The Senate Armed Services Committee as early as Wednesday may grapple with a largely partisan skirmish over a Republican effort to stymie the Obama military's green energy agenda.

Panel ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) are teaming up to try to trump military green funding during the panel's closed-door consideration of defense authorization legislation.

"Adopting a quote green agenda for national defense of course is a terrible misplacement of priorities," McCain told reporters Tuesday. "Priorities first is the defense of the nation, not a green agenda."

McCain and Inhofe — who in the past have been divided on the Arizona senator's support for a cap-and-trade program — agree that money should be better spent in the face of military budget cuts.

Inhofe told POLITICO on Monday that he is working on at least one amendment similar to House-passed language that would block the Pentagon from spending money on alternative fuels that cost more than petroleum-based fuels.

President Barack Obama recently told Rolling Stone that he plans to make global warming a key part of his re-election campaign, but since American families pay more at the gas pump and more for energy in their homes because of this administration's policies, we have our doubts.

To be sure, President Obama has many major green "accomplishments" to tout. By imposing backdoor global warming regulations through the EPA, he is fulfilling his 2008 campaign promise that energy prices would "necessarily skyrocket." By vetoing the Keystone pipeline, he gave the far left what one of his supporters called the "biggest global warming victory in years." By finalizing the most expensive EPA rule in history, he is making good on his campaign promise that if anybody wants to build a coal-fired power plant they can-"it's just that it will bankrupt them." And, he succeeded in throwing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars out the window on companies like Solyndra, which he said would lead us to a "brighter and more prosperous future."

E&ENEWS: Battle over military energy efforts heads to the Senate: The fight over the military's alternative energy programs shifts to the Senate this week, after a pair of provisions targeting the efforts passed the House in the defense authorization bill Friday. Contending that their reliance on foreign sources of oil poses a national security vulnerability, the military branches have undertaken an ambitious effort to certify their ships and planes on American-made advanced biofuels. The Navy has taken a particularly proactive role, setting aggressive goals for its use of alternative fuels and seeking to use its purchasing power as a way of sparking the industry. But the Defense Department's efforts have turned controversial among Republicans, who say they take money away from more vital security programs at a time when the military budget is already absorbing $487 billion in cuts over the next decade and still has the threat of sequestration hanging over its head. Markup of the Senate defense authorization bill begins in subcommittee tomorrow and moves to the full Senate Armed Services Committee in a closed session Wednesday. Both sides have been gearing up for battle. In a floor speech last week, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a senior member of the committee, vowed to push amendments aimed at blocking the military's green power programs. "I have had growing concerns about how President Obama's global warming agenda is harming our military," Inhofe said Thursday. "In reality, it is President Obama's war on affordable energy that is having a dramatic impact on our national security -- a war that is further depleting an already stretched military budget and putting our troops at risk."

Two Democrats have signed on to support a resolution by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) to kill U.S. EPA's new rule for mercury emissions from power plants, the senator said last night.

Inhofe, who is probably the Senate's most vocal critic of EPA air quality and climate rules, appeared on a webcast hosted by the conservative group FreedomWorks to officially unveil his resolution to veto the so-called Utility MACT rule. He told participants to call their senators -- especially Democrats -- to urge them to support the measure.

The resolution, S.J. Res. 37, can now be brought to the Senate floor at Inhofe's discretion and be passed with a 51-vote simple majority. It is not expected to pass, but Inhofe has said he will bring it to the floor anyway to force senators to cast politically difficult votes that he says will show their level of support for the coal that "runs this machine called America."

Inhofe, who is top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, did not name the Democratic duo who would be supporting the bill. But their voting records make Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) the most likely candidates.

Inhofe said he had discussed the resolution with other Democrats from fossil fuel states who he said should have an interest in supporting the resolution of disapproval, including Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Virginia Democrats Mark Warner and Jim Webb also appeared persuadable, he said.

"I think they might do it," he said. "I think they need to be encouraged by people in Virginia."

But two other Democrats who face tough races for re-election this year have not indicated they will not support the measure, he said: Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Inhofe panned Casey as not sufficiently supportive of his state's natural gas development as well as of its coal interests and said Brown was contributing to job losses in coal-rich Ohio. But he said both men should support his resolution if enough voters ask them to. Still, he predicted their defeat and that Republicans would "take over the Senate and have two to spare."

Despite the attitudes of his fellow Democrats, Sen. Tom Carper told ME that he’s still willing to go to bat for Svinicki. “I think she’s done a good job on the commission. I know there are some of my colleagues who are not satisfied with her service,” the Senate’s nuclear subcommittee chairman said. “The president wishes her to be reconfirmed. I believe we should hold a hearing and allow those who have concerns to share those concerns [and] give her a chance to respond to them and then to ultimately give us a chance to vote on her confirmation.”

Obama War on Coal:

- Cecil Roberts, the president of the United Mine Workers of America, traveled the country for Barack Obama four years ago. He hoped to persuade skeptical working-class white voters in places like southwestern Virginia and southern Ohio to vote for an African-American with an unusual name. Last month, Mr. Roberts went on a West Virginia radio show with a different message. He compared the way Mr. Obama's administration has treated the coal industry to the Navy SEALs' killing of Osama bin Laden. He now says the union might choose not to endorse Mr. Obama and sit out the election instead. Mr. Roberts's transformation suggests larger problems for Mr. Obama in the coal-producing regions of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, all swing states. The shift is driven largely by anger over Environmental Protection Agency regulations-rules the coal industry says will make it so expensive to operate coal-fired power plants that no more will be built. Mr. Roberts and his union worry the result will be lower demand for coal as electricity-generating capacity shifts away from the fuel. "We've been placed in a horrendous position here," Mr. Roberts said in an interview. "How do you take coal miners' money and say let's use it politically to support someone whose EPA has pretty much said, 'You're done'?" Danger signs for Mr. Obama appeared as recently as Tuesday, when more than 40% of voters in West Virginia's Democratic primary cast their ballots for a felon in prison in Texas rather than for the president. Democrats said the result reflected anger at Mr. Obama's energy policy. WSJ, Trouble in Coal Country for Obama May 11, 2012

Recent news that President Obama's re-election web page on energy policy didn't include coal on the list of "all of the above" energy sources sparked outrage in coal-producing states like Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The website had listed oil, natural gas, bio-fuels, wind, solar power and nuclear power but omitted coal, a fossil fuel that left-wing environmental groups despise.

After criticism from members of Congress and conservative bloggers, the Obama campaign put "clean coal" back on the "all of the above" energy list. The Obama administration now says that coal is an "essential" part of the administration's energy strategy. Coal accounts for well over one-third of electricity production in most states, and coal mining is a major source of union jobs. Even after the Obama campaign put clean coal back on the list, the attacks and controversy live on, and there is now speculation that Mr. Obama may have done his campaign real damage in battle ground states like Virginia and Ohio.

Despite widespread political opposition to the concept of a carbon dioxide (CO2) cap-and-trade system, EPA has quietly uploaded to its website a computer simulator allowing users to act as an “environmental compliance officer” at a power plant and take steps to meet an imaginary CO2 emissions cap, highlighting the potential high costs and lost electricity generation possible from some steps to curb utilities' CO2 emissions.

The simulator is already prompting questions from a spokesman for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking member on the environment committee and a long-time critic of CO2 caps, who questioned why EPA is “spending time and financial resources developing a global warming cap-and-trade game for the classroom to begin with?”

An EPA spokeswoman was unable to respond to a request for comment by press time.