Kevin Staker's Estate Tax News Blog  is reporting that Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Chair of the Budget Committee, and Max Baucus (D-MT), Chair of the Finance Committee, are considering making the estate tax law change part of the Senate's five-year budget plan. This bill would be passed by "reconciliation," the same process used to pass the health care bill, and requires only 51 votes to pass rather than 60 to overcome a filibuster.

Meanwhile, the Senate Budget Committee has approved a Fiscal Year 2011 Senate Budget Resolution that assumes the estate tax will return to its 2009 levels of a $3.5 million exemption and a top rate of 45 percent over the next two years. Although the Finance Committee, not the Budget Committee, will determine the actual estate tax, Staker notes that "we can see there is some movement in Congress towards not letting the exemption fall to $1,000,000 when the estate tax returns in 2011."