Senate Democrats again blocked a $37.5 billion energy and water funding bill from advancing Thursday over an Iran-related amendment.
However, Republican leadership isn’t backing down from the fight, scheduling another vote when the upper chamber returns from recess. And the Republican senator whose amendment Democrats call a “poison pill” is refusing to back down from his proposal.
The Senate voted 52-43 to close debate on the first appropriations bill of the year, falling short of the 60 votes needed.
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton said Thursday that he believes his amendment to block future purchases of heavy water from Iran has to be on the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The bill provides funding to the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Cotton’s amendment would prevent future purchases of heavy water, a non-radioactive material used in the production of nuclear weapons and energy. The Obama administration announced last week the Department of Energy plans to buy heavy water from Iran, and Cotton wants to prevent that from happening again.
He said he’s made several offers to Democrats to keep the amendment from stalling the larger appropriations bill, but Democrats have chose to filibuster instead.
“I’m happy to entertain options. I have offered them multiple options other than the simple majority vote to which I am entitled under Senate rules for a germane amendment,” Cotton said Thursday. “I’m happy to discuss a standalone vote as well.”
While the Obama administration has threatened to veto the bill over “ideological riders” such as Cotton’s amendment, the freshman senator from Arkansas feels confident in his position.
“We have a filibuster-proof majority in support of my amendment, we have a veto-proof majority in support of my amendment,” he said.
The bill is now stuck on the Senate floor and is backing up other appropriations bills.
The energy and water funding bill was put forward as the first appropriations bill of the year largely because it was seen as a non-controversial way to get the appropriations process rolling. It was widely supported and expected to sail through the Senate until Cotton offered his amendment.
“I thought it could be a good model to deal with the rest of the process,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Senate Appropriations Committee chairman.
Alexander said before the vote that if Democrats continued to block the bill, Senate Republicans would again file a cloture motion for May 9, the day the Senate comes back from recess. He said Cotton has a right to offer the amendment and Democratic arguments that it would lead to a veto weren’t pertinent.
If President Obama wants to veto the bill, let him, Alexander said. But the Senate should still pass the bill.
“Let’s don’t let the White House lead us around by the nose and tell us we can’t consider a bill just because there’s a veto threat,” he said.
Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, of New York, said the White House had to be on board with any agreement that advances the bill.
Schumer said Cotton’s amendment was meant to “bollocks up” the Iran agreement, and he sounded frustrated that Republican leadership would allow him to do so. He said Democrats are willing to compromise but Cotton’s amendment couldn’t be involved, which would send a signal to the rest of the appropriations process.
“We’re willing to come to an agreement, compromise, that is acceptable to the administration, which offered the veto threat. Democrats didn’t, we didn’t,” Schumer said. “We have to be clear that we’re not doing poison pill amendments.”
