Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona said he doesn’t see any way for the Senate to finish action this week. “It’s a cake that just isn’t quite baked yet,” he said Tuesday. Kyl said Republicans are still examining details of the proposed $80 billion legislation, which is designed to spur investment and hiring by small businesses, while also extending assistance to unemployed workers.

The senator said he “can’t conceive [the bill] could be put together” in time for a vote this week, and suggested action is much more likely “as soon as we get back” later this month.

The two territories have been sparing over how they can use U.S. excise taxes on rum produced on their land. Puerto Rico is pushing a bill in the U.S. Congress that would prohibit the two territories from using more than a fraction of the tax money to subsidize the rum industry itself. Virgin Islands officials are fighting that bill because it plans to use much of the tax money to pay for a new distillery for Captain Morgan rum as well as other inducements for Diageo.

A report from the Congressional Research Service says that if the rum production were to move out of the U.S., some of the taxes on it would be returned to Puerto Rico – giving the island an incentive to see jobs go someplace other than the Virgin Islands. That’s because a 1983 law requires Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to share excise taxes on rum produced abroad but sold in the U.S.

The lobbying fight has cost millions. Puerto Rican officials argue that the Diageo deal with the Virgin Islands amounts to a taxpayer-funded corporate subsidy that would take funding from programs helping schools and the environment.

In a statement on the report, Puerto Rico’s resident commissioner, Pedro Pierluisi, said: “It defies logic to claim that a territory should be free to use cover-over money however it wants, regardless of the negative consequences its decisions will have for its sister territory and for the integrity of the cover-over program.”

The congressional report says that “there is no mention of congressional intent with regard to spending” the funds. A revision of the law in 1954 that extended the law to the Virgin Islands says that the money “may be expended as the legislature may determine.”

Some advocates for the detainees, including two top Baptist leaders, are accusing the Obama administration of a lackluster response to the Jan. 29 arrests. Church leaders say the group was on a humanitarian mission providing relief for the Jan. 12 earthquake.

At the same time, a conservative legal foundation and lawyers with close ties to the Bush family have taken up the cause of one of the accused Americans.

Administration officials say the matter is up to the Haitian justice system but they are monitoring it closely and remaining in touch with the American detainees.

The brewing dispute comes as the White House is courting religious conservatives, who are influential in domestic politics. (Check out this Wall Street Journal story)

One critic is Frank Page, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who is a member of a special council advising President Barack Obama on faith-based policies but said Tuesday he has failed in his repeated attempts to reach Obama to discuss the Haiti matter.

“I am a little surprised that they have let it go on this long,” Page said in an interview. “We do respect Haiti’s law, and I do respect our government’s tender treatment of that issue, but there should have been more actions taken to secure the release of these detained mission volunteers.”

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said in an interview that the matter “is certainly going to further alienate the Obama administration from evangelicals.”

A White House official said Tuesday that U.S. embassy officials have visited the Americans while the administration has been in contact with Haitian authorities. “We continue to provide appropriate consular assistance and to monitor developments in the legal case,” the official said. “Our government will take all appropriate steps to ensure the well-being of U.S. citizens detained abroad.”

The case of one detainee has caught the attention of several conservative lawyers, including Amanda Bush, who as the wife of George P. Bush is the daughter-in-law of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Ms. Bush, a private lawyer in Fort Worth, Texas, is working pro bono along with the conservative Liberty Legal Institute on behalf of Jim Allen, an Amarillo welder who, according to his lawyers, traveled to Haiti with fellow Baptists to help with construction following the earthquake.

The group, mostly from Idaho, was arrested trying to take as many as 100 Haitian children across the border to the Dominican Republic.

On Tuesday, one of the lawyers for Allen asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to get involved, writing that the “unprecedented situation that exists in Haiti now requires a response beyond what would be expected in the ordinary course.” The letter was cosigned by a bipartisan team of Washington power lawyers: Reginald Brown and Jennifer O’Connor from the firm of WilmerHale.

Gibbs riffed off of Palin’s use of hand-written notes on her palm during a Q&A session on Saturday evening at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tenn.

Palin had scribbled on her palm, “energy,” “tax,” and “lift American spirits,” which presumably were used to answer a question about what her top three priorities are for conservatives. In the same appearance, she had mocked President Barack Obama for using a teleprompter.

At today’s White House briefing, Gibbs held up his hand for cameras to catch a shot of his own palm, on which he had written his own list: “eggs, milk, bread, hope, change.” He crossed out “bread.”

A concert planned for Wednesday that was to celebrate music from the civil rights movement was hastily moved to Tuesday. That was no small doing, with a guest list that includes Yolanda Adams, Joan Baez, Natalie Cole, Bob Dylan, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, John Mellencamp, Smokey Robinson, Seal, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Queen Latifah.

A high-profile address by Vice President Joe Biden at the National Defense University on the administration’s nuclear security agenda was also shelved. That will be moved to Thursday, Feb. 18. The White House is trying to wrap up a major arms control treaty with Russia in the coming days ahead of a nuclear non-proliferation summit at the White House in April.

All Together Now: President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will host a bipartisan, bicameral meeting with congressional leaders at the White House to talk about the economy and job creation. Attending will be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and House Minority Leader John Boehner.

War on Kids’ Fat: First Lady Michelle Obama will deliver remarks this afternoon at the White House outlining a national campaign to combat childhood obesity, which has become a signature cause for the Obama White House. Former NFL player Tiki Barber joins the first lady, as well as American Academy of Pediatrics President Judith Palfrey.

Up or Down Vote: The Senate is scheduled to vote this afternoon on Craig Becker’s nomination to the National Labor Relations Board. Becker’s nomination has sparked controversy from the business community against the union lawyer.

Closing Gitmo: Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee are scheduled to get a closed-door briefing today from military leaders on the procedures relating to the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The administration failed to meet their one-year deadline for closing the facility, and controversy continues to surround the debate over whether detainees should be transferred or face trial in the U.S.

It’s in the Air: Snowed-in Washington, D.C., area residents can head to the Library of Congress today for the 16th annual reading of love poems ahead of Valentine’s Day. Poets Heddy Reid and Margaret Mackinnon take part.

Immediately following the news of his death, election analysts rated the race as competitive for the GOP.

While Murtha has held the seat since 1974 with few re-election scares, the Johnstown-area district outside of Pittsburgh has right-leaning roots, and a special election contest will be targeted by House Republicans. With Murtha’s death, Democrats now control the House by a 256-178 margin.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) won the district by a narrow 1,000 vote margin against President Barack Obama. It was the only district in the nation, however, that voted Democratic in the 2004 presidential race that was carried by McCain four years later.

Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell must set a date for a special election within the next ten days, according to state law. A likely date is May 18, when the state’s primary elections will take place.

The House Democratic campaign operation is in better shape financially to wage a costly special election battle against their Republican counterparts, with a five-to-one cash on hand advantage.

But first they will have to find the kind of centrist Democrat who can compete in a district with conservative leanings. While Murtha was closely allied with liberal lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he did not share their progressive leanings. He was known for championing defense spending and was socially conservative on matters including abortion.

There were already two Republicans in the race: businessman Tim Burns and unsuccessful 2008 Republican nominee William Russell, who Murtha defeated 58%-42%. Murtha had also drawn a primary challenge from veteran Ryan Bucchianeri, although there will likely be no shortage of local elected officials and other Democrats interested in making a bid.

As for Murtha’s chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, his most likely successor is Rep. Norm Dicks (D., Wash.), whose district includes Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and who is a big champion of Boeing Co.

NOAA, part of the Department of Commerce, is going to be providing information to individuals and decision-makers through a new NOAA Climate Service office. “More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives,” the release says.

Earlier snowmelt? That would be nice.

Turns out the release was planned prepared ahead of the snowstorm, which shut federal agencies today and forced its senders to hold a press conference by telephone instead of at the National Press Club.

It’s not the first time inclement weather has put a chill on official efforts to tackle climate change. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to leave the Copenhagen summit early in December to get back to D.C. before the blizzard known as Snowpocalypse grounded all flights.

We know how this argument goes: Climate change-skeptics such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says that the weather conditions prove that “global warming” is a hoax; activists say that scientists are looking at longer-lasting weather patterns.

But, says NOAA spokesman Justin Kenney, they’re happy to have a chance to educate people about the difference between the climate and the weather.

The “Pennsylvania Corner,” as it’s been commonly known for decades, is where Murtha, who was 77 years old, regularly held court at an aisle seat in the far right of the chamber. The area was the last place where lawmakers from the same state still sat together, a tradition lost long ago.

Lawmakers now sit wherever they choose on the House floor, although Republicans and Democrats generally sit on opposing sides of the chamber. But nobody but Murtha ever sat in his seat.

It was where favors were requested, votes were counted, and earmarks were handed out to lawmakers of both parties who regularly huddled around the powerful chairman and appropriator, whose ran the subcommittee on defense spending.

“Sometimes we tell them we can help, but if we can’t we don’t,” Murtha told the Associated Press seven years ago about his colleagues who came to kiss the ring in the Pennsylvania Corner. “We have an influence on how things happen if we vote as a block. So when things get close, and they need votes, we make some deals back there.”

John Feehery, a former Republican press secretary on Capitol Hill, wrote today in The Hill newspaper on his death: “Murtha was a real force on the House floor. On occasion, when [Former House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay needed a few votes from the Pennsylvania corner on institutional things, like a congressional pay raise or things like that, he would talk to Murtha.”

It was somewhat of a boy’s club, but perhaps more because male lawmakers still largely outnumber the women. Regulars in the corner included Pennsylvania Democrats as well as fellow appropriator, Democratic Rep. James Moran of Virginia, New Jersey Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell, and Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Mike Capuano among many others.

But Murtha, the first Vietnam War combat veteran to be elected to the House in 1974, was no chauvinist. One of his closest political friends and allies was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Other women lawmakers including California Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez, and Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur would also be seen hanging in the corner.

“Jack’s seat in the Pennsylvania corner on the House floor was always, and will continue to be, a place of honor and impeccable character,” Pascrell said in a statement.

“Murtha’s loss is a real blow to the Congress as an institution and to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He had tremendous sway over the more moderate forces within the Democratic Caucus and he knew how to cut a deal. Those qualities will be really missed by the Democrats as they try to find their way this year,” Feehery wrote.

In an interview with the al-Jazeera satellite news channel, Awlaki explained why he believes it is fair game to attack American civilians, like those aboard the Christmas Day Northwest Airlines flight that was a bombing target.

“The American populace is living within a democratic regime and they hold the responsibility of its policies; the American populace elected the criminal Bush for two presidential runs, and they elected Obama who’s not different from Bush,” Awlaki said, according to a translation of the interview by the NEFA Foundation, a nonprofit group that does research on terrorism. Those would be references to President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush.

Awlaki may have cause to take the matter personally. A December Yemeni military offensive that included American support targeted leaders of the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen and for a time was thought to have killed Awlaki.

Awlaki accused the U.S. government of trying to assassinate him and, failing that, trying to accomplish the same “through media disparagement and vilification.”

In Washington, Republicans have criticized the Obama administration’s handling of the bombing case, claiming that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was given rights he shouldn’t have been afforded. They argue he should have been turned over to the military for interrogation.

Abdulmutallab was arrested and given the standard Miranda warning, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s interrogation of him mirrors the handling in other similar cases.

The White House, which initially struggled to fend off the criticism, over the weekend argued that the Obama terrorism policy is essentially a continuation of policies pursued in the latter part of the Bush presidency.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R., Mich.), in a statement Sunday, called attention to the Obama administration’s alleged targeting of Awlaki, citing what he said was “President Obama’s decision to target Americans for killing without due process while at the same time denouncing the Bush administration’s handling of foreign terrorists.”

Hoekstra said in an interview Monday that he wasn’t necessarily opposed to “targeting Americans” just that he hadn’t been briefed on such operations. He said, “I want to know what the process is. I want to know who’s on this list.”

In the al-Jazeera interview, Awlaki acknowledged contact with Abdulmutallab and expressed support for the attempted bombing. He previously said he had contacts with Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, the U.S. military psychiatrist charged in the November shooting spree at Fort Hood Army base in Texas.