A rural energy program that provides grants and loan guarantees to agriculture producers and small businesses would lose its funding under an amendment filed yesterday to the "minibus" budget package currently on the Senate floor.

Other amendments aim to limit subsidies to farmers, reform harbor maintenance, study the feasibility of separating the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River Basin and audit the Deepwater Horizon claims process.

The measures are among more than 70 new amendments filed yesterday after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned senators that time was ticking to offer changes to the minibus. The legislation includes a trio of spending bills that would set the fiscal 2012 budgets for the Agriculture Department; Commerce, Justice and Science; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.

It is still unclear which of these new amendments, the majority filed by Republicans, will receive votes. Today, the Senate voted on an amendment by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that bars states from spending controversial transportation enhancements funding on certain projects, including scenic byways, highway beautification and welcome centers.

Under an amendment filed by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), the Agriculture Department would lose funding for the Rural Energy for America Program, which provides grants and loan guarantees to agriculture producers and rural small businesses to make energy efficiency improvements.

That program was already targeted indirectly by another McCain amendment, which sought to strip USDA funds for building up ethanol infrastructure in rural America (Greenwire, Oct. 18). REAP has been used to provide funding for blender pumps at rural gas stations.

A statement from Coburn's office described USDA's biofuels programs as "redundant" and said it is unclear if REAP or other energy programs have "achieved a worthwhile level of success."

"Funding advanced biofuel production makes for another Solyndra-like situation waiting to happen, especially considering USDA does not have the expertise that the Department of Energy would normally have in this area," the statement reads.

REAP was allotted $60 million in fiscal 2010 and $70 million in fiscal 2011 in mandatory funding, according to the statement from Coburn's office. The agriculture appropriations measure on the Senate floor already seeks to reduce REAP funding to $38.5 million for fiscal 2012.

Renewable energy and environmental groups have strongly urged Congress to maintain funding for USDA's energy programs, which are set to expire after 2012.

"Senator Coburn has confused REAP with some other program," said Andy Olsen, senior policy advocate at the Environmental Law and Policy Center. "REAP supports a broad range of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies that benefit every agricultural sector and in every state -- including Oklahoma. In no way is it accurate to call REAP a biofuels program."

Coburn also offered an amendment yesterday to prohibit individuals whose incomes are greater than $1 million from receiving direct payments from USDA. Coburn pointed to 23 members of Congress who fall under that category and who have received payments.

"Some in Congress are now proposed to increase taxes on wealthier Americans or those who earn in excess of a certain amount," the statement from his office reads. "This amendment gives them the opportunity to end unsolicited taxpayer subsidies for wealthy individuals first."

In his budget plan for fiscal 2012, President Obama also recommended cutting agricultural spending by $2.5 billion over 10 years by reducing payments to wealthy farmers. Earlier this year, the House turned down an amendment to cut farm subsidies when it passed its agriculture appropriations bill.

A few of the amendments target water infrastructure and pollution, including the use of pesticides, an issue that has generated much controversy this past year.

Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) submitted an amendment on behalf of a handful of Republicans that would exempt certain pesticides from permit requirements under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.

Pesticides listed under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act would not require a permit to be discharged into waterways from point sources.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina added onto his list of amendments yesterday with one that seeks to reform the Army Corps of Engineers' harbor maintenance program.

The amendment mirrors a bill he introduced earlier this year (E&E Daily, June 14). It would create a block grant system for harbor maintenance that states could opt into, reforming the current system that uses a federal Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. That fund is frequently used by Congress for other, unrelated expenses.

Under the grant system, states would have the ability to decide what to do with funding, including projects such as harbor deepening.

Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) also filed an amendment that is similar to legislation she introduced earlier this year. The amendment would require the Secretary of the Army to initiate a study into the feasibility of separating the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River Basin.

Under the amendment, the secretary must begin a study of the Illinois River, Chicago River and Calumet River watersheds within 30 days of the bill's enactment. The secretary would then be required to come out with a report no more than 18 months later.

Stabenow has long pushed for the Army Corps to finish its study into the feasibility of separating the two water bodies to stem the flow of the invasive Asian carp into the Great Lakes. In recent months, environmental groups, cities and states along the lakes have criticized the corps for delays and for scaling back the study.

"The only way to protect our Great Lakes from Asian carp and other invasive species is to permanently separate the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes," Stabenow said in a statement earlier this year when introducing the "Stop Asian Carp Act" with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.).

Following criticism over the process of handing out claims to victims of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) filed an amendment that would require an independent auditor evaluate the federal government's claims process. Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) joined him in the effort.

Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that the $20 billion claims fund and its administrator, Kenneth Feinberg, were not independent from BP PLC. A few days later, Nelson sent a letter to Obama, requesting a federal investigation into the fund. Since then, Attorney General Eric Holder has criticized Feinberg for being too slow to hand out payments.

Another Republican senator has also filed an amendment that targets the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. While the amendment submitted by Sen. Michael Crapo (R-Idaho) would not repeal the act, as an amendment by DeMint filed Monday sought to do, it spells out steps that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission must make before promulgating rules under the act.

The amendment, for example, would require CFTC to set a schedule for the publication of certain final rules and do an assessment of how the rules affect economic growth and job creation. It also would require CFTC to more narrowly define the term "swaps," or transactions that electric utilities and other entities use to hedge their risks.

Republican Sens. Shelby, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Jerry Moran of Kansas and David Vitter of Louisiana are also included on the amendment.

CFTC yesterday voted to add limits on excessive speculation in energy markets as part of Dodd-Frank (E&ENews PM, Oct. 18).

Also among the amendments is one by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) that would provide up to $2 billion for the "construction, acquisition or improvement" of fossil-fueled power plants that use carbon sequestration systems.

Reporter Jason Plautz contributed.