WASHINGTON -- A bill that would provide Ukraine with up to $1 billion in loan guarantees and levy sanctions against Russian officials cleared a Senate committee Wednesday amid the political crisis in Crimea.
But the 14-3 vote by the Senate Foreign Foreign Relations Committee masked potential trouble delivering quick economic assistance to Ukraine. The bill's chief negotiators tacked on a White House request for a measure that would reform the International Monetary Fund, which many Republicans oppose.
The bill was crafted by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the committee chairman, and Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the ranking member, and includes a boost to IMF accounts that President Barack Obama and Democrats say would maintain U.S. influence with the lender. Republicans have opposed such reform in the past, arguing it would decrease U.S. influence with the IMF. The GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a Ukraine aid package last week without the IMF language.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of IMF reform in the Senate bill at roughly $315 million. Part of the cost would be offset by taking money from U.S. military accounts -- an issue that raised additional concern for some Republican lawmakers. Menendez argued during the committee markup that the military would not be adversely affected, because the funds had already been removed from the Defense Department budget to meet sequestration spending caps.
Republican Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Jim Risch (Idaho), and John Barrasso (Wyo.) voted against the bill, with Risch criticizing the IMF provision. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who strongly supported aid to Ukraine, missed the vote, but had said he would oppose the bill if it included IMF reforms.
"This legislation is supposed to be about assisting Ukraine and punishing Russia, and the IMF measure completely undercuts both of these goals by giving Putin’s Russia something it wants," Rubio said in a statement Wednesday. "I won’t support flawed legislation that is divisive and actually undermines our efforts to provide quick support to the Ukrainian people in their hour of need."
It's unclear when the legislation will come up for a vote in the Senate. Republicans will likely request a 60-vote threshold for cloture. Most GOP lawmakers on the committee nevertheless voted to advance the bill, signaling that the real fight could come in the House, where Republicans suggested they would reject the Senate bill unless the IMF piece was stripped out. "The best way to ensure that Congress acts on this important issue this week is for the Senate to pass the House-passed bill," a House GOP leadership aide said.
Another GOP leadership aide told The Huffington Post last week that the move was "opportunistic" by Obama and Democrats who had tried as recently as January to pass IMF reform and failed.
In his budget for fiscal 2015, Obama included an increase of about $63 billion from an existing credit line to the IMF. The White House has since pointed to the crisis in Ukraine to underscore the IMF's importance.
Menendez urged Republicans to support the language, pointing out in the hearing that the IMF would play "the central, anchoring role" in providing economic assistance to stabilize the situation in Ukraine. "The Republicans will have to decide which message it sends to the world," Menendez added later.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a strong backer of assisting Ukraine, urged senators to look past the IMF issue at a time of crisis.
"I am not going to let IMF stand in the way of a reaction of Congress on an invasion of a country," McCain told reporters Tuesday. "And if others do, then they have their priorities terribly skewed."
McCain added: "I want us to move forward with or without the IMF language. The IMF language pales in comparison to the requirement for us to act in light of an invasion of a sovereign nation, which is what Vladimir Putin has just done."
Other elements of the Senate bill include sanctions against Russian officials deemed responsible for the military aggression in Ukraine and undermining its sovereignty. The House bill left out sanctions, focusing instead on foreign aid.