Paul Suplizio, President of the WOTC Coalition gave us an e-mail play-by-play this morning as the Senate Finance Committee considered amendments to the EXPIRE Act.
First, according to the Committee’s press release, the Senate Finance Committee approved the EXPIRE Act with a strong bipartisan vote.
Also, empowerment-zone residency was added back to WOTC’s designated-community resident target group.   It is not yet clear to me if the provision also extends the empowerment-zone program itself.
[05/16/2014: Update: The most recent version of this bill clearly DOES renew and extend the Empowerment Zone program.]
Lastly, the Committee approved an amendment offered by Senators Rob Portman, Ben Cardin and Mark Warner adding a brand new WOTC target group for the long-term unemployed.