Here are today’s headlines from the Kansas congressional delegation:Iraq(WIBW) House Passes Bill to Bring Troops home Next Year: The House of Representatives voted 223-201 Thursday to require most U.S. troops to leave Iraq by April 1, 2008. Republicans Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt voted against the measure, while Democrats Nancy Boyda and Dennis Moore supported it.(KC Star) Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas qualifies his support of Bush’s Iraq policy: As the Republican bloc continues to crack in the Senate, Kansan Pat Roberts, usually a reliable backer of President Bush’s Iraq policy, says his support is “not locked into concrete.” “We have to make some very tough decisions,” Roberts said in an interview this week. “We can’t continue to be engaged in a war which the American people do not support.” Roberts said he won’t support any measures yet to begin withdrawing troops, because he’s worried about the chaos that could result. “I don’t know the answer,” said the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I don’t know anybody that does. I know the president thinks he does. His resolve is incredible, whether or not that’s the proper course of action.”(National Review Online commentary) Pat Roberts Is a Member of the No-Surrender Caucus : (Quoting a Roberts statement on the Iraq issue) “I am concerned and disappointed that the Senate is not discussing the very difficult consequences of a mandated date certain withdrawal including: ¢ the safety of American men and women in uniform as they redeploy or retreat, one of the most difficult military maneuvers; ¢ uncertainty over where our troops would redeploy to, and what difficulties this would present for our allies in the region; ¢ a humanitarian catastrophe and loss of Iraqi civilian lives, including uncertainty regarding the newly formed Iraqi militia members and supporters of the fledgling government; ¢ the real possibility of foreign Sunni insurgents entering the war and escalating it to a regional conflict, endangering the entire middle east, which could require the future presence of U.S. forces; ¢ the emboldening of terrorists plotting attacks throughout Europe and the United States.”Sen. Pat Roberts (R)!(CQ.com) Senate Republicans Challenge Bush on SCHIP: The chief Republican architects of a deal to expand a children’s health insurance program are defending the proposal against criticism by President Bush, who has threatened to “resist” it. This week, members of the Senate Finance Committee tentatively agreed on a renewal and expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which covers about 6 million children from families that are low-income but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. Bush sees the legislation as a backdoor move toward government-run health care, but committee Republicans Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Pat Roberts of Kansas said in a July 11 letter to Bush that the issue that most concerns him – the use of SCHIP to cover adults – is partly his fault. Under Bush’s watch, the department of Health and Human Services has approved 12 waivers to states allowing SCHIP coverage of adults, records show, including a waiver issued May 24 allowing Wisconsin to cover parents earning up to twice the poverty level.Rep. Jerry Moran (R) !(WIBW) Moran: Kansans Need Relief From Rising Fuel Prices: A Kansas congressman is urging Congress to put a stop to rising fuel prices. Congressman Jerry Moran called on Congress Wednesday to develop a comprehensive energy policy to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil. Moran spoke to U.S. House of Representatives and advocated for a policy that includes conservation, renewable energy, increased domestic exploration and production, and expansion of refinery capacity. “The cost of fuel to get to work, heat and cool homes, and operate farm machinery is felt immediately by working families when energy prices increase,” Moran said. “If we can replace even a portion of the oil we import from volatile regions with domestic oil, natural gas and renewable energy, we can reduce the occurrence of price swings and decrease the adverse impact on the American consumer.”Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R) ![(New York Times) House Panel Supports Limiting Access to Data on Guns, Dealing a Blow to Bloomberg:][9] A key Congressional committee dealt a major blow to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign against illegal firearms yesterday, refusing to allow police departments broader access to data that tracks guns sales. The bill restricting release of the information, approved by the House Appropriations Committee, must still be passed by the full House and reconciled with a similar Senate measure. But since the Senate bill is considered even more beneficial to the gun industry, the Bloomberg administration appeared resigned to defeat. … Transforming himself into a national spokesman for gun control, Mayor Bloomberg, who recently left the Republican Party, has traveled the country for more than a year, lobbying Congress, rallying hundreds of other mayors and financing a media campaign aimed at the end of what he once called a “godawful piece of legislation.” That legislation, known as the Tiahrt Amendment, for Representative Todd Tiahrt, the Republican from Kansas who introduced it, is intended to keep trace data, which shows the path from manufacturer to retail purchase of a gun recovered in a crime, from being used in civil suits against gun dealers and manufacturers. [1]: House Passes Bill to Bring Troops home Next Year