Items Tagged With Alternative Energy

Listening In. Congress could wrap up a surveillance bill if all goes well this week. The bill would roughly legalize a secret wiretap program that let feds listen in on foreign phone calls, while at the same time adding a bit of oversight from the courts and Congress and, possibly, giving telecoms immunity from lawsuits over the earlier, illegal, program. With a temporary bill expiring on Friday, Congress will try to get its ducks in line this week, but could buy itself more time by extending the current bill. Standing in its way are disagreements over whether to okay immunity and how much oversight to give the courts and Congress.

Congress busies itself with a couple of dead-end bills this week on energy, housing and Iraq, while long-stalled action - on the Farm Bill, secret intelligence courts, consumer product safety and patent reform - simmers on the side.

The House revives an energy bill that would extend and build out alternative energy incentives. While lawmakers are generally behind the bill's green tax credits, Republicans in the Senate and the president don't like its rollbacks on oil tax breaks that would pay for the green goods - and are almost certain to block final passage.

• see more on the energy bill

The Senate tosses a life-line to families on the cusp of home foreclosure with a bill that would funnel money toward rehabilitating ($4 billion) and refinancing ($10 billion) homes hit by subprime mortgages. The deal breaker may be a provision that lets bankruptcy judges restructure the mortgages of families going into foreclosure.

• see more on housing blues

Senators will also test out another almost-sure-to-lose vote that would stop funding for troop deployments to Iraq in four months.

• see more on Iraq

The House may also vote to set up a quasi-independent ethics office this week, while both chambers okay ongoing special trade status for Andean nations.

In the works - and what could pop up for a floor vote in the upcoming weeks - are a toy consumer protection bill, patent reform, the Farm Bill and a foreign intelligence bill.