JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – A Missouri House committee is suggesting lawmakers reject a pay increase for statewide elected officials in 2017.

The House Rules Committee on Wednesday approved a measure to forego raises recommended by a state commission charged with evaluating salaries.

Recommendations included $22,000 more per year for Gov. Jay Nixon and ranged from 8 to 10 percent increases for other state-elected officers. Members of the Legislature would have received $4,000 more annually, or an 11 percent raise under the commission’s proposal.

Republican Rep. Kevin Engler of Farmington says he wants to reject the increase, but says a better system is needed to determine whether officials deserve raises. Lawmakers have rejected proposals for salary increases since 2009.

The measure must be approved by two-thirds of both chambers before going to the governor.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With a month to go in the 2015 open enrollment season, the Obama administration says sign-ups under the president’s health care law are edging higher.

The Health and Human Services Department says at least 163,000 people signed up last week for subsidized private health insurance.

That brings the total to nearly 6.8 million people in 37 states where the federal government is running the new health insurance markets.

National figures should be significantly higher, since the federal count doesn’t include major states like California and New York, among those running their own exchanges. An updated national total will be available later.

The administration is expecting a surge near the Feb. 15 enrollment deadline. The goal is 9.1 million people nationwide signed up and paying premiums for 2015.

HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A new study estimates it would cost $18 billion to reroute water from the Missouri River to help irrigate farms in western Kansas, and an additional $1 billion each year to operate the system.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the 360-mile aqueduct would cost $12.2 billion to build over 20 years and $5.8 billion in interest. The Kansas Water Office posted the report online this month.

A state committee asked for the study because water levels are declining in the Ogallala Aquifer, which farmers across the region use for irrigation. Experts say current use of the aquifer for agriculture is unsustainable.

The proposed channel would start near White Cloud, along the Nebraska border, and end near Utica.

A similar 1982 analysis estimated construction would cost $3.6 billion.

WASHINGTON – After Republicans in the U.S. House voted to allow drastic cuts to Social Security benefits for millions of Americans with disabilities, including veterans and children, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill and several Senate colleagues have appealed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his colleagues in the Republican leadership, urging that they not pursue the measure.

The cuts, which could be as high as 20 percent, would impact nearly 250,000 Missourians with disabilities, their children, and their spouses.

“We are deeply concerned that the rule change in the House will impact millions of Social Security beneficiaries,” McCaskill and her colleagues wrote in the letter. “According to its actuaries, the Social Security Disability Trust Fund will be unable to pay full disability benefits starting as early as 2016, meaning that legislative action will be necessary to protect the benefits of nearly 11 million Americans. Instead of taking responsible action to address this issue, House Republicans acted according to their extreme ideology and put these benefits at risk by adopting a legislative rule change that creates a point of order against simple bipartisan technical corrections (called reallocations) to adjust the financing of the Social Security Disability Trust Fund.”

The letter criticizes a legislative rule change orchestrated by U.S. House Republicans to prevent Congress from stabilizing the Social Security Disability Trust Fund, which supports 9 million workers, 2 million children, and 160,000 spouses. Past adjustments to the fund’s financing have been commonplace and bipartisan—with Congress reallocating taxes between the Social Security retirement and disability trust funds 11 times, in both directions, when it was needed to put either program on stronger financial footing.

The letter continues: “An earnest debate on how to improve the solvency of the Social Security Trust Funds is needed, and we look forward to working together to find bipartisan solutions. However, House Republicans have eliminated a common sense action to ensure that Americans with disabilities who receive Social Security benefits are held hostage as Congress debates that issue.”

McCaskill was recently named the top Democrat on the Senate Aging Committee, which has purview over all issues related to older Americans, giving McCaskill a powerful new position from which she can combat scam artists targeting seniors—and all consumers—as well as protect Social Security and Medicare.

Full text of the letter is  below:

Dear Leader McConnell et al:

This week, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives took an unprecedented step toward cutting Social Security benefits for millions of Americans with disabilities, including veterans and children. As you consider what legislation Congress must pass this year, and how to maintain good governance of the United States Senate, we ask you not to pursue this highly partisan rule change.

We are deeply concerned that the rule change in the House will impact millions of Social Security beneficiaries. According to its actuaries, the Social Security Disability Trust Fund will be unable to pay full disability benefits starting as early as 2016, meaning that legislative action will be necessary to protect the benefits of nearly 11 million Americans. Instead of taking responsible action to address this issue, House Republicans acted according to their extreme ideology and put these benefits at risk by adopting a legislative rule change that creates a point of order against simple bipartisan technical corrections (called reallocations) to adjust the financing of the Social Security Disability Trust Fund.

This move is a particularly audacious in light of the fact that past reallocations have been commonplace and bipartisan. In fact, Congress has reallocated taxes between the Social Security retirement and disability trust funds 11 times before, in both directions, when it was needed to put either program on stronger footing.

The last reallocation occurred in 1994 and was passed without opposition by both the Senate and the House of Representatives. After that reallocation, it was projected that the Disability Trust Fund would be depleted in 2016 – so the need to adjust the trust fund’s financing is not a surprise or cause for alarm. There were no accusations of mismanagement then, or the 4 times it was used under President Reagan, because this country has traditionally managed Social Security as a whole. It is cynical to try and pit retirees and beneficiaries with disabilities against each other, as the House Republican rule change attempts to do.

An earnest debate on how to improve the solvency of the Social Security Trust Funds is needed, and we look forward to working together to find bipartisan solutions. However, House Republicans have eliminated a common sense action to ensure that Americans with disabilities who receive Social Security benefits are held harmless as Congress debates that issue.

Holding hostage the Social Security benefits of any American, particularly those of the 9 million Americans with disabilities who are at risk in the coming years, is an untenable proposition. It only increases the chances of yet another unnecessary manufactured crisis, akin to shutting down the government or threatening the full faith and credit of the United States. We ask that you speak out and forcibly reject the House Republican rule in order to take this reckless concept off the table and ensure Americans with disabilities that they can count on their government to act responsibly.

The letter was also signed by Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Chuck Schumer of New York, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Patty Murray of Washington, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa (AP) — President Barack Obama says high-speed broadband is not a luxury but a necessity.

The president is promoting a plan to expand access to broadband communications services by increasing competition.

Obama says faster Internet service will create jobs and allow local businesses to grow. He was speaking Wednesday from Cedar Falls, Iowa, which provides high-speed Internet to residents.

Obama is criticizing laws in 19 states that he says stamp out competition. And he is encouraging the Federal Communications Commission to pre-empt state laws that stifle competition for high-speed Internet service.

His stance is at odds with major cable and telephone companies such as AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc. that currently provide Internet service, often with little or no competition.

Obama says big companies are trying to keep out competitors.

MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says the Obama administration’s move to remake relations with Cuba gives U.S. companies “extraordinary opportunities” to boost business.

Chamber president and CEO Thomas Donohue said President Barack Obama’s move last month to restore diplomatic ties and ease curbs on trade was welcome after more than 50 years of failed interactions with the island nation.

Donohue said there is “unbelievable demand’ in Cuba for consumer products such as computers, smart phones and cars.

Donohue’s comments were at odds with Republican senators such as Marco Rubio of Florida and Dan Coats of Indiana, who have criticized the U.S. opening to Cuba. The chamber spent millions to help Republicans win control of the Senate last year.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas ethics official subpoenaed as part of an inquiry into loans to Gov. Sam Brownback’s re-election campaign hasn’t appeared before a federal grand jury.

Governmental Ethics Commission Executive Director Carol Williams confirmed she was in her office Wednesday morning when the grand jury appeared to be meeting at the federal courthouse in Topeka. She attended a legislative committee meeting in the afternoon.

She declined to comment further.

Williams received a subpoena last month, commanding her to appear before the grand jury and produced documents.

The subpoena did not specify which loans the grand jury is examining, but the only ones listed in reports for 2013 and 2014 were three, separate $500,000 loans from Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and a $200,000 loan form Brownback and his wife.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – A 46-year-old Missouri inmate facing a late January death for the fatal stabbing of a St. Louis County woman during a 1998 burglary wants a federal judge to halt his execution and order DNA testing which he claims could prove his innocence.

KWMU-FM reported that Marcellus Williams filed suit Monday. He is scheduled to die on January 29 in Missouri’s first execution of the new year after a state-record 10 inmates were put to death in 2014.

Lisha Gayle, a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter, was killed at her home in University City. Williams was convicted of burglarizing the home and then killing Gayle after she discovered him while getting out of the shower.