With a federal surveillance law officially lapsed, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Monday called on the Senate to pass the House-approved measure to extend and reform federal surveillance law without making changes.
But he did not rule out considering an amended version of the USA Freedom Act.
“I’ve heard a lot of things that they want to do in the Senate,” McCarthy, R-Calif., told a group of reporters. “The best thing for the Senate to do is take up the House bill and send it to the president.”
The Senate Sunday night voted to advance the USA Freedom Act, which ends the National Security Agency practice of casting a wide dragnet to collect domestic phone and electronic data.
But a faction of Republicans led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., want to amend the bill to ensure it can be an effective tool for thwarting domestic terrorism.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who is head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, will offer an amendment that would give the NSA a year transition period to end its bulk data collection and begin to rely instead on using warrants to obtain the information from the telecommunications companies. The current version calls for a six month transition deadline.
Another Burr amendment would require the director of national intelligence to review the new system, which would require the NSA to obtain data from the phone companies.
McCarthy wouldn’t comment on the potential Senate amendments. House Republican leaders’ aides said they question whether Burr’s provisions can even garner the 60 votes that would be required for passage in the Senate.
“It will be interesting to see what the Senate does, but I still think if they are looking for advice, the best thing to do would be to pass our bill,” McCarthy said.
Still, House passage of a Senate-amended bill is possible. GOP leaders in the House have occasionally deferred to the Senate version of bills over the last few years, in part because it has been so difficult to move most bills through the upper chamber.
