Climate Bill on the Table, Immigration Off as Democrats Rush to Pass Priorities

Nearly six months are left in 2010, but lawmakers on Capitol Hill have only a handful of work weeks left until they head home to their states and districts for an extended August recess, and then wrap up the year early in the fall to focus full time on defending their seats in Congress in the midterm elections.

The compressed work schedule means that Democrats in Washington are duking it out over which issues get attention this year and which ones will have to wait for another day.

The first leg of Congress' summer sprint starts Tuesday morning, when the House and Senate both return from a July 4 recess. Here's what's in and out on Congress' to do list.

In: Jobs/ Unemployment Benefits -- On Tuesday, Senate Democrats will focus on a bill to jump-start small business hiring, which the Senate will debate for the rest of the week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will also bring up a perennial troublemaker for Republicans -- a bill to extend jobless benefits for long-term unemployed people. Most GOP senators have objected to passing more benefits financed by deficit spending, but Democrats are convinced they've got a political winner on their hands. So look for them to bring the bill up again and again until it passes, likely only after Gov. Joe Manchin of West Virginia appoints a temporary successor to the late Sen. Robert Byrd. With the support of the new senator and Maine's two Republican senators, the bill should pass once and for all.

Out: Bush Tax Cuts -- When Republicans passed President George W. Bush's massive tax cuts in 2001, they did so only with the stipulation that the cuts would expire at the end of this year. An act of Congress could extend the expiration date, but don't hold your breath. Although some Democrats have suggested extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Harry Reid, said the Senate doesn't even have time to discuss it. "Because Republicans have objected to nearly everything we have tried do this year, we don't have time to do all of the things we need to do."

In: Wall Street Reform -- Now that Republican Sens. Scott Brown, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have announced they'll support the Wall Street reform bill, Harry Reid announced Monday that he'll bring the conference report of the measure -- the largest overhaul of the financial-services industry since the Great Depression -- up for a vote on final passage this week.

Out: Immigration Reform -- With Republicans dead set against it and moderate Democrats running scared from the issue, leaders in the House and Senate know they are nowhere near having enough votes to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill like the one President Barack Obama has advocated recently, especially in an election year. Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House will not act until the Senate passes a bill, and Reid's spokeswoman says the chances are slim the issue will be taken up before November. "I don't think that's likely at this point," she said.

In: Elena Kagan -- If there's a sure thing this year in Washington, it is that Elena Kagan will be confirmed by the Senate to the Supreme Court. Although GOP senators like John McCain have announced they'll vote against the current solicitor general to join the high court, she sailed through her confirmation hearings in June with nary a filibuster threat lodged against her. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has told reporters he wants Kagan confirmed before August, and all signs point to the fact that he'll get his wish.

Likely Out Until the Fall: Pentagon policy bill, with Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal -- The 2010 Defense Authorization bill, as it's known, sets the authorized spending levels and official policies for the Pentagon next year. Of particular interest to some interest groups is the language in the bill, added by the Senate Armed Services Committee and approved by the full House, to authorize the secretary of defense to repeal the ban on gays serving openly in the military. Although the bill is expected to pass, Senate aides involved in crafting the bill give it very low odds of being taken up before August because of the Senate's full plate between now and then.


In: Energy Bill/ Climate Change -- Democrats have seized on the BP oil spill as a catalyst to jump-start languishing efforts to pass energy-reform and climate-change legislation this year, which the House passed in 2009. Although the details of the bill are still being worked out between Sens. John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Jeff Bingaman and a half dozen other interested senators, look for some version of the legislation to be debated on the Senate floor in July. Without Republican support, however, actually passing the bill will be all but impossible.

Out: Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Although President Obama has urged the Senate to ratify the latest treaty to reduce nuclear weapons arsenals in Russia and the United States, he'll need 67 votes in the Senate to do it, a benchmark that Democratic Senate aides call "too tall of an order." A recent op-ed from Sen. Jon Kyl in The Wall Street Journal lays out the Republican arguments against ratifying it, calling the president's arms reduction policies "dangerous and impractical."

Other items topping the Democrats' agenda that could come up in July include the DISCLOSE Act to place disclosure requirements on corporate campaign donations, an emergency spending bill to finance the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a food-safety bill that the first lady is advocating, and the FMAP bill to help states pay for expanding Medicaid rolls.

Looming over the entire agenda will be the 2010 midterm elections, whose outcomes could be determined by the votes members of Congress take between now and then.