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.”

A bipartisan group of 15 farm state senators introduced legislation on Monday that they hope can be seen as an alternative to Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-Okla.) proposal to immediately end the current tax credit for ethanol-gasoline blenders.

The bill, S. 1185, was introduced just hours before a scheduled Tuesday cloture vote on Coburn's amendment to the Economic Development Revitalization Act.

Almost three weeks after the Senate voted to defeat the Republicans' budget plan for fiscal year 2012, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is continuing to attack the proposal.

“We know Republicans have put together a budget that destroys Medicare,” said Reid from the floor on Tuesday. “That’s what we have received, we voted on it over here, it was turned down.”

A bipartisan proposal would let the White House liquidate up to $10 billion in Libyan assets to spend on aid.