The next make-or-break deadline for federal funding is set to shift to Nov. 18 as the House tomorrow takes up a Senate-passed stopgap funding bill that sidesteps recent partisan warfare over clean-energy loans -- for the time being.

Backed by Senate leaders in both parties, the upper chamber's continuing resolution (CR) funds the government for nearly seven weeks at the $1.043 trillion level agreed to in the August debt-limit deal (E&E Daily, Sept. 27). While its Senate GOP support makes the CR a strong bet for House passage tomorrow, the political jockeying that nearly caused a second shutdown scare this year is all but certain to continue ahead of the new November funding deadline -- with a focus on the Obama administration clean-energy loans that drove the latest spending battle.

Republicans and Democrats alike took a measure of satisfaction in the outcome of last month's unexpected fiscal standoff, which began after the Democrats' House caucus rallied to deny the GOP votes for a CR that would have slashed $1.5 billion in Energy Department clean-auto loan programs in part to offset extra disaster-relief funding.

Democrats saw the ingredients of a winning message to defend the job-creation value of DOE's green investments amid the burgeoning flap over the bankrupt White House-backed solar company Solyndra (see related story).

"We ought to find out what happened in Solyndra and learn from that, but not have it dissuade us from continuing to want to partner and provide loan guarantees for people who want to grow our energy independence and energy capabilities," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters last week as he defended the separate DOE loan program for efficient cars that the Republican CR would have cut.

Indeed, the House GOP followed that DOE slicing with a $100 million cut to the same loan fund that benefited Solyndra, the latest sign that Republicans see a resonant message of their own in curbing President Obama's plans for a federal role in promoting alternative energy.

Despite its relatively small size, the second DOE cut won over many House conservatives. Targeting the Solyndra fund "would make a significant difference" for their willingness to back the debt deal's spending levels, House Energy and Commerce Committee subpanel Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said before the vote, because many Republicans have come to see lending programs under the White House's 2009 stimulus law as a "slush fund."

Those Republicans are now pressing their case against DOE clean-energy lending on two tracks, through an ongoing House investigation into Solyndra and through the appropriations process -- giving them another chance to aim for the agency come November.

Meanwhile, the Energy and Commerce oversight subpanel is set to advance a separate fiscal probe of its own this week as it begins gauging the White House budget office's commitment to a line-by-line review of federal spending that was promised in 2008 by then-President-elect Obama.

In a Sept. 15 letter signaling a ramping-up of their inquiry, Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and oversight subpanel Chairman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) reminded Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew of that Obama vow to "go through our federal budget -- page by page, line by line -- eliminating those programs that we don't need, and insisting those that we do operate in a sensible and cost-effective way."

The first budget review hearing Wednesday may not touch on energy and environmental programs, but it stands as another avenue for the GOP to press its case for spending cuts beyond the nearly $1 trillion in short-term slicing set in motion by the August debt deal.

Also this week, the Senate Budget Committee is bringing in half a dozen experts to probe how Congress can do a better job in its role overseeing the federal budget.

Schedule: The Senate hearing is tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. in 608 Dirksen.

Witnesses: David Kendall, senior fellow for Health and Fiscal Policy, Third Way; Maya MacGuineas, president, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget; Donald Kettl, dean, University of Maryland School of Public Policy; G. William Hoagland, former staff director, U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget; Marty Paone, former Democratic secretary, U.S. Senate; and Eric Ueland, former chief of staff to ex-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

Schedule: The House hearing is Wednesday, Oct. 5, at 9:30 a.m. in 2322 Rayburn.

Witnesses: TBA.