“Dilly-dallying”
House Republican leaders said they had not taken up the original Senate bill because it violated a constitutional requirement that all legislation affecting government revenues originate in the House, known as a “blue slip” issue. Democrats and some Republicans who backed the bill scoffed, saying the problem could have been quickly remedied.
“Dilly-dallying around about the blue slip issue was just a ridiculous waste of time. We could have fixed it in five minutes,” Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters.
The Senate changed the bill to address that issue, but also tweaked it in a way that Democrats said weakened a provision requiring Congress to approve any effort by the president to ease sanctions on Russia .
The new bill introduce d on Wednesday would eliminate that change to allow House Democrats , as well as Republicans, to force a vote on a resolution of disapproval of any effort to ease Russia sanctions .
“I don’t believe that having the president’s party in a position to protect him from any oversight is good policy for our country,” Hoyer told reporters.
Ryan told a new s conference he wants to move a strong bill regarding sanctions on Russia as quickly as possible but that the legislation still faced procedural and policy hurdles.
The U.S. energy industry has been lobbying against the bill and some Republican House members, particularly from oil-producing states, have said they might want changes.
The Russia sanctions legislation was written as an amendment to a bill imposing new sanctions on Iran over issues including its ballistic missile program. Besides establishing the review process, it puts into law sanctions previously imposed on Moscow via presidential executive order and introduce s new sanctions .
Article Appeared @http://time.com/4856074/democrats-russia-iran-sanctions-bill-trump/?xid=homepage