HARRISBURG — After taking two months to cool off from July's budget showdown, members of the state Legislature are due back at the Capitol this week to tackle a fall agenda that is already packed with contentious proposals ranging from a statewide ban on indoor smoking to state incentives to make energy cheaper and cleaner.

Gov. Ed Rendell will resume a push for several stalled proposals, including an expansion of state-subsidized health insurance, while some legislators are vowing to press plans to address rising property taxes.

"I expect it to be very busy," said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware.

The budget stalemate ended July 9 after a one-day furlough of about 24,000 state workers, and final passage of spending bills kept lawmakers in Harrisburg almost three weeks longer than they wanted.

Some legislators say they are still swamped by business in their district and hardly feel ready to return, particularly to consider broad new programs. Others say they are eager to engage again in debate, including some committee chairs who held hearings during the two-month break from Harrisburg to give momentum to their favorite bills.

If there's lingering partisan bitterness from July's budget stalemate, legislators say the fall agenda is too important to allow it to thwart progress on weighty issues.

"A teacher has a bad day, but goes into work the next day and teaches kids," said Sen. Sean Logan, D-Allegheny. "That day is over and now we have old challenges and new challenges facing us and we need to go back at it."

While many Republicans say the budget battle is a thing of the past, they are conceding no ground to Rendell and continue to attack his priorities.

"I think there is deep skepticism about this administration's approach to governing," said Rep. Michael Turzai, R-Allegheny.

Part of the July agreement set up several agenda items for the fall session — namely, that Senate Republicans would consider a financial package for clean energy projects and electricity-conservation efforts that Rendell has advocated.

Monday marks the return of the Senate and the first day of a special legislative session on energy. The House will adjourn next week and Rendell, a Democrat who has made alternative energy a signature plank, will deliver a speech on the subject on Sept. 24 before the combined membership of both chambers.

The window to reach a compromise on the most controversial legislation may close in December. After that, the 2008 election comes into focus for legislators and they will want to spend more time on the campaign trail, floor leaders will avoid bringing controversial bills up for a vote and partisan divisions will harden.

"We're going into the political season," said Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne. "Rhetoric will get hard. Maybe this is the last kind political word you'll hear."

Cutting school property taxes has proven to be both controversial and difficult.

Some legislators do not consider property taxes a priority in their districts and point to the May referendum in which voters overwhelmingly rejected raising other local taxes to offset a property tax cut. Also, the major proposals to cut property taxes involve raising another statewide tax to maintain funding for other programs — a dicey vote for legislators heading into re-election battles.

Several other far-reaching proposals have the support of most lawmakers, including a statewide ban on indoor smoking and an expansion of public access to government records.

Any disputes are likely to be over the details, such as which government records should remain confidential and which businesses can continue to allow patrons to smoke cigarettes.

Under pressure from Rendell, smoking-ban bills passed the Senate in June and the House in July. However, nothing reached Rendell's desk because the chambers clashed on several key provisions, such as whether casinos and bars must go smoke-free.

Prospects for several other Rendell proposals look bleak. Those include plans to borrow $500 million to build up biomedical research facilities and expand state-subsidized health insurance by collecting a payroll tax from some businesses that do not provide such coverage for employees.

Eachus said House Democrats, who hold a one-vote majority in the chamber, will continue to press the initiatives. But he said they also may look for other ways to finance the health insurance expansion that will not draw opposition, primarily from the GOP and businesses.

The biomedical research legislation, nicknamed the Jonas Salk Legacy Fund, passed the House in June, 103-98, largely along partisan lines. As part of July's budget deal, Senate Republican leaders had committed to bring the legislation to a vote this fall, but say the commitment has since been rescinded amid a squabble with Rendell over a separate bill that the House rejected in July.