Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Democrats Thursday morning for blocking an energy and water funding bill over an amendment on Iran.
McConnell took to the Senate floor to chastise Democrats for backing away from the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act Wednesday, when a vote to close debate on the bill failed to reach 60 votes. Democrats are upset over Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton’s amendment to the bill that would ban the Obama administration from buying heavy water, which is used to make nuclear material, from Iran in the future.
McConnell said he supports Cotton’s amendment and wants to give Democrats another chance to reconsider their filibuster on Thursday. He said they appear to be backing off their promises to work with Republicans.
“They could hardly wait a single week before throwing an obstructionist wrench into the appropriations process they claimed to want,” McConnell said. “I certainly hope Democrats are not dusting off the old Filibuster Summer playbook, especially in light of the letter they just sent me about ‘win-win’ opportunities and restoring regular order.”
The $37.5 billion bill contains funding for the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers. The Obama administration has threatened to veto the bill, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee that formed the bill, said Wednesday she feared the Iran amendment would be enough for President Obama to kill the bill.
Cotton’s amendment would keep the Department of Energy from purchasing heavy water from Iran. The Obama administration announced last week it plans to buy heavy water from Iran this year and that it is a one-time move.
It was the first hiccup in an otherwise smooth appropriations process in the Senate, and McConnell turned around a recent Democratic talking point by telling them to “do your job.”
“We now have a bipartisan opportunity to responsibly work through individual funding bills. We now have a bipartisan opportunity to responsibly continue addressing funding issues like Zika,” McConnell said. “What it will take is for our Democratic colleagues to end this obstruction and work cooperatively across the aisle instead. That’s not too much to ask. So let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture.”
In a press conference Thursday afternoon, Sen. Chuck Schumer rejected McConnell’s argument that Democrats were being obstructionist.
The New York Democrat said McConnell and other Senate Republicans needed to convince Cotton not to offer the amendment, which he called a “poison pill” that would start the destruction of the appropriations process.
“They can’t even move forward with one of the easiest appropriations bill without one of their own members sticking in a poison pill amendment that would draw a presidential veto,” Schumer said.
He added that McConnell “should look in the mirror. You want to get the appropriations bill passed? Tell a member of your Republican majority, Sen. Cotton, that he can’t offer the amendment.”
Schumer said he thinks Democrats are actually “saving the appropriations process” by blocking the amendment.
“It had nothing to do with the bill, it was offered at the last minute, it was done for purposes to undo the Iran agreement, which is unrelated to this,” Schumer said. “We shouldn’t go ahead with it.”
