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The must-pass [government funding] measure has gotten tangled up in the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood, with conservative lawmakers pressuring Republican leaders to cut off federal funding for the women’s health group. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, trying to stave off the specter of a shutdown from the GOP-controlled Congress, has said he wants a funding bill free of provisions such as defunding Planned Parenthood that would be broadly, if not unanimously, opposed by Democrats. (Kim, 9/15)

Congress hurtled toward a government shutdown on Tuesday, with Republicans threatening to block a budget deal if it includes financing for Planned Parenthood, as President Obama prepared to join the fight by pushing Republicans to scrap a multibillion-dollar tax advantage for private equity managers. In a speech on Wednesday, Mr. Obama is expected to call on Republicans to end the tax break and use the funds to pay for spending increases on domestic and national security programs, and he will enlist business leaders to help him make his case. (Herszenhorn and Hirschfeld Davis, 9/16)

Congress has just 15 days left in September to reach a budget agreement and the stakes are high: Without a deal, the government will shut down for the second time in three years. ... How do these last-minute negotiations affect government agencies? And is there a better way for lawmakers to reach a budget deal? To answer these questions, The Agenda’s Danny Vinik sat down with renowned budget expert Stan Collender. (Vinik, 9/15)

As the House and Senate return on Tuesday to begin confronting a spending impasse, Representative Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania, says he has come up with a way to avert a possible government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding: a bill that would take away money only from clinics involved in selling tissue from aborted fetuses. That program came under fire after a series of undercover videos surfaced this summer claiming that affiliates of the group profit from it illegally. (Planned Parenthood has denied the charges.) Some Republicans now say they will not vote for a short-term spending measure unless Planned Parenthood is cut off. (Steinhauer, 9/15)

A House committee chairman issued a subpoena Tuesday for an anti-abortion group’s unedited videos about Planned Parenthood’s provision of fetal tissue for research. The subpoena by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who heads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was the GOP’s latest move in its escalating battle against Planned Parenthood. The party has long battled that group, which performs abortions and provides birth control in clinics from coast to coast. (Fram, 9/15)

The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena for hundreds of hours of secretly recorded footage of Planned Parenthood and its partners as part of an ongoing investigation into the use of fetal tissue donations. The panel announced legal action Tuesday to obtain footage from the Center for Medical Progress, which has been barred from releasing it because of a pending lawsuit by the National Abortion Federation. (Ferris, 9/15)

Covert videos released by an anti-abortion group have opened a window on a largely unknown corner of science: the middlemen who supply researchers with human fetal cells from elective abortions. For decades, these typically small companies or nonprofits have been quietly processing human tissue and filling orders for fetal cells from scientists studying eye disease, HIV, autism and other conditions. Until recently, their biggest challenge was finding an adequate supply because of a nationwide drop in the number of abortions. (Johnson, 9/16)