Congressional negotiators are pushing toward a deal to makepermanent a series of expired tax breaks for businesses andindividuals, a step lawmakers hope would speed parallel talks on amust-pass $1.1 trillion government spending bill.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers filed a stopgap billWednesday to finance the government through Dec. 16 and avert ashutdown. “It is my hope and expectation that a final, year-longbill will be enacted before this new deadline,” the KentuckyRepublican said in a statement. Current funding runs out afterFriday.

Congress is simultaneously negotiating two fiscal measures — onethat would fund the government through September 2016 and the otherthat would extend several dozen expired tax breaks that need to berenewed before the year's end. The bills aren't connected in anysubstantive way except that lawmakers are now using horse-tradingon the tax extender bill help reach a compromise on the spendingmeasure.

There's “a lot more leadership attention right now on theextender package” because Republican leaders “think that bringsthem votes on the omnibus” spending bill, Republican RepresentativeTom Cole of Oklahoma said Wednesday in Washington.

With the 2016 election nearing, Republicans hope to avoid arepeat of the 16-day government shutdown in 2013 that crateredtheir standing in public opinion polls.

On the tax extensions, Republicans are pushing to make a numberof business incentives permanent. Those include the businessresearch and development tax credit and a break that allows smallbusinesses to take a larger depreciation allowance for an asset'svalue during the first year after purchase, said second-rankingSenate Republican John Cornyn of Texas and Representative SteveStivers, an Ohio Republican.

Democrats are seeking permanent extension of the current ChildTax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the college-tuitiontax credit, which are set to expire at end of 2017. The tuition taxcredit provides up to $2,500 per student for people with adjustedgross incomes of up to $80,000 for individuals and $160,000 forfamilies.

Among other tax breaks awaiting renewal is a sales tax deductionthat's popular in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas,Washington and Wyoming because those states don't tax income.

“We continue to narrow the differences” on the tax breaks, saidHouse Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady of Texas.“We're very hopeful we'll be able to do a permanent package.”

If the discussions start “to go apart,” Brady said he would seekto bring up a bill he filed Monday that would simply extend the taxbreaks through 2016.

Earlier Wednesday, Rogers said dozens of policy disputes,including whether to lift the U.S. crude-oil export ban, wereholding up agreement on the $1.1 trillion spending bill. The taxextension bill and spending measure may wind up being combined, hesaid.

“I hope for a breakthrough that would propel us toward a billsoon” to finance the government, said Rogers, a KentuckyRepublican. “It's unlikely.”

EPA Rule

Rogers said leaders were debating whether to repeal anEnvironmental Protection Agency rule that seeks to protect waterquality by expanding the activities subject to federal regulation,such as spreading fertilizer.

Some Democrats want at least a 10-year extension of wind andsolar tax breaks in exchange for lifting the ban on U.S. crude oilexports as part of spending bill, Senator Ed Markey, aMassachusetts Democrat, said Wednesday. Democrats think those taxbreaks should be “tied in terms of size and scope” to any benefitsoil companies receive from lifting the ban, he said.

Senator John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican who supportslifting the oil export ban, said most of the work on that issue isbeing handled by party leaders.

“I'm optimistic but nothing's final until everything's final,”Hoeven said. “I think we've got a good opportunity to get it and wejust need to keep pushing it on the merits.”

Also at issue is whether the spending bill will include aRepublican proposal, opposed by Democrats, to block Syrian refugeeresettlement in the U.S., as well as a plan backed by both partiesto curb a visa waiver program that eases travel to the U.S. Bothquestions have become priorities for many in Congress followingterrorist attacks that killed 130 people in Paris and 14 in SanBernardino, California.

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