The clock is ticking on a host of measures pending in Congress that would have a big impact on are of high interest to high-impact items affecting federal managers and employees.

As Congress tries to wrap up its work this fall, the problem is clear: too many high-priority bills to move and too little time. By December, lawmakers aim to complete work on 13 federal spending bills, health care reform, a climate change bill, and a Defense authorization bill.

So do lower-priority bills that affect feds stand any chance of getting passed? Not much, unless their supporters can attach them to larger, higher-priority bills. Still, some measures stand a better chance than others. Here's a look at pending measures that would have the biggest impact on feds.

Measures with a fighting chance of passing would:

• Allow collective bargaining at the Transportation Security Administration and transfer those employees out of a pay-for-performance system and into the General Schedule.

The House may vote on HR 1881 in the next two weeks. The problem is not the House, but the Senate, where no one has yet introduced a companion bill, and it appears unclear if anyone will.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's majority is interested in the TSA issue but does not have a timetable for action, a senior staffer said.

• Provide a raise to federal employees. Likely, it will be 2.0 percent, not the 2.9 percent raise that President Barack Obama proposed for the military or the 3.4 percent raise that Congress is poised to approve for the military.

Last week, Obama reiterated his call for a 2 percent pay raise for federal employees in January 2010. Now it appears likely Congress will support that.

• Terminate the Pentagon's controversial National Security Personnel System (NSPS). Both the House and Senate versions of the Defense authorization bill, S 1390 and HR 2647, include measures that would end NSPS. Last week, the Defense Department urged Congress to remove the measures to kill NSPS. That's unlikely, given Democratic opposition to NSPS. What may happen instead is that Congress passes the Senate version of the measure, which the Pentagon favors over the House version. The Senate version would call for termination of NSPS but would allow the Pentagon to argue for preserving it. One congressional aide estimated the odds of NSPS being eliminated at "60 percent" because both bills contain some form of ending the pay-for-performance system, meaning the system will be changed in some form.

• Allow employees covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) to count unused sick leave toward their time in service for annuity calculations.

The House version of the 2010 Defense authorization bill, HR 2647, includes a provision that would allow employees covered by FERS to count their unused sick leave as time served when annuities are calculated.

The bill is highly popular among federal employees, but may have a hard time making it to the Senate floor because of the bill's 10-year, $600 million price and because of other competing priorities.

• Allow retirees to return to federal jobs and receive full pay.

The Senate version of the Defense authorization bill, S 1390, contains an amendment, offered by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, which would allow agencies to hire back retired employees at full salaries. Currently, retirees returning to federal work have their pay reduced by the amount of their retirement annuities unless OPM grants a waiver.

House and Senate staffers say it's likely the federal employee provisions in the defense authorization bills will either all stay in or all be cut. If one provision is cut, such as the FERS sick leave credit because of its cost, the others may be cut because they are not germane to the topic of the defense authorization bill.

The rehired annuitants provision also exists in a stand-alone Senate bill, S 629, but chances of that passing are slim at best this fall unless it gets attached to another high-priority bill.

Allow the U.S. Postal Service some relief from its financial obligations to its retired employee health care fund.

The Postal Service can't continue making its scheduled payments to its retiree health benefits fund due to its financial woes and a deficit expected to top $7 billion this year. One bill, HR 22, would suspend those payments for three years and will be passed by the House floor this week. The problem lies in the Senate — unions dislike the Senate version, S 1507, and their influence could persuade some senators to sideline the bill. Either way, expect floor action quickly because the next payment to the retiree fund is due Sept. 30, and the Postal Service can't make that payment.

One measure considered less likely to pass this fall would:

• Authorize spousal retirement and health benefits for same-sex partners of federal employees. A House bill, HR 2517, would treat same-sex partners the same as heterosexual spouses of federal employees, granting them equal benefits — such as health care and retirement spousal benefits.

House aides say the bill may have enough support to pass the House, but probably not this fall. The biggest obstacle is the Senate, where many conservative lawmakers strongly oppose the bill and have more power to hold up passage of a bill indefinitely.

Finally, one measure that has virtually no chance of passing this fall would:

• Allow the Postal Service to cut back to five-day mail delivery.

Postal Service officials have been pleading with Congress to approve five-day mail delivery to reduce operating expenses.

The outlook is dismal. When many Americans are waiting anxiously for their Social Security or unemployment checks to arrive in the mail, cutting back mail service doesn't seem like a popular idea to many lawmakers.

No one has even introduced legislation to enact five-day delivery. In fact, one pending House resolution, HRes 173, expresses the sense of the House that the Postal Service should do everything possible to ensure six-day delivery.

Staff writer STEPHEN LOSEY contributed to this report.