The Senate’s fiscal 2017 energy and water spending bill was derailed on the floor Wednesday when a junior Republican senator’s controversial amendment to block a U.S. purchase of Iranian heavy water — part of the Obama administration’s role in a multilateral nuclear nonproliferation deal with the Islamic republic — split the upper chamber along party lines and prevented a procedural move that would have moved the bill closer to a vote.
The move increases the prospect that the Energy Department will not get new funding before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. That would require Congress to pass a stopgap measure known as a continuing resolution that would freeze spending at 2016 levels and prohibit the agency from starting new programs.
The Senate’s $37.5 billion E&W spending bill, which included some $31 billion for DOE, had been cruising toward a vote when Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Monday introduced an amendment to block DOE from using any of its 2017 budget to buy the heavy water, which can be used to produce plutonium. The Energy Department reportedly plans to buy 32 tons of the water, some of which would be used at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and the rest sold off.
Cotton, who took the floor Wednesday to defend his proposal, said he filed his amendment after the White House’s announcement late Friday that it would buy the heavy water as part of a broader nonproliferation agreement implemented in January. Republicans in the Senate universally opposed the deal, as did four Democrats.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, warned the White House had threatened to veto the fiscal 2017 spending bill if it arrived on President Barack Obama’s desk with the Cotton amendment. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, countered that the bill should be sent to the president whether he wished to veto it or not.
Historically, both parties have sought to avoid political responsibility for derailing the appropriations process — something that happens more often than not.
Meanwhile, the House has yet to schedule its own 2017 energy and water appropriations bill for a floor vote. The House Appropriations Committee approved the bill April 19.
