By Amy Harder

Monday, May 9, 2011 |9:35 p.m.

Senate Democrats willunveil legislation on Tuesday that repeals tax breaks for the largestoil and gas companies. The politically charged move comes on the sameday that the GOP-led House votes on the second of three billsexpanding domestic drilling. The vote on the last one is expectedlater this week.

Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Claire McCaskill of Missouri will hold a press conference on Tuesday morning to announce the bill. They have introduced similar versions in previous sessions of Congress and even earlier this year.The legislation repeals tax breaks for the biggest oil and gas companies and puts the money toward deficit reduction.

The bill will likely be the one that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., brings to the floor, signaling that he has decided not to move forward with a plan that Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., floatedl ast month. Baucus’s plan also repeals the tax breaks for thel argest oil and gas companies. But it would have diverted the money to fund clean-energy technologies. By putting the money back into deficit reduction, the Democratic leadership is trying to put Republicans in a tough political position by forcing them to vote on a bill that would repeal tax breaks for the benefit of reducing the debt. By reallocating the money to another set of energy subsidies, Democrats worry that the political messaging would get muddled.

Reid and his office have not indicated when he will bring the bill to the floor, but it likely won’t be until next week at the earliest. It will likely fail, given that efforts to repeal the breaks within the past year have failed. Although the political rhetoric against Big Oil has risen since those votes, it’s likely still not enough to get 60 votes.

Brown and McCaskill are emblematic of the vulnerable Democratic class up for reelection in2012. Brown previewed the introduction of the bill at a press conference at an Ohio gas station on Monday. Menendez is also up for reelection, but he is not as big of a target as Brown and McCaskill, because they both hail from energy-intensive swing states.

The debate over the tax breaks will continue later this week with a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Thursday, where top executives from the five major oil companies are expected to testify.

Special thanks to Richard Charter