Influence Alley

The battle to get Congress to renew the wind-energy production tax credit before year’s end strained relationships among utilities, splintered support within the industry’s biggest trade group, and is setting up the industry—and its supporters in Congress—for a 2013 that's even more contentious than 2012.

Moody’s Investor Service warned Washington Wednesday not to rest on its haunches after its New Year’s Day passage of legislation to avert the fiscal cliff, arguing more work must be done to meaningfully lower the U.S. debt trajectory and prevent the risk of a downgrade of the U.S. debt.

Early this morning, 89 senators voted for a fiscal cliff deal brokered between Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Democratic Sen. Tom Carper was not one of those senators.

A last-ditch deal to spare Americans from big tax increases in the new year that seemed in danger of falling apart earlier today has a renewed chance to make it to the president's desk.

Sure, it’s up to House Republicans as to whether the fiscal cliff deal brokered between Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is put on the House floor for an up or down vote. But as with any compromise, no side is thrilled with the fiscal cliff deal, and House Democrats aren’t exactly giddy over the details.

Senate Republicans hope to vote Monday night on a package to avert the fiscal cliff, according to members leaving an evening caucus meeting.

The federal government reached its borrowing limit on Monday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote in a letter to congressional leaders.

House Republicans emerged Monday night from a closed-door meeting with Speaker John Boehner, saying they’d been given no details of the potential deal, but were told not to stray far from the Capitol for the rest of New Year’s Eve.

Lillian Miles Lewis, the wife of Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., died today in Atlanta, according to the congressman’s office.

It’s New Year’s Eve, the countdown to the fiscal cliff is on, and the message from lawmakers is a collective "Let’s see what happens."

It was one of the best-received bits of news on Sunday, a day that saw little progress in talks to avert the fiscal cliff: Congress may yet avoid the “dairy cliff.”

It was 10 days ago that House Speaker John Boehner declared that “God only knows” how Congress would resolve the fiscal cliff. It’s still not clear. But with lawmakers still shy of an accord, Senate Chaplain Barry Black has taken to opening the Senate’s session each of the last two days with some pointed words of wisdom and requests for divine inspiration for the deadlocked chamber.

The incoming Congress has big challenges ahead. But don’t be distracted by the bright shiny objects that are tax reform, entitlement reform, and maybe even gun control. There are some important issues for the U.S. economy and U.S. industries that could pop to the top of the agenda in 2013 and have widespread implications for Washington and the country.

With fiscal cliff negotiations stalled, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has called his old dance partner Vice President Joe Biden in from the sidelines.

On a decisive day in the fiscal cliff talk, President Obama used his appearance on NBC's Meet the Press to remind Republicans that he'll use all the pulpits at his disposal to bully them into accepting a deal and, failing that, blame them for sending the nation over the cliff.