House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on Tuesday night defended an amendment to the agriculture appropriations bill that would nearly double funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Speaking on the House floor, Frank said reduced CFTC funding would prevent the agency from regulating derivatives, including oil derivatives. Several Democrats spent much of the day Tuesday arguing that this would only make it harder for the agency to prevent commodity price spikes caused by speculation.

"The CFTC, we think, should be able to say to people who don't use the commodity, please don't buy it up and hold it off the market so you can then sell it when the price goes up and make a profit," Frank said.

In his maiden speech Tuesday afternoon, Tea Party favorite Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) delivered his vision of a restored American economy, unhampered by debt and government over-regulation.

"The American people haven’t forgotten how to start a business," Rubio said. "The American people haven’t run out of good ideas.

"We Americans are as great as we have ever been but our government is broken," he said. "It is keeping us from doing what we have done better than any people in the history of the world: create jobs and prosperity." Read more...

Members of the House late Tuesday were mired in an ongoing rhetorical battle over the agriculture appropriations bill, as several Democrats took to the floor to argue against proposed cuts to the Women Infants and Children (WIC) food program.

"When they say women and children first, it means to save them, not to throw them overboard," House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said at about 5 p.m. "Surely America is a generous enough country to feed those who need food."

The battle over ethanol subsidies will resume in the Senate next week with more votes on proposals to strip or alter tax breaks that benefit renewable fuel producers.

The Senate on Tuesday rejected Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) amendment that would almost immediately end a major ethanol tax break.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday afternoon that he’s planning a vote next week on ethanol incentives, and that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) would take the lead for Democrats.

Feinstein, like Coburn, wants to kill billions of dollars worth of ethanol incentives that she calls costly and unneeded.

Precise plans for next week are uncertain. Sources on and off Capitol Hill said Tuesday that one option is to hold dueling votes on a Feinstein-Coburn bill to kill the incentives, and a separate plan floated Monday by Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and other ethanol backers.

The Thune-Klobuchar plan would end the 45-cent per gallon ethanol blender’s credit (which is slated to expire at year’s end), but maintain a smaller and “variable” blender’s credit for three years when oil prices are below certain levels.

It would steer some savings from ending the credit to deficit reduction, while also extending credits for cellulosic ethanol production, small ethanol producers, and installing alternative fuel pumps. Read more...

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) suggested he had grown weary of politics in Washington during a speech delivered right before the Senate knocked down one of his amendments.

The Senate on Tuesday delivered a resounding bipartisan defeat to an amendment Coburn sponsored that would have saved $6 billion in tax credits and subsidies by the end of the fiscal year. 

“There's nothing about this that makes sense other than if you are a wonk and study the politics and the procedures and the parochialism that goes on inside the political body,” said Coburn, describing the complicated alliances that combined later in the afternoon to bring down his amendment.

The House over the next two days is expected to hear successful points of order against four controversial sections of the FY 2012 agriculture appropriations bill that key House Republicans believe violate the House rule against legislating on an appropriations bill.

These provisions, already embedded in the bill, are expected to be stripped through points of order even though three of the four were put forward by Republicans during committee work.

The first of the four sections at issue has been the most controversial, as it represents a Republican attempt to limit Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. Section 740 would prevent funding in the bill from being used to enforce FDA regulations unless they are based on "hard science."

The House on Tuesday approved H.R. 2055, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs (VA) and Related Agencies appropriations bill by an easy 411-5 vote. Only five Republicans voted against it; all voting Democrats supported the bill.

The bill increases funding for the VA by 5.8 percent and cuts military construction spending by $2.6 billion to reflect anticipated base closures and realignments.

House Democrats on Tuesday argued that proposed Republican cuts to agricultural programs would literally starve needy Americans, while Republicans argued that Democrats were demagoguing a bill that actually increases food assistance programs and cuts in other areas.

"As written, this is a pro-hunger bill," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) charged. "A vote for this bill is a vote to willfully allow people in America and around the world to go without food."

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) warned Tuesday that the U.S. was “without direction” and headed to a dangerous escalation in NATO’s war against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

“It’s been over 60 days since the president notified the Congress that he intended to use military force in Libya,” Udall said in comments on the Senate floor. “We are adrift. Without direction.”

Udall warned the U.S. “is heading down a slippery path towards an escalation of military force in Libya.”