Most Democrats banded together with farm-state Republicans to defeat the effort by Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, who along with his allies charged that federal ethanol supports are wasteful and unnecessary and are increasing the cost of food by inflating the price being paid for corn.

“Parochialism trumps the best interests of the nation,” Mr. Coburn said after the vote.

Those who opposed him, while acknowledging that the ethanol subsidies are likely to be eased out eventually, said it would be disruptive to the agricultural and fuel markets to make a sudden change.

“We have a lot of folks who made investments, you have people across the country whose livelihoods and jobs depend upon this,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, one of 13 Republicans who opposed the Coburn plan. “I think it makes sense, when we put policy in place and we say it is going to be in place for a certain period of time, that that be honored.”

Some Democrats said they based their opposition to Mr. Coburn’s plan on a procedural move he made to force the vote, saying he had usurped the authority of majority Democrats to control the floor. Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader, said Democrats would be back soon with an alternative proposal.

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Still, the resistance to eliminating the subsidies showed the tough choices lawmakers will face as they try to agree on the emerging budget deal that Republicans say should cut $2 trillion or more from programs that will have stronger support than ethanol promotion.

“It seems to me to be a pretty easy one,” said Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Budget Committee, about the ethanol program. It was created to provide an incentive for the development of domestic alternative fuels as a substitute for imported oil.

Critics of the ethanol program noted that energy legislation enacted in 2007 requires oil companies to produce 36 billion gallons of biofuels like ethanol by 2022, arguing that refiners will have to rely on ethanol whether it is subsidized or not.

“We simply can’t afford to pay the oil industry for following the law,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine.

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Ethanol backers said an end to the subsidy would drive up the price of fuel and make the nation more reliant on imports. “We shouldn’t be fighting each other over domestic energy sources,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who called his colleague’s proposal misguided and out of touch.

Congressional officials said it was possible that the ethanol cuts could be included as part of the savings sought through the Biden budget agreement, though Republicans have generally resisted seeking revenue by eliminating subsidies for the energy industry.

The Biden group was meeting off the Senate floor even as the Senate upheld the ethanol tax credits.

“I’m convinced that we can come up with an agreement that gets the debt limit passed and makes some real serious down payment on the commitment to 4 trillion bucks over the next 10 to 12 years,” the vice president said, referring to the spending reduction goal of President Obama.