WASHINGTON (AP) — A Senate panel approved a bill Wednesday that would allow the United States to resume its full $1.6 billion aid relationship with Egypt by granting President Barack Obama the power to waive a federal law based on national security. Wider congressional support for the measure is unclear.
The legislation passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee seeks to address one of the most pressing challenges for policymakers in Washington to arise out of the Egyptian Army’s July overthrow of the country’s Islamist president. For months, the Obama administration and Congress debated whether to maintain military aid to Egypt that advances U.S. and Israeli security or to implement a nearly 30-year-old provision that bans all nonhumanitarian and nondemocracy support to governments that suffer coup d’etats.
