Mitt Romney continued Friday to tap previous Bush administrations for advice.

The former Massachusetts governor and top-tier Republican presidential candidate Friday announced the backing of two former attorneys general and three others who served in top positions.

Supporters and advisers include Michael Mukasey, attorney general under President George W. Bush from 2007 to 2009, and William Barr, attorney general under President George H.W. Bush from 1991 to 1993.

Also on the Romney team are George Terwilliger, deputy attorney general from 1992 to 1993; Mark Filip, deputy attorney general from 2008 to 2009, and Alice Fisher, assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division from 2005 to 2008.

Mitt Romney will get the same kind of advice on trade policy as President George W. Bush got--because Romney's top advisers are Bush administration veterans.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor seeking the Republican presidential nomination, Thursday announced an advisory team that features Carlos Gutierrez, secretary of commerce in the second Bush administration. Gutierrez will chair Romney's Trade Policy Advisory Group.

Also advising Romney are Rod Hunter, former National Security Council senior director of international trade, energy and environment, and John Herrmann, NSC director for international trade and investment.

Health and environmental groups today announced they're suing the Obama administration for not setting stronger smog standards. The Environmental Protection Agency's science advisory board unanimously recommended stronger standards than what the Bush administration set in 2008. The EPA had been working on a tougher requirement, but President Obama directed the agency to drop it last month (story here).

The suit was brought by the American Lung Association, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Appalachian Mountain Club. (See a press release from Earthjustice, the law firm representing them, here.)

Mitt Romney's economic team has a very George W. Bush-like hue.

Romney, who plans to unveil his economic program later Tuesday, announced a team of four top economic advisers, including two who served Bush as top economic aides. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

R. Glenn Hubbard served as Bush's Chairman of the Councl of Economic Advisors from 2001 to 2003, and N. Gregory Mankiw served in that job from 2003 to 2005.

Mankiw is now a professor of economics at Harvard University, while Hubbard is a professor of finance and economics at the Columbia University Business School.

Also on the Romney team are former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber, a longtime adviser to GOP politicians, and former MIssouri Sen. Jim Talent.

Top Senate Democrats Wednesday praised President Barack Obama's handling of the U.S. mission in Libya, comparing him favorably to President George H. W. Bush.

"I might say that I think this was a very wise course," said Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., of Obama's actions.

"It is reminiscent of George Herbert Walker (Bush)'s effort before our involvement in Kuwait where he lined up support across the board and through the United Nations before any military action was commenced," he said in a conference call with reporters.

Bush put together a coalition to fight Iraq, after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.

The leaders were uncertain whether Congress should give its formal consent to the operation; Bush eventually sought and got congressional approve for the Gulf War in 1991.

"None of us can say with any certainty what will happen when we return," said Durbin. Congress returns Monday from a 10-day spring recess.

He said "it is consistent with our constitutional responsibility to take up that question," but it's uncertain what the status of the conflict will be next week.

It was like a reunion from the last decade, as former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and others gathered Wednesday to honor former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

The occasion was the official hanging of Frist's portrait in the Capitol.

"I can assure you, Bill, that we are delighted to be here to watch you hang," Bush said as the crowd laughed. He then offered warm praise.

"I really admired the fact that Bill served during tough times," Bush said, notably during the Iraq war, "but he left the Senate in a gentlemanly way."

Bush got a standing ovation, and Frist said he felt "a sort of interlocking kinship" with the Bush family.

"And Mr. president, some day, there might just be -- it's kind of scary--a George Bush Frist," saying that if Bush hadn't run for re-election, Frist's eldest son would not have met his future wife, on the campaign.

"It's kind of frightening," Frist said, "but Ashley (his daughter-in-law) speed it up."

Everyone then headed for a nearby reception room, where they enjoyed wine and mini-beef tenderloin and cheese biscuits.

A subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee holds a hearing tomorrow morning on a Republican plan (read the draft legislation here) to amend the Clean Air Act to remove the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will be called in to answer questions. The committee also will hear from witnesses who support the legislation (list and press release here).

On the eve of the hearing, Democrats on the committee released a letter that Jackson's predecessor, Stephen Johnson, wrote to his boss, President George W. Bush, in 2008. At the time the Supreme Court had ruled in 2007 that the EPA had the authority under the law to regulate heat-trapping gases if it concluded that they were a danger to health and welfare. Johnson told Bush that the science was clear that greenhouse gases are a danger. He also wrote that emissions reductions “should spur both private sector investment in developing new, cost-effective technologies and private sector deployment of these technologies at a large scale.” (Copies of the Johnson letter and a letter from Energy Committee Democrats to committee chair Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., are here.)

The EPA released the so-called endangerment finding in 2009, after Bush left office, saying that greenhouse gases threaten public health and the welfare of current and future generations. The House GOP legislation would repeal the endangerment finding. Opponents say that move "directly conflicts with the consensus of climate scientists and the world's most authoritative scientific organizations" (see their analysis here).

House of Representatives liberals are on the warpath, protesting the deal President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans reached on taxes.

Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., is circulating a letter to colleagues, seeking signatures. The letter calls extension of all the Bush-era tax cuts, a key part of the Obama-GOP deal, "grossly unfair" and "fiscally irresponsible."

And, he says, "Adding $700 billion to our national debt, as this proposal would do, handcuffs our ability to offer a balanced plan to achieve fiscal stability, without a punishing effect on our current commitments, including Social Security and Medicare."

Welch, and dozens of other House Democrats, want only to extend tax cuts to those earning less than $250,000. That plan got 234 votes last week, well above a majority.

House Democrats are scheduled to discuss the Obama plan later Tuesday. 

The House of Representatives plans to vote Thursday on whether to continue the Bush-era tax cuts for all but the wealthy.

And even though the measure is expected to pass in the House, where Democrats have 255 of the 435 seats, it probably won't go much further. Sixty votes are needed to end Senate debate. Democrats control 58 seats there, and at least five Democrats have indicated they want all the cuts extended.

The House Democratic plan would keep current rates in place for individuals earning less than $200,000 and families making less than $250,000. Republicans and many moderate Democrats want all the rates to continue, at least temporarily.

Republican leaders were angry Wednesday at the prospect of the Democrats' vote.

"The last thing our economy needs is a job-killing tax hike on small businesses, and that's what the Democratic leaders plan would mean," said House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Congress Thursday headed home, and isn't due back until mid-November. It left without acting on the Bush tax cuts, cuts that expire Dec. 31.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has been defending the decision to put off consideration utnil after the November election. House of Representatives moderates have signaled they want all the cuts extended, at least for awhile. Pelosi, with White House support, only wants to extend those affecting individuals earning less than $200,000 and joint filers making less than $250,000.

At a Capitol Hill news conference, and again in an interview with PBS, she explained the decision to wait:

"It's a decision because the fact is our President got out there and talked about giving a tax cut to all Americans, but he does not agree that we should give an extra bonus to people making over $250,000 a year.  They too will get a tax cut under President Obama's plan.  We support that.

"Our members are fully prepared to go home and talk about what they support and it doesn't require a vote to take a position in it.  So we feel we are very confident about the decisions that we have made, about the priorities in legislation that we had passed, health care reform for all Americans, improving quality, expanding coverage, lowering costs, Wall Street reform, the list goes on.

"Members are going home to talk about that but also to talk about the future, what is the choice, and one of those choices is, do we give a tax cut to everyone which creates jobs or do we give a tax cut, a bonus to the upper income which will only add to the deficit?  We're not going to do that."