WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate's tax-writing panel voted to renew dozens of tax breaks for businesses like biodiesel and wind energy producers, even as the GOP-controlled House passed symbolic legislation to erase them and create a new tax code with lower rates and fewer special interest tax breaks.

The $200 billion-plus package was approved by the Senate Finance Committee Thursday on a bipartisan 19-5 vote. It was anchored by a two-year provision to protect middle- and upper-income taxpayers from being hit by the alternative minimum tax, shielding them from higher levies originally meant to prevent the rich from escaping taxes altogether.

The bill faces an uncertain future and is likely to get lumped into a year-end debate in which lawmakers tackle the so-called fiscal cliff — a combination of the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts and $110 billion in automatic spending cuts to the Pentagon and domestic programs that, taken together, have the potential to drive the economy back into recession.