Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said the fiscal 2016 spending bill now under negotiation between both parties in the House and Senate so far includes about 100 “riders,” and that he is optimistic an agreement is in reach.
Reid, D-Nev., the two chambers and both parties had culled the list considerably.
Riders are extraneous policy amendments that are added to must-pass legislation even though they are unrelated to the measure.
Democrats had initially warned against adding riders to the bill, but both parties seek their own sets of riders.
“We started with more than 250 riders,” Reid said Tuesday. “And now we are down, as I understand it, to about 100.”
Reid called the riders, “the new buzzword for earmarks.”
Reid said he has not seen the list of riders the GOP is requesting but that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., plans to send a list to Senate Democrats.
House Republicans have not disclosed what riders they want to include and whether the list will include provisions to either defund Planned Parenthood or limit or halt the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States. Both provisions would be considered “poison pill” riders by Democrats.
Reid said talks are going well on the spending legislation, which must pass by a Dec. 11 deadline.
“I think we’ve made progress every day,” adding that an agreement is in reach, “unless they are demanding a lot more poison pill riders than we can possibly accept.”
