Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office announced last night that the energy and climate change bill will go to the House floor Friday, following a strenuous route through the Agriculture Committee. A new version of the bill was filed with the House Rules Committee last night.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who sets the floor schedule, reiterated the point today during his weekly off-camera briefing with reporters and called it "one of our signature issues in this session of Congress."

"It's quite possible, or even probable, we will go to the energy bill on Friday," Hoyer said. "We are close enough that we announced it last night. We all were confident enough that we were close enough to resolving the issues in the Agriculture Commitee and Mr. Peterson to bring it to the House floor."

Standing in the way of the bill has been Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who announced two weeks ago that he and Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), an architect of the bill, could not reach agreement and that he had close to 50 Democrats ready to vote against it.

Hoyer said today that Peterson had up to seven issues with the bill, though he believed all would be resolved this week. The majority leader did not specify what those issues are, but some likely include concerns that rural areas would pay a disproportionate amount as a result of the cap-and-trade plans.

"We really do want to have a bill that at least has consensus on our side, and hopefully some Republicans will join us," Hoyer said. "So we want to have agreement with Mr. Peterson ... and we expect to have agreement with Mr. Peterson."