The Senate on Monday night confirmed three district judgeships, which led Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) to boast that the GOP has approved nearly one-fifth of President Obama's judicial nominations in just a few short weeks.

But Grassley also said there are still many pending vacancies, and urged the administration to work more quickly to make new nominations to fill those posts.

By voice vote, the Senate confirmed Sue Myerscough to be U.S. District Judge for the Central District of Illinois.

By a 89-0 vote, the Senate confirmed James Shadid to be U.S. District Judge for the Central District Illinois. And by another 89-0 vote, the Senate confirmed Anthony Battaglia to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of California.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) criticized President Obama on Monday, claiming his inaction on entitlement reform suggests he may have been changed by the presidential office.

“Suddenly at the moment when we can actually do something about this [entitlement reform], he is silent,” said McConnell. “On one of the greatest fiscal challenges of the day, he appears at least so far, to have taken a pass.”

“It’s not a question of if [reform is] possible,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “One can’t help but wonder if he has been changed by the office itself. I hope I am wrong about this.”

Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Monday said the Senate Democrat proposal to cut about $6.5 billion from FY 2010 levels proposes only "fake cuts" to government spending, and said a vote in favor of that proposal is a vote to "do nothing."

"A vote for the Democratic plan that will be presented tomorrow will be a vote to do nothing; that's the fact," Sessions said on the Senate floor Monday. "Those are fake cuts, they're not real cuts. This is Washington talk."

Republicans’ budget proposal to slash $61 billion in government spending is a product of the Tea Party’s influence, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday afternoon.

“The plan we will vote on tomorrow is the same plan the Tea Party already pushed in the House of Representatives,” Reid said in a floor speech. “Now the same Tea Party is trying to push it through the Senate.”

“Do we want jobs?“ Reid asked later. “If we do, then we simply cannot pass the plan the Tea Party has already pushed through the House.”

The Congressional Budget Office on Monday said cutting waste from the budget is not enough to balance it, and that cutting programs, raising taxes or both will be needed. The CBO's observations came just before the Senate was to take up test votes on Tuesday on a Republican plan to cut $61 billion and a Democratic plan to cut $10 billion from FY 2010 levels.

"Fiscal policy cannot be put on a sustainable path just by eliminating waste and inefficiency; the policy changes that are needed will significantly affect popular programs or people’s tax payments or both," CBO said in a presentation before the National Association for Business Economics.

House Democrats are signaling that they will oppose Republican efforts this week to repeal two federal mortgage programs.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Friday that Republicans want to end "important programs that help keep families in their homes." The House on Wednesday will begin consideration of H.R. 830 and H.R. 836. The first would eliminate the Federal Housing Administration's mortgage refinance program; the second would end the emergency mortgage relief program established in last year's Wall Street reform bill.

"While there is certainly more work to be done to address the foreclosure crisis, by only offering bills that would terminate programs, Republicans are not putting forward any concrete solutions for how they would replace those programs and help families in need," Hoyer said.

Democrats will have a chance to modify the two bills when they are taken up, as Republicans are proposing to allow germane amendments to be considered as long as they are printed in the Congressional Record by Wednesday. This is the same process Republicans used in consideration of H.R. 1, their fiscal 2011 spending bill.

The House is out Monday, and returns Tuesday at 2 p.m.

The Senate returns at 2 p.m. Monday to take up judicial nominations, but all eyes are on Tuesday, when two test votes are expected on spending bills for fiscal 2011.

Both votes are expected to fail — the vote on H.R. 1, the House Republican spending bill, and Senate Amendment 149, a Senate Democratic amendment that would restore most House cuts and shave just $6.5 billion  from current spending levels. While the vote is expected to signal the need for House-Senate negotiations, the contents of the Senate amendment indicate that the two bodies — and the two parties — are still very far apart.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is operating outside the authority of law in regards to its regulation of coal mining permits and must be curbed, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) asserted on the Senate floor Friday.

“The EPA has turned the permitting process into a back-door means of shutting down coal mines by sitting on permits indefinitely," said McConnell. “What they’re doing is outside the scope of their authority and the law.”

McConnell tore into the agency on the Senate floor on Friday in a speech introducing legislation he is sponsoring with fellow Kentuckian Sen. Rand Paul (R) that would force the EPA to process requests for mining permits in a timely manner and forbid the agency from revoking permits that have already been issued.

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Eleven House Democrats and dozens of Republicans, including several from Texas, have introduced a resolution calling on the Obama administration to speed up the process for approving shallow and deepwater oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.

The resolution, H.Res. 140, would ask the Department of the Interior to streamline the review and "appropriate approval" of applications for shallow and deepwater drilling permits in the Outer Continental shelf. It also asks that Interior immediately provide a sample drilling application, provide guidance on how to fill them out successfully, and provide detailed and timely explanations of why permits are not accepted.