A preview of the measures provided by administration officials Tuesday includes increasing criminal sentences for those convicted of tax-related identity theft and creating new civil penalties for those who file fraudulent returns.

The IRS would be able to assess a $5,000 civil penalty for each incidence of identity theft.

Under the plan, the government would also limit access to Social Security Administration files on deceased individuals that have been used by those seeking fraudulent refunds. Instead, the files that the SSA compiles would be available immediately only to those who legitimately need the information for fraud prevention purposes. All other users would have to wait three years for access.

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The 78-22 Senate vote to reauthorize the two-decade-old act that has shielded millions of women from abuse and helped reduce national rates of domestic violence turns the focus to the House, where Republican leaders are working to come up with their own version.

"Over 160 million women across the country are watching and waiting to see if the House will act on this bill and finally provide them the protections from violence they deserve," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

The act expired in 2011, putting efforts to improve its many federal programs on hold. Last year both the Republican-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate passed renewal bills, but they were unable to reach a compromise.

This year House Republicans, sensitive to their lackluster showing among women voters in the November election, have vowed to move expeditiously on the issue. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has taken the lead in negotiating the terms of a House bill.

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The legislation to renew the Violence Against Women Act appeared on a smooth path toward passage in the Senate, possibly by the end of this week. Monday's procedural vote to make the bill the next order of business was expected to easily clear the 60-vote threshold.

Senate passage would send the bill to the House. Advocates hope that Republicans, smarting from election losses among women voters in November, won't repeat their resistance last year to the Senate approach.

"Allowing partisan delays to put women's lives at risk is simply shameful," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said before the vote. He said he hoped convincing support for the legislation in the Senate would "send a strong message to House Republican leaders that further partisan delay is unacceptable."

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The Violence Against Women Act became law in 1994 and was extended in 2000 and 2005. But it expired in 2011 and, although both the House and Senate passed VAWA bills last year, the two chambers were unable to settle their differences.

The main points of contention were provisions in the Senate-passed bill that increased protections for American Indians, gays and immigrants.

Bipartisan legislation that was introduced in the Senate Tuesday, and an identical bill House Democrats are unveiling Wednesday, retain those protections but remove one provision that would increase what are called U visas available to immigrant victims.

House Republicans last year said that was unconstitutional because the Senate imposed a fee to pay for the visa expansion and all revenue-raising measures must be initiated by the House.

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With 38 Republicans casting "no" votes, the 61-38 vote fell five short of the two-thirds majority needed to ratify a treaty. The vote took place in an unusually solemn atmosphere, with senators sitting at their desks rather than milling around the podium. Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, looking frail and in a wheelchair, was in the chamber to support the treaty.

The treaty, already signed by 155 nations and ratified by 126 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, states that nations should strive to assure that the disabled enjoy the same rights and fundamental freedoms as their fellow citizens. Republicans objected to taking up a treaty during the lame-duck session of the Congress and warned that the treaty could pose a threat to U.S. national sovereignty.

"I do not support the cumbersome regulations and potentially overzealous international organizations with anti-American biases that infringe upon American society," said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.

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The vote was 310-95.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla, who sponsored the legislation, says the government has spent about $224 million on the quadrennial gatherings of party faithful since 1976, when in the post-Watergate era it was considered a way to reduce the influence of money in politics.

He says this year federal assistance for the two conventions was about $35 million, slightly more than 20 percent of the total costs as the parties turn to private donors to pay for the lavish events. In 1980 federal grants paid for nearly 95 percent of convention costs.

"There's no need to be writing checks to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party," Cole said. "Clearly it's an idea whose time has come and gone."

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Following the 250-153 evening vote in the House, the legislation to renew three terrorism-fighting authorities headed for the president's signature with only hours to go before the provisions expire at midnight.

With Obama currently in France, the White House said the president would use an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president. Minutes before the midnight deadline, the White House said Obama had signed the bill.

Obama said he was pleased the act had been extended.

"It's an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat," he said after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

A short-term expiration would not interrupt ongoing operations but would bar the government from seeking warrants for new investigations.

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The Senate was set to start voting on the legislation, including possible amendments, Thursday morning. Final passage during the day would send it to the House for quick approval and then onward to President Barack Obama in Europe for his signature.

The rapid-fire action on key elements of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act comes after several days of impasse in the Senate and results in part from the prodding of senior intelligence officials, who warned of the consequences of disrupting surveillance operations.

"Should the authority to use these critical tools expire, our nation's intelligence and law enforcement professionals will have less capability than they have today to detect terrorist plots," James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, wrote congressional leaders.

The legislation would extend for four years provisions that allow law enforcement officials to set roving wiretaps to monitor multiple communications devices; obtain court-approved access to business records and other documents, including library check-outs, that might be relevant to a terrorist threat; and conduct surveillance of "lone wolf" suspects not known to be tied to specific terrorist groups.

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Republicans, in voting to repeal rules on "network neutrality" set down by the Federal Communications Commission, said the FCC lacked the authority to promulgate the rules. They disputed the need to intervene in an already open Internet and warned that the rules would stifle investment in broadband systems.

"The FCC power grab would allow it to regulate any interstate communication service on barely more than a whim and without any additional input from Congress," said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., sponsor of the legislation. The Internet, he added, "is open and innovative thanks to the government's hands-off approach."

But in what has become a largely partisan battle, the Democrat-controlled Senate is not expected to go along with the House. Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said he was "disappointed that House leadership wants to undo the integrity of the FCC's process and unravel their good work."

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The House voted 279-143 to add 90 days to the legal authority of three provisions, including two that were part of the USA Patriot Act enacted shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Senate approved the measure Tuesday evening.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill before the provisions expire on Feb. 28.

At issue are law enforcement powers to set roving wiretaps to monitor multiple communication devices and to ask a special federal court for access to "any tangible thing" -- from business records to library checkouts -- that could be relevant to a terrorist threat. The third provision, from a 2004 intelligence act, gives the FBI court-approved rights for secret surveillance of non-American "lone wolf" suspects not known to be tied to specific terrorist groups.

Unlike other sections of the Patriot Act, the provisions were not made permanent law because of lingering concerns that they gave the government too much power to spy on people. Those concerns came from both the right and left -- the 12 senators who voted against the extensions ranged from liberal independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont to tea party favorite Rand Paul, R-Ky.

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John Pistole told CNN's "State of the Union" that, despite the public uproar over new screening techniques, "we are not changing the policies" that he said were the best ways of keeping the traveling public safe. TSA screeners, he said, are "the last line of defense" in protecting air travelers.

Pistole's comments came after President Barack Obama on Saturday said he understood people's frustrations and had asked TSA officials whether there's a less intrusive way to screen U.S. airline passengers.

Obama said he had told the agency that "you have to constantly refine and measure whether what we're doing is the only way to assure the American people's safety."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she thought "everyone, including our security experts, are looking for ways to diminish the impact on the traveling public." She told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "striking the right balance is what this is about."

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The White House said Obama wanted to discuss at the gathering why it is in the national interest for the Senate to approve the treaty this year, a move that a key Senate Republican says would be premature.

Those invited to the Roosevelt Room meeting Thursday include Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, Sen. Richard Lugar and former Sen. Sam Nunn, plus former secretaries of state Madeleine Albright, James Baker and Henry Kissinger.

Former defense secretaries William Cohen and William Perry and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft also are included. Vice President Joe Biden will preside, and Obama was to drop in on the meeting.

The White House is mounting an all-out push for ratification of the treaty, which Obama has made a top foreign policy priority. Press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday he believes the New START deal will come up and pass during the lame-duck Congress, now in progress.

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Senators stressed the urgency of improving border security by coming back from their summer break for a voice vote on the measure Thursday. The House passed the bill during a special session on Tuesday.

The legislation includes money to add about 1,500 Border Patrol, immigration and customs officials and to expand the use of unmanned surveillance drones along the Southwest border.

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The bill would be paid for mainly by closing a tax loophole used by multinational corporations and reducing food stamp benefits for the poor. It passed mainly along party lines by a vote of 247-161.

Representatives scattered around the country and world for the August break were summoned back to Washington for the one-day session as Democrats stressed the need to act before children return to classrooms missing teachers laid off because of budgetary crises in the states.

Republicans saw it differently, calling the bill a giveaway to teachers' unions and another example of profligate Washington spending that Democrats would pay for in the coming election.

Passage sends the measure to President Barack Obama for his signature. Obama, joined by teachers at a Rose Garden ceremony earlier in the day, said failing to pass the bill would set the country back at a time when it needs to be moving forward.

"We can't stand by and do nothing while pink slips are given to the men and women who educate our children or keep our communities safe," he said.

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The money would be used for such purposes as adding 1,500 new enforcement agents and deploying unmanned aerial drones to improve border surveillance.

The voice vote to pass the emergency spending came in the final hours before the Senate leaves for its monthlong summer break. Its sponsor, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, said it would boost border spending 10 percent above 2010 levels.

President Barack Obama has urged Congress to come up with $600 million to reinforce border security, and, with Arizona's attempt to crack down on undocumented immigrants bringing national focus to the issue, both Republicans and Democrats have endorsed more robust border security spending.

The main stumbling block has been how to pay for the increased spending. Republicans sought to use unspent funds from the economic stimulus act, an idea rejected by Democrats.

The Democratic plan passed Thursday would boost fees assessed on foreign-based personnel companies that take advantage of U.S. visa programs, such as the H-1B visa program for temporary skilled workers, to bring foreign workers, mainly from India, into the United States.

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With passage, the war-funding bill will go to President Barack Obama for his signature. He requested it last February.

House Democratic leaders reluctantly accepted the $59 billion bill, which has more than $30 billion for Obama's 30,000-troop surge. It was stripped of money to keep teachers on the job or to boost student aid after the Senate soundly rejected a bigger bill favored by the House.

The bill also replenishes disaster aid accounts, funds Haitian earthquake relief and provides benefits for Vietnam war veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

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A similar bill already has passed the Senate.

Congress is trying to crack down on the smuggling of cellphones into federal prisons, where they can be used to direct criminal activities both inside and outside prison walls.

The bill approved by the House on Tuesday night would classify cellphones as contraband material. Currently, the devices are not specifically defined as contraband, and inmates and guards caught smuggling them into prisons are rarely punished. One report says inmates pay up to $1,000 for a cellphone. It cites a case where a correctional officer made $150,000 by smuggling phones to inmates.

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Byrd, who died Monday at age 92, lay in repose on the Senate floor for six hours while senators, both past and present, and Capitol Hill staffers lined up to pay their final respects to the late senator and his family.

Byrd's hearse then left for Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland for a flight to Charleston, W.Va. There is to be an overnight public viewing in the rotunda of the state capitol, followed by a memorial service in Charleston Friday led by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Private services are scheduled for Tuesday at Columbia Gardens Cemetery in Arlington, Va., where Byrd will be buried next to his wife of almost seven decades, Erma.

Byrd entered the Senate in 1959, concurrent with Alaska becoming a state. He served longer, and cast more votes -- 18,689 -- than any senator in history. He twice rose to become Senate majority leader and, because of his seniority, was the Senate president pro tempore, putting him third in line for the presidency behind the vice president and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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The House was also winding up debate on the legislation that would add muscle to U.S. penalties against the Tehran government. President Barack Obama was expected to quickly sign it into law.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the legislation, coming after a year in which Obama administration efforts at direct diplomacy with Tehran produced few results, represented "the most powerful sanctions ever imposed by the Congress on the government of Iran."

Foreign companies will be given a choice, he said. "Do you want to do business with Iran, or do you want to do business with the United States?" The Senate vote was 99-0.

The House passed its version of the bill in October and the Senate acted in January. But Democratic leaders delayed final action so diplomatic efforts could play out.

Two weeks ago, the U.N. Security Council approved a fourth round of sanctions against Iran that took aim at the powerful Revolutionary Guard and Iran's investments in ballistic missiles and nuclear materials.

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The defeated resolution would have denied the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to move ahead with the rules, crafted under the federal Clean Air Act. With President Barack Obama's broader clean energy legislation struggling to gain a foothold in the Senate, the vote took on greater significance as a signal of where lawmakers stand on dealing with climate change.

"If ever there was a vote to find out whose side you are on, this is it," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

The vote was 53-47 to stop the Senate from moving forward on the Republican-led effort to restrain the EPA.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., predicted the vote would "increase momentum to adopt comprehensive energy and climate legislation this year."

But Obama still needs 60 votes to advance his energy agenda, and Democrats don't have them yet. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said the vote made clear that a majority in the Senate back either a delay or an outright ban on "the Obama EPA's job-killing, global warming agenda."

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