmakers prepare to debate intelligence legislation – a bill President Barack Obama has threatened to veto.

Letters by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and other members of the panel say CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress last month that senior CIA officials have concealed significant actions and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001.

Exactly what actions Panetta disclosed to the House Intelligence Committee on June 24 is unclear, but committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said the CIA outright lied in one case.

“These notifications have led me to conclude that this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one case) was affirmatively lied to,” Reyes wrote to Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the committee’s senior Republican. A copy of his letter was obtained by The Associated Press.

Reyes said in the letter that he is considering opening a full investigation.

Hoekstra on Thursday called Reyes’ letter “one of the most bizarre episodes in politics that I’ve seen in my time here in Washington.”

“It looks like they’re working on the political equation,” Hoekstra said on CBS’ “The Early Show.” “They’re not trying to foster a bipartisan consensus on national security.”

Panetta brought the matters to the committee’s attention, CIA spokesman George Little said Wednesday.

“It is not the policy or practice of the CIA to mislead Congress. This agency and this director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta’s actions back that up,” Little said. “It was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees.”

Seven Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee sent a letter to Panetta on June 26 asking that in light of his disclosure he revise a statement he made in May to CIA employees that it was not CIA policy or practice to mislead Congress.

The cryptic letter and CIA statement came on the eve of a House debate on an intelligence bill. The debate is expected to revive a partisan argument that has raged on and off for months about whether Pelosi knew in the fall of 2002 about the CIA’s use of waterboarding weeks earlier.

Waterboarding, which simulates drowning, is an interrogation technique the CIA used on three prisoners in 2002 and 2003. Obama has called waterboarding torture.

Much of the debate on the House intelligence bill is expected to be diverted into a discussion of what Pelosi knew about the CIA’s harsh interrogation program and why, if she was briefed on it, she didn’t formally object to it.

Republicans on the Intelligence Committee say the letters and Obama’s threat to veto the legislation are cover-up attempts on behalf of Pelosi and what she knew and didn’t do about “enhanced interrogation.”

“The blatantly political nature of the Democrats’ letters is revealed by their handling,” said Jamal Ware, spokesman for

Republicans on the committee, in a statement late Wednesday. Pelosi told reporters in May she had not been informed that waterboarding had been used against terrorism suspects, even though it had been. When asked whether she was accusing the CIA of lying to her, she said, “Yes.”

The CIA sent lawmakers a chart in May describing the 40 congressional briefings it gave on the interrogation techniques.

But that document was found to include several errors, leaving in question exactly what Pelosi was told.

House Republicans oppose at least one provision in the intelligence authorization bill, and they have an unusual ally: the White House.

Obama’s aides have said they will recommend he veto the bill if it includes a Democratic-written provision requiring the president to notify the intelligence committees in their entirety about covert CIA activities.

Under current law, the president is only obligated to notify the top Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate and the senior Democratic and Republican members on each chamber’s Intelligence Committee.

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