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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A dozen House of Representatives Democrats opposed to abortion are willing to kill President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan unless it satisfies their demand for language barring the procedure, Representative Bart Stupak said on Thursday.

“Yes. We’re prepared to take responsibility,” Stupak said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked if he and his 11 Democratic allies were willing to accept the consequences for bringing down healthcare reform over abortion.

“Let’s face it. I want to see healthcare. But we’re not going to bypass the principles of belief that we feel strongly about,” he said.

The Michigan Democrat held up House legislation last year until he was satisfied that its language prevented federal tax dollars from being used to fund abortions.

No specific legislation has yet surfaced. But Obama began a final push for reform on Wednesday, urging Congress to vote on the plan in the next few weeks even if it means passing the measure with a narrow Democratic majority and no Republican support.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s top adviser on health issues, said the White House was prepared to bar the use of federal money for abortion. “This will not change the status quo on the policy of abortion. There will be no federal funding for abortion,” she told the same television program.

But Stupak said anti-abortion lawmakers are worried that the legislative language will follow the blueprint of the reform bill passed by the Senate, which he said does not provide sufficient safeguards.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrat Sander Levin will take over as chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee to replace Charles Rangel, who stepped aside under an ethics cloud, a committee spokesman said on Thursday.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the appointment at a closed door caucus meeting, the spokesman said. Democratic Rep. Pete Stark of California had been in line for the post based on seniority. But a Democratic lawmaker said he chose instead to remain chairman of the panel’s health subcommittee.

Like Rangel, Levin is viewed as a liberal Democrat.

Rangel temporarily stepped aside as Ways and Means chairman

on Wednesday after a House ethics panel admonished him last week for taking corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008 in violation of the chamber’s gift rules.

The panel, composed of three Democrats and three Republicans, is still looking into other matters involving Rangel, including his use of a rent-controlled apartment and his fund-raising for the Charles Rangel Center for Public Service in New York.

(Reporting by Donna Smith and Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A small group of U.S. lawmakers planned to offer legislation Thursday to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement in the latest sign of congressional disillusionment with free-trade deals.

The bill spearheaded by Rep. Gene Taylor, a Mississippi Democrat, would require President Barack Obama to give Mexico and Canada six months notice that the United States will no longer be part of 16-year-old trade pact.

The move comes as Obama says he wants to resolve problems blocking congressional approval of long-delayed trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. The strongest opposition to those agreements comes from Obama’s fellow Democrats.

The United States also will begin talks later this month with Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Chile, Peru, Vietnam and Brunei on a regional free-trade agreement in Asia Pacific.

Taylor blames NAFTA for a loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs that he believes threatens national security, a spokesman for the conservative 10-term congressman said.

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By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday underscored mounting concerns about the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, and scheduled a separate hearing next week to dig deeper into projected cost overruns and schedule delays.

The committee’s chairman, Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said the hearing was needed, given recent revelations of troubles with the system design and demonstration phase, the Pentagon’s decision to fire the F-35 program manager, news of delayed fielding of the fighters and expected cost overruns.

“There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered,” Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the committee said, noting that just a month ago Defense Secretary Robert Gates had told lawmakers he did not expect delays in when the services could start using the new fighters in combat.

McCain, who requested next week’s hearing, said he remained concerned about the ability of the F-35 test program to detect and anticipate problems, how effectively software risk will be managed going forward, and the reliability of flight testing and production schedules.

McCain criticized the “piecemeal process” by which the Pentagon had been assessing risk on the F-35 program, and said the committee had not been adequately informed about emerging issues, which made proper congressional oversight difficult.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will come out with a new book that is a “celebration of American virtues and strengths,” publisher HarperCollins announced on Thursday.

The as-yet untitled book by Palin, widely considered to be weighing a run for U.S. president, will feature selections of readings that have inspired her and portraits of people she admires, the publisher said.

“She will also draw from her personal experience to amplify these timely (and timeless) themes,” HarperCollins said in a statement.

Palin’s first book, “Going Rogue,” has sold more than 2.2 million copies, HarperCollins said.

Palin ran unsuccessfully for vice president on the Republican ticket with presidential nominee Sen. John McCain in 2008. She was governor of Alaska at the time.

Since then, Palin resigned as governor and has made public appearances before such groups as the conservative “Tea Party” movement and on NBC television’s “Tonight Show.”

She also has been hired as a commentator on Fox News, where she recently said she was open to a possible White House run in 2012 but had not made up her mind.

The publisher, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp empire, did not disclose the amount of Palin’s advance for the new book.

(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration reasserted its commitment to banning proprietary trading by banks with draft legislative language on Wednesday, despite signs that Congress is unlikely to adopt such a rule.

In a scant five pages from the Treasury Department, the administration put a two-year phase-in on its “Volcker rule” to curb “prop trading” — or buying and selling of investments on financiers’ own books unrelated to customer needs.

The rule would apply to banks, with limits slapped on large, non-bank financial firms, as well. In addition, banks would be barred from sponsoring or investing in hedge funds and private equity funds, under the administration’s language.

While key details were left up to regulators, the language showed the White House is determined to push ahead with a rule it first proposed in January, as the U.S. Senate inched its way toward acting on new financial reform legislation.

Authored chiefly by White House economic adviser Paul Volcker, the rule arrived late in a reform debate that has raged for months since the severe 2008-2009 financial crisis tipped the U.S. economy into a deep recession.

President Barack Obama in mid-2009 proposed a comprehensive package of reforms aimed at preventing another crisis. Most of them were embraced in a bill approved in December by the House of Representatives, but the Volcker rule was not in the mix.

By the time Obama and Volcker unveiled it almost six weeks ago, the Senate was well along in its debate about reforms. The Volcker rule complicated Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd’s task of moving a reform bill to the Senate floor, and he has still not managed to do that.

Amid ferocious lobbying by banks and Wall Street firms opposed to reforms, Republicans have pushed the Senate toward a narrower, compromise bill that looks likely to exclude the Volcker rule and other key Obama proposals.

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