More than 100 House Democrats broke ranks yesterday to pass a two-week government funding bill with $4 billion in cuts, including slices to Army Corps of Engineers and Energy Department efficiency programs, setting up a fresh fracas on Capitol Hill over how to spend federal dollars for the remainder of the fiscal year.

The 335-91 approval of the House's two-week continuing resolution (CR) was powered by support from 104 Democrats, including Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and followed the defeat of a Democratic alternative plan that would have eliminated tax breaks for the five major U.S. oil companies on a 176-249 vote. Both parties lobbed political jabs in the wake of the votes with Democrats accusing the GOP of coddling the oil industry and Republicans hailing the sight of a majority of their opponents supporting immediate spending cuts.

But perhaps the most significant development came in the messaging department, as House Republican leaders put pressure back on the president's party to accept the $3 billion in U.S. EPA cuts and multiple restrictive policy riders that were added to the long-term CR they passed on Feb. 19. Passage of the two-week stopgap funding bill, which averts the risk of a government shutdown Friday, "gives [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid [D-Nev.] another two weeks to consider" taking up the seven-month GOP CR, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.

Senate Democrats are set to pass the two-week CR today after initially resisting it as too short of a window to allow for significant progress on long-term spending legislation (E&E Daily, March 1). The upper-chamber majority continued to warn against passage of further stopgap CRs for the rest of fiscal 2011 -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) termed such an approach "irresponsible" -- but a reliance on such short-term funding bills could have an inadvertent upside for Democrats: the inability of Republicans to insist on riders that hamstring EPA.

"I don't know that we'll get any of that language in if we continue to do two-week CRs," said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), chairman of the House Appropriations subpanel with jurisdiction over EPA. "And I suspect that after two weeks, if we haven't worked out anything with the Senate, we'll do another two-week CR with some further reductions. I think most of the language that was in [the seven-month spending bill] probably won't come up in CRs, unless we can get a long-term CR."

Notably, Republicans have not ruled out the prospect of cutting federal spending in smaller batches for the next several months if the two chambers cannot reach a deal. Asked by reporters Monday if more stopgap CRs were on the table, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) replied, "It is certainly not our intention that that would be the best way to operate."

Amid the impasse that remains even as the two-week CR progresses, environmental groups are focused on beating back the House-passed riders blocking EPA from moving forward on its greenhouse gas emissions rules, its limits on water pollution from coal-mining operations, its pending Clean Water Act guidance, its transition to higher-blend ethanol fuel and other initiatives. Conservation groups are planning a press event today aimed at mobilizing opponents of the EPA riders, which Republicans view as vital curbs on an agency they fear is running amok.

Asked why Reid agreed to quick passage of the two-week CR, which cuts more than $300 million in Army Corps funding and $200 million-plus in energy efficiency grants through rescinded earmarks, Hoyer said the Senate leader "doesn't think this is something that is worth a fight. He wants to focus on long term that leads to Sept. 30."

Oil subsidies vote

The House Democratic alternative to the two-week CR furthers the party's broader political goals of painting the GOP as closer to industry than the public interest and promoting more spending on clean energy (E&E Daily, March 1). Republicans voted en masse against the oil-subsidy repeal, while 13 Democrats -- largely from oil-patch states -- opposed their leaders' proposal.

The rollback of oil tax breaks was a centerpiece of President Obama's State of the Union address in January, giving Democrats the green light to use it as a messaging tool despite its scant chances of clearing Congress. Indeed, though the minority alternative was widely expected to fail yesterday, environmentalists still lambasted the outcome.

"The vote today shows just how out of touch some politicians are with their constituents," Melinda Pierce, deputy director of national campaigns for the Sierra Club, said in a statement.

Reporters Sarah Abruzzese and Paul Quinlan contributed.