The House returns next week to committee work on international financial reform and the ongoing U.S. military involvement in Libya.

On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee will hear from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the state of international financial reform. The same committee will hold a follow-up hearing Thursday on the same topic.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has set a Thursday deadline for the administration to comply with the House's demands on Libya.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will deliver his maiden speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, five months after entering the upper chamber.

The Tea Party favorite will be the final senator from the freshman class to deliver his inaugural speech in the Senate.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is offering legislation to give officials the power to block health insurance rate increases. 

The Senate on Tuesday will hold a procedural vote on an amendment that would eliminate about $6 billion in tax credits provided annually to subsidize blenders of ethanol.

The vote comes after the amendment’s sponsor, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), presented 16 signatures from other senators to the Senate clerk Thursday and demanded that a vote to limit debate be placed on the schedule.

Coburn has been pushing for a vote on the amendment throughout the year, selling it as an important step toward slashing out-of-control government spending.

The Senate made some progress on the pending Economic Development Revitalization Act on Thursday when it held a vote on a controversial amendment demanded by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), but major hurdles remain for the legislation in the form of at least 44 further amendments senators want tacked on to the bill.

The Senate remained dormant for much of Thursday evening as senators worked behind the scenes on how to move forward on the bill. This process mostly involves deciding which amendments to consider, and how long to consider them.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) this week introduced legislation that proposes a $100 million per year grant program that would help schools build up more capacity to teach English.

The English Learning and Innovation Act, S. 1158, would establish this program for six years, and would require the Secretary of Education to prioritize rural areas and schools that have had difficulty getting students to a level of English proficiency. Bennet said it is needed because of the growing number of "English learners" in U.S. public schools.

"School districts in rural, urban and suburban communities across the country have large and growing English learner populations," he said. "The English Learning and Innovation Act will help school districts develop successful methods to close the achievement gap and better prepare all students for success in college and the 21st century job market."

The Senate on Thursday voted down an amendment that would have required federal agencies to carefully assess the impact of proposed regulations on small businesses.

The vote was 53 for the amendment and 46 opposed. The measure needed 60 votes to pass. Six Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans.

The vote on the amendment, which was sponsored by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), came after several hours of fiercely partisan debate on the Senate floor.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) next week will be appointed as the next Ways and Means Committee member. Reed will be the only New York Republican on the committee and will join Democratic New Yorkers Charles Rangel and Joseph Crowley.

Reed will replace Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who was appointed to the Senate after Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) resigned earlier this year under the pressure of a Senate Ethics Committee investigation. The committee was looking into ethics violations stemming from Ensign's affair with the wife of a former staffer.

House Republicans are expected to ratify the decision to add Reed to the committee on Tuesday.