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ByJoshLederman The Associated Press WASHINGTON President Barack Obama's deter- mined efforts to combat global warming face their biggest trial yet as Repub- licans take full control of Congress this week. The GOP vows to move fast and forcefully to roll back his environmental rules and force his hand on energy development. The GOP's first order of business: the Keystone XL pipeline. The Republican- led House has repeatedly passed legislation to ap- prove the pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil from Canada deep into the United States. The bills died in the Senate when Democrats were in con- trol, but that will change Wednesday when a Repub- lican-led Senate committee holds a Keystone hearing. "The president is going to see the Keystone XL pipeline on his desk and it's going to be a bellwether decision by the president whether to go with jobs and the economy," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Sunday. Success for Republicans on the climate front would jeopardize a key component of Obama's legacy. And the ramifications would likely ricochet far beyond the United States. Later this year, nations are supposed to sign a ma- jor global climate treaty in Paris. Aggressive action by the U.S. under Obama has upped the pressure on other governments to get seri- ous about climate change, too. But if Obama can't make good on his commit- ments at home, it's unclear whether poorer nations will still feel compelled to act. "The American govern- ment has been responsi- ble for sending very strong political and economic sig- nals with what they have announced so far," former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, now a global cli- mate leader, said in an As- sociated Press interview. "I know that there is a risk that those will be overcome by the new political reality in the U.S." Obama has made clear he will use his veto power if Republicans succeed in getting hostile bills to his desk — especially on cli- mate change. "I'm going to defend gains that we've made on environment and clean air and clean water," he has said. And Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, says the Repub- licans aren't likely to over- turn his veto. That would require a number of Dem- ocrats to vote against the president. "There's reason to be con- cerned, but I don't think there's reason to be pan- icked," Schatz said. By design, Obama's big- gest steps on climate rely on existing laws and don't explicitly require Congress to act. But Republicans can try to undercut them before they take effect. Republi- cans argue that Obama's coal plant emissions lim- its, for example, would dev- astate local economies and hamper job-creation. —After Wednesday's hearing on Keystone, GOP senators plan to work on the bill's details on Thurs- day and then start debating the legislation next week. The Senate could vote soon after Obama's Jan. 20 State of the Union address. A sep- arate House vote on Key- stone could come as early as this week. That makes Keystone likely to be one of the first bills to hit Obama's desk in 2015. BIGGEST TRIAL YET Obama'sclimateeffortsface threat from GOP-run Congress RICHARDDREW—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE President Barack Obama addresses the Climate Summit at United Nations headquarters. By David Espo The Associated Press WASHINGTON House Speaker John Boehner's prospects for a new term appeared secure Monday despite grumblings from tea party-aligned dissidents on the eve of a Republican takeover of Congress, while GOP leaders in both houses pointed toward a swift veto showdown with President Barack Obama over the long-stalled Keystone XL pipeline. Senate Republicans, win- ners of a majority in last fall's elections, began lay- ing down markers for leg- islative battles ahead. "Tax reform should not be used as an excuse to raise taxes on the American people," wrote Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who will become chairman of the tax-writ- ing Senate Finance Com- mittee. "Any such effort is a needless distraction," he added, pointedly rejecting a long-held view of the White House and many Demo- crats. Tax reform was a dis- tant target as congressio- nal veterans and newcom- ers alike looked ahead to a day of pomp and ceremony beneath the Capitol Dome. Kentucky Sen. Mitch Mc- Connell's ascension Tuesday to the post of Senate ma- jority leader was automatic following his approval by rank-and-file Republicans late last year. That wasn't the case in the House, where the elec- tion of a speaker is the main event on any opening day's agenda. Rep. Louie Gohm- ert of Texas put himself for- ward as a challenger, and roughly a dozen Republi- cans have announced they will oppose Boehner's elec- tion. But that was far short of the number needed to place his election in jeop- ardy. "Rep. Boehner was se- lected as the House Repub- lican Conference's choice for speaker in November, and he expects to be elected by the whole House this week," said his spokesman, Michael Steel. Nor did any of the rebels predict they would succeed in toppling the 65-year-old Ohioan. Instead, they said the current high command wasn't conservative enough. Virginia Rep. Dave Brat, who defeated former Major- ity Leader Eric Cantor in a primary last summer, said the Republican leadership has "strayed from its own principles of free market, limited government, consti- tutional conservatism. We are at a crucial turning point in our country's history." Two years ago, Boehner was faced with similar crit- icism, and sweated out his election to a second term. His hand is considerably stronger this year as a re- sult of the sweep of the Re- publican electoral triumph. The party will hold 246 House seats in the new Con- gress, to 188 for the Demo- crats, the biggest GOP ma- jority in nearly 70 years. It would have been big- ger still, but New York Rep. Michael Grimm's resigna- tion took effect one day be- fore the new Congress con- vened. He pleaded guilty last month to federal tax evasion. The intra-party leader- ship struggle underscored the political peril facing Republicans as they looked ahead to two-house control of Congress. Yet the evident ability to pass Keystone pipeline legislation showed their potential to advance an agenda. The legislation passed the House but died in a Democratic-led filibus- ter in the Senate late last year. Now, Republican lead- ers intend to push the bill through the House late this week, and appear to have more than enough votes to clear it through the Senate as well, given the Republi- can pickup of nine seats in the elections. While Obama has not said if he will reject the measure, White House spokesman Josh Earnest outlined a series of con- cerns with the measure be- fore adding, "I'm not pre- pared at this point to issue a veto threat related to that specific piece of legislation." But Republicans stand ready to cast the measure as a bipartisan jobs bill of the type that should be signed into law. "There's a lot we can get done together if the presi- dent puts his famous pen to use signing bills rather than vetoing legislation his liberal allies don't like," McConnell said late last year. Earnest was less ambig- uous about another issue. Referring to an assertion by a Louisiana reporter, he said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the third-rank- ing House GOP leader, had once described himself as "David Duke without the baggage." Earnest also said Scalise's presence in the leadership of House Repub- licans "says a lot about who they are." Scalise spoke more than a dozen years ago to a white supremacist organization founded by Duke. The law- maker said recently the ap- pearance was a mistake, and said he condemns the group's views. CONGRESS Boehner in line for 3rd term as speaker EVAN VUCCI — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE President Barack Obama meets with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky le , and House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio in the Oval Office. CHARLES KRUPA — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE Gabriella Diaz, 4, sits as registered nurse Charlene Luxcin, right, administers a flu shot at the Whittier Street Health Center in Boston, Mass. By Mike Stobbe The Associated Press NEW YORK The flu is now widespread in all but seven states, and hospitaliza- tion rates match the dis- mal season two years ago. While health officials fear this will be an unusually bad year, it's too soon to say. The latest figures re- leased Monday by the Cen- ters for Disease Control and Prevention show the flu hitting hard in most of the 43 states where the ill- ness was widespread. But the flu was not yet ram- pant in populous states like California and New York. The report is for the week of Christmas, and it shows the flu season fol- lowing a similar track as the last two, when flu ac- tivity peaked no later than mid-January. Perhaps that will happen this winter, too, the CDC's Dr. Michael Jhung said. HOW BAD IS THIS FLU SEA- SON? It's not clear yet. Ex- perts are worried because the nasty bug that's mak- ing most people sick isn't included in this year's vaccine. Preliminary data on how well the vaccine is working is still weeks away. Among infectious diseases, flu is considered one of the nation's lead- ing causes of death, kill- ing roughly 24,000 a year, on average. HOW UNUSUAL IS FLU THIS YEAR? The different flu strain makes predictions more difficult. The current sea- son hit hard in December — earlier than usual. But the last two flu seasons hit early, too. So far, flu hos- pitalization rates are simi- lar to the harsh season two years ago, which was dom- inated by a similar flu vi- rus. Especially this year, health officials this year are urging doctors to treat flu patients promptly with antiviral medications. HASFLUBECOMEEPIDEMIC? Yes, but that's not un- usual. "It's safe to say we have a flu epidemic every year," Jhung said Monday. Epidemics occur when a virus spreads quickly and affects many people at the same time. According to one CDC definition, flu is epidemic when a cer- tain percentage of deaths in a given week are due to flu and pneumonia. By that measure, flu epidem- ics occurred in nine of the last dozen winters, includ- ing this one. Flu-related deaths surpassed the ep- idemic threshold three weeks ago, then dropped below that level the next week. But other measures indicate flu still is epi- demic. IS IT TOO LATE TO GET A FLU SHOT? CDC officials say no. Even if the flu season peaks soon, it will still be around for months. De- spite the new flu strain, the vaccine has been well matched in roughly a third of the flu cases seen so far. And it is considered to be effective against some other flu viruses that could surge in the late winter or spring. About 40 percent of the public was vacci- nated against flu as of No- vember, which is about normal in recent years, Jhung said. CDC: Flu season ke ep s wo rs en in g LATEST FIGURES By Ken Dilanian The Associated Press WASHINGTON The out- going chairman of the Senate intelligence com- mittee is urging a series of policy and legislative changes to ensure that the U.S. government never again tortures detainees, even as polls show that a majority of Americans be- lieve harsh CIA interroga- tions after 9/11 were jus- tified. Democratic Sen. Di- anne Feinstein of Califor- nia presided over a five- year investigation that resulted in last month's release of parts of a re- port that harshly de- scribed the CIA practice of torture against terror detainees after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The 525- page executive summary cited the CIA's own docu- ments in finding that the agency's interrogation program was more bru- tal than previously under- stood and failed to pro- duce unique intelligence that couldn't have been obtained through tradi- tional methods. President Barrack Obama has called the practices torture, some- thing former CIA officials dispute. The executive summary of the Senate re- port, written by Feinstein staff members, documents CIA mismanagement and misrepresentations, some of which the agency has acknowledged. In a letter to Obama re- leased Monday, Feinstein outlined a series of recom- mendations "intended to make sure that the United States never again en- gages in actions that you have acknowledged were torture." The documented shortcomings in the CIA's decade-old interrogation program "should prompt additional oversight and better sharing of infor- mation for all covert ac- tion and significant in- telligence collection pro- grams," she said. CIA Feinstein urges changes to avoid repeat of tactics PLEASE RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER. 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