The Washington Post’s Ed O’keefe reports that aides to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) are suggesting that the senator may introduce legislation extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees “‘within weeks’ and well before July 4th.” The legislation was voted out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last year on a bipartisan basis (Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) co-sponsored the measure), but Lieberman had promised not to move this on the floor of the Senate “until we get the explicit offsets” from the Office of Personnel Management. Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the legislation would cost approximately $310 million through 2020, leading some to speculate that the larger-than-anticipated price tag “could jeopardize efforts to pass the bill this year.” Lieberman dismissed these concerns:

“This legislation would cost about two-hundredths of a percent of the federal government’s overall costs for the civilian workforce,” Lieberman said Tuesday. “That is a very small price to pay for the improvements we would see in recruitment, retention, and morale. OPM has committed to provide an offset for the legislation before it is enacted, making it that much more reasonable.”

Indeed those offsets — first requested by Lieberman and Senate Republicans in December — aren’t ready yet and won’t be until Lieberman is ready to introduce the bill to the full Senate, according to an OPM spokesman.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved a similar domestic partner benefits bill in November of 2009, but it also still has to pass the full chamber. “In June, President Obama endorsed the bill when he extended some benefits to the same-sex partners of federal workers, including coverage by the long-term-care insurance program for federal employees and permission for staffers to use their sick leave to take care of their partners.”

During today’s mark-up of the defense authorization bill, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) officially announced that he would not attach provision repealing the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy (DADT), despite the President’s commitment to ending the ban against openly gay and lesbian service members:

SKELTON: You won’t find any mention of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Mr. [Howard] McKeon and I have spoken about this; we agree to support Admiral Mullen and Secretary Gates’ request for time to study this issue, and we do not support this issue being raised in this markup.

Skelton’s announcement is hardly surprising. The Congressman has repeatedly said that he supports the current policy and recently wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Gates inviting him to express his “thoughts on potential Congressional action.” Gates’ insistence that Congress shouldn’t act on DADT before the Pentagon completed its review of the policy drastically chilled any chance of repealing the measure this year.

All attention now turns to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is scheduled to begin marking up the defense bill next week. Unlike Skelton, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) has suggested that he would defy Gates’ request to delay legislative action and attach repeal legislation in committee, if he has 15 votes needed. That, however, remains unclear, particularly since the Washington Blade is now reporting that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) will “vote against an effort next week to overturn the law.”

During a conference call with LGBT activists on Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she remained committed to repealing the ban, which “is likely to be proposed on the House floor as an amendment to the defense bill.”